"Actor: Carol Tam"

• Poor Cow | DVD | (25/07/2016) from £8.94   |  Saving you £9.05 (101.23%)   |  RRP £17.99

  "I fell in the family way when I was 18 and I got married to a right bastard". Ken Loach's debut feature tells the story of Joy, a young mother (Carol White) whose chauvinistic thug of a husband is thrown into prison. She takes up with one of his friends, lovable, kind-hearted burglar Terence Stamp, but he too ends up in jail.It's intriguing to compare Poor Cow with Cathy Come Home, which Loach made for TV with the same actress at around the same time. Both are about mums trying to make a go of their lives in adverse circumstances. Cathy Come Home, shot in black and white, is an altogether tougher film. Poor Cow, with its Donovan music, gaudy colour photography, star names, and incongruously bawdy humour, seems lightweight by comparison. Certain sequences--Joy making love in the hay or posing half-naked for lecherous amateur photographers--must surely make Loach grimace now. There are some powerful moments--Joy desperately looking for her son who has wandered off, unattended, onto a building site, or trying to escape from her abusive husband--which anticipate such later Loach films as Ladybird, Ladybird or Raining Stones. The scenes between Joy and Stamp are played with real tenderness and humour. Don't be surprised if you think you've seen them before--some of the footage of Stamp was used in Steven Soderbergh's recent thriller, The Limey. --Geoffrey Macnab

• Poor Cow | Blu Ray | (25/07/2016) from £11.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (91.74%)   |  RRP £22.99

  "I fell in the family way when I was 18 and I got married to a right bastard". Ken Loach's debut feature tells the story of Joy, a young mother (Carol White) whose chauvinistic thug of a husband is thrown into prison. She takes up with one of his friends, lovable, kind-hearted burglar Terence Stamp, but he too ends up in jail.It's intriguing to compare Poor Cow with Cathy Come Home, which Loach made for TV with the same actress at around the same time. Both are about mums trying to make a go of their lives in adverse circumstances. Cathy Come Home, shot in black and white, is an altogether tougher film. Poor Cow, with its Donovan music, gaudy colour photography, star names, and incongruously bawdy humour, seems lightweight by comparison. Certain sequences--Joy making love in the hay or posing half-naked for lecherous amateur photographers--must surely make Loach grimace now. There are some powerful moments--Joy desperately looking for her son who has wandered off, unattended, onto a building site, or trying to escape from her abusive husband--which anticipate such later Loach films as Ladybird, Ladybird or Raining Stones. The scenes between Joy and Stamp are played with real tenderness and humour. Don't be surprised if you think you've seen them before--some of the footage of Stamp was used in Steven Soderbergh's recent thriller, The Limey. --Geoffrey Macnab

• Jane Eyre | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £6.98   |  Saving you £9.01 (129.08%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The stunning BBC production of Charlotte Bronte's inspiring story is available for the first time on DVD. Jane Eyre (Zelah Clarke) is a mistreated orphan who learns to survive by relying on her independence and intelligence. Her first job in the outside world is governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester (Timothy Dalton) a man of many secrets and mercurial moods. The tentative trust between them slowly develops into romance but their hopes for happiness will soon be jeopardized by a te

• Poor Cow | DVD | (13/10/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Young mother Joy (Carol White) is forced to fend for herself when her brutal and uncaring husband Tom (John Bindon) is put in jail. Joy finds brief happiness with Tom's criminal associate Dave (Terence Stamp) who proves kind and gentle when she moves in with him but this relationship ends when he is also jailed and Joy is left to raise her young son alone in squalid circumstances. Poor Cow is a poignant controversial slice of raw social realism and in true Loach style is an imaginative exploration of the thin line separating fiction and real-life.

• Fist Of Legend | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £9.25   |  Saving you £6.74 (72.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Jet Li stars in Fist of Legend, a 1994 remake of The Chinese Connection (also known as Fists of Fury, which starred the greatest martial arts legend of them all, Bruce Lee). This film is set in 1937, when Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese and racial tensions were high. Jet Li is Chen Zhen, who returns to Shanghai to avenge the death of his master, whom he learns was poisoned. His popular freestyle fighting technique and Japanese girlfriend do not endear him to his former friend, now his master's successor at the martial arts school. If Jackie Chan is inspired by Buster Keaton, Li seems to be channelling Steve McQueen here. He speaks softly and carries a big kick, and like Steven Seagal, even when he is under siege by a horde of attackers, no one can lay a finger on him. The dialogue and dubbing are atrocious, but the fight sequences are incredible (they were choreographed by Woo-ping Yuen, who lent his expertise to The Matrix). Perhaps most memorable is a bout between Chen and his girlfriend's uncle during which the combatants wear blindfolds. This is essential viewing for martial arts buffs and Li's growing legion of fans. --Donald Liebenson, Amazon.com