"Actor: James Ma"

• Drive | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £8.67   |  Saving you £-2.68 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Drive takes the standard American mismatched-buddies action comedy formula and turbo-charges it with furious Hong Kong wirework and martial arts. The result is a three-and-a-half million dollar "B" picture which looks like it cost 10 times more. The perfunctory story crosses Universal Solider (1992) with Rush Hour (1997) as a biologically enhanced Mark Dacascos flees a small army of Hong Kong assassins through California, teaming up with comedian Kadeem Hardison and delivering an almost unbelievable amount of bang per buck. Director Steve Wang stages the action with flair and clarity, the stunts, wirework and fights being exceptionally well-choreographed and shot. With Hardison's patter, two offbeat redneck assassins and a TV show about a frog with Einstein's brain there's abundant surprisingly genial humour, aided by Brittany Murphy's ditzy performance as a Twin Peaks-like teenager with hormones in overdrive. The cyborg aspect simply justifies the superhuman combat, but nevertheless a huge showdown in a retro-space age club is clearly styled after the "Tech Noir" bar sequence in The Terminator (1984), adding motorcycle killersstraight out of Rollerball (1975). Drive captures the rush of Hong Kong action movies yet almost has the feel of a musical, the mayhem replacing song and dance and offering more popcorn entertainment than many a bloated summer blockbuster.On the DVD: For such a low budget movie the 2.35:1 anamorphically enhanced image puts many far bigger features to shame, being pin-sharp throughout, with strong and accurate colours and minimal grain. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is equally strong, with sound-effects and music both having considerable impact, explosions ripping thorough the room like the latest Arnie shoot 'em up. There is a 47-minute retrospective documentary which is particularly interesting on the way the film was cut and restored for American release--this DVD presenting the director's cut which runs over 16 minutes longer than the US version. Six deleted/extended scenes are presented in a variety of formats, and it's easy to see why they were deleted. Also included are the original theatrical trailer, three photo galleries, cast and crew biographies and interview galleries with director Steve Wang and four of the main stars totalling about 20 minutes of material. The informative commentary track has Wang, Dacascos, Hardison and stunt co-ordinator Koichi Sakamoto revelling in their sheer enthusiasm for the movie and for Hong Kong action in general. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Quest | Blu Ray | (28/10/2019) from £18.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Acclaimed action superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme directs and stars in The Quest (1996), an exotic odyssey that takes him from the slums of 1920s New York to the mysterious Lost City of Tibet. Christopher Dubois (Van Damme) is a street criminal on the run from the police, thrust into a forbidding realm of gun smugglers, pirates and an ancient, underworld martial arts competition. The legendary contest, known as the Ghan-gheng, pits the world's deadliest fighters against each other in a furious winner-takes-all battle. Forced to compete, Dubois faces the ultimate test of manhood where one wrong move could cost him not only the competition, but his life. Extras: 'Roger and Me': Actor Jack McGee on filming The Quest and working with Roger Moore 'The Scottish Fighter': An interview with actor Mike Lambert Audio commentary with martial arts cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema Trailer Gallery

• CSI Cyber: The Final Season | DVD | (03/04/2017) from £17.51   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The second and final season of CSI Cyber follows the work of Avery Ryan (Patricia Arquette), as she and the team welcome D.B. Russell (Ted Danson), a Las Vegas veteran Crime Scene Investigator recruited by Ryan to direct the FBI's Next Generation Cyber Forensics Division. Still grieving the loss of his best friend, and following a recent divorce, Russell decides to take on new challenges by studying how crimes play out in the real world, combining old school forensics with new school tech.

• Cutting It - Complete Series 1 To 4 | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £64.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Featuring all the episodes from series 1-4! Series 1: Allie Henshall and dependable husband Gavin Ferraday own a successful hairdressing business. They plan to expand to a second site accross the road but their dreams are shattered when Mia and her husband Finn beat them to it and open a rival salon... Series 2: After making her choice of Finn over her husband Gavin Allie returns to Manchester to find that Gavin is making the most of his newfound single life. As she

• Angel Season 5 Box Set | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £26.25   |  Saving you £10.00 (40.02%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Enter season 5 of Angel featuring all 22 episodes of the final series. Episodes comprise: 1. Conviction 2. Just Rewards 3. Unleashed 4. Hell Bound 5. Life of the Party 6. The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco 7. Lineage 8. Destiny 9. Harm's Way 10. Soul Purpose 11. Damage 12. You're Welcome 13. Why We Fight 14. Smile Time 15. A Hole in the World 16. Shells 17. Underneath 18. Origin 19. Time Bomb 20. The Girl in Question 21. Power Play 22. Not Fade Away

• Ealing Studios Boxset 4 | DVD | (16/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  A fantastic box set featuring a quartet of beauties from Ealing Studios. Includes: 1. Whisky Galore (Dir. Alexander Mackendrick 1949) 2. Champagne Charlie (Dir. Alberto Cavalcanti 1944) 3. The Maggie (Dir. Alexander Mackendrick 1954) 4. It Always Rains on Sunday (Dir. Robert Hamer 1947)

• Maneater | DVD | (02/11/2015) from £4.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (68.80%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A photographer and his group set out in the dead of winter for the Alaskan wilderness to take advantage of the limited, but beautiful daylight. They are met by an experienced hunter and local lodge owner who instills fear within the group by telling them the legend of Maneater, a huge polar bear that has fangs and claws sharper than steel. This epic tall tale quickly becomes a real living nightmare, as the group is unaware that a bear experiment has gone wrong. The bioengineering company, Clobirch Industries, has genetically altered a polar bear so it can better survive climate change, but the end result is a relentless, deadly, man-eating, killing machine. It is up to our lodge owner and his native guide to protect the group from harm, but this bear proves to be more than he or anyone else ever expected.

• Marty | DVD | (03/02/2003) from £7.79   |  Saving you £5.20 (66.75%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Before beginning the main feature make sure you watch Burt Lancaster's endorsement of Marty in the appended theatrical trailer first. Yes, he was involved as coproducer, but his conviction clearly stems from the film itself. This screen adaptation of Paddy Chayevsky's play was a breakthrough in an American neo-realism that would sustain itself for two decades. Ernest Borgnine is in his element as the Bronx butcher in his mid-30s seemingly destined for a bachelor existence on account of past disappointments. There's a winningly natural performance from Esther Minciotti as his well-meaning, ever-interfering mother, while Betsy Blair is inspired casting as schoolteacher Clara, plain and diffident but with the proverbial good heart. The supporting cast is one of telling cameos, simply and unselfconsciously delivered. Delbert Mann conveys the energetic bustle of the Italian ex-pat community, and ensures that the intimacy of the original play is not lost. On the DVD: Marty's black-and-white print reproduces crisply in the DVD format, as does Roy Webb's score, which vividly evokes 1950s American city life. There's dubbing in four and subtitles in five European languages, together with the original trailer mentioned above. Having seen Marty, you'll surely agree that Lancaster's enthusiasm was not misplaced. --Richard Whitehouse

• Made For Each Other | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £5.79   |  Saving you £-0.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  This highly appealing comedy drama stars James Stewart and Carole Lombard as a young couple battling illness lack of money inept servants and interfering in-laws...

• The Lion King | Blu Ray | (07/11/2011) from £7.76   |  Saving you £16.23 (209.15%)   |  RRP £23.99

  Disney's 1994 animated feature, The Lion King, was a huge smash in cinemas and continues to enjoy life in an acclaimed stage production. The story finds a lion cub, son of a king, sent into exile after his father is deposed by a jealous uncle. The little hero finds his way into the "circle of life" with some new friends and eventually comes back to reclaim his proper place. Characters are very strong, vocal performances by the likes of Jeremy Irons, Nathan Lane and Whoopi Goldberg are terrific, the jokes are aimed as much (if not more) at adults than kids, the animation is sometimes breathtaking and the songs from Tim Rice and Elton John, accompanied by a colourful score, are more palatable than in many recent Disney features. --Tom Keogh

• Thunder Rock | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £59.99   |  Saving you £-50.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A writer tries to reveal what is happening in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy but is unable to do so. Frustrated he retires to a lighthouse in the Great Lakes where he is haunted by the ghosts of travellers who were shipwrecked many years earlier. Eventually he is persuaded to return to the world...

• The Smallest Show On Earth | DVD | (08/07/2002) from £20.37   |  Saving you £-7.38 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An amiable knock-off of the Ealing comedy style, The Smallest Show on Earth starts with aspiring novelist Bill Travers and his "nice gel" wife Virginia McKenna inheriting a cinema from a hitherto unknown uncle and discovering that it isn't the sumptuous modern Grand, which specialises in those "smash 'em in the face, knock 'em over the waterfront" pictures, but the decrepit Bijou, known locally as "the fleapit". The initial plan, set up by lawyer Leslie Phillips, is to sell off the cinema to the owner of the Grand so he can knock it down to make a car park, but our heroes are put off by the arrogant bullying of the rival manager (Francis De Wolff) and succumb to the inept charms of the crazed, aged staff--drunken projectionist Peter Sellers, doddery commissionaire Bernard Miles and dotty ticket lady Margaret Rutherford (who joined the team as a piano accompanist). In the 1950s, there was a run of gentle British comedies in which outmoded and broken-down local institutions (steam trains, tugboats, vintage cars) were saved by collections of committed eccentrics who despised the new-fangled bus services or soulless council bureaucracies and were willing to resort to a little larceny (in this case, arson). The Smallest Show slots in perfectly with the cycle, getting laughs from the Bijou's already outmoded programme of scratchy Westerns and desert dramas (which increase ice cream sales) and sentiment over the staff's midnight screenings of silent movies that remind them of better days. It's likeable rather than hilarious, with Sellers and Miles buried under crepe hair and fake wrinkles competing to out-dodder each other and losing the picture to the inimitable Rutherford, who doesn't have to fake her eccentricity. Pin-up, June Cunningham, is the glamorous usherette and Sid James plays her annoyed Dad. On the DVD: The Smallest Show on Earth is presented in a decent print, but with no extras. The film is also available as part of the four-disc Peter Sellers Collection. --Kim Newman

• Life Or Something Like It | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £6.21   |  Saving you £9.78 (157.49%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A reporter, Lanie Kerrigan, interviews a psychic homeless man for a fluff piece about a football game's score. Instead, he tells her that her life going to end in just a few days, which sparks her to change the pattern of her life.

• The Rare Breed | Blu Ray | (06/09/2021) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When her husband dies en route to America, Martha Price and her daughter Hilary are left to carry out his dream: the introduction of Hereford cattle into the American West. They enlist Sam Bulldog Burnett in their efforts to transport their lone bull, a Hereford named Vindicator, to a breeder in Texas, but the trail is fraught with danger, and even Burnett doubts the survival potential of this rare breed of cattle. Extras: Trailer Subtitles

• I, Robot | UMD | (05/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £21.99

  As paranoid cop Del Spooner, Will Smith displays both his trademark quips and some impressive pectoral muscles in I, Robot. Only Spooner suspects that the robots that provide the near future with menial labor are going to turn on mankind--he's just not sure how. When a leading roboticist dies suspiciously, Spooner pursues a trail that may prove his suspicions. Don't expect much of a connection to Isaac Asimov's classic science fiction stories; I, Robot, the action movie, isn't prepared for any ruminations on the significance of artificial intelligence. This likable, efficient movie won't break any new ground, but it does have an idea or two to accompany its jolts and thrills, which puts it ahead of most recent action flicks. Also featuring Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, and James Cromwell. --Bret Fetzer

• Sorority Boys | DVD | (10/03/2003) from £8.93   |  Saving you £6.06 (67.86%)   |  RRP £14.99

  When three college lads are thrown out of their fraternity they become so desperate for free lodgings that they join the female Delta Omicron Gamma sorority house....

• Dexter - Season 1 | Blu Ray | (18/06/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  To all around him, Blood splatter analyst Dexter Morgan appears to be a perfect gentleman and respected member of the police force but, behind this convincing facade, Dexter harbours a terrifying secret. He is a serial killer.Orphaned at the age of four, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) was adopted by Miami police officer Harry Morgan (James Remar), after finding him abandoned at a particularly gruesome crime scene. Discovering that Dexter had murderous urges, Harry taught the natural born killer to channel his gruesome passion in a constructive way - to kill only those who 'deserve' it! By means of satisfying his interest in blood and to erase his own crimes, Dexter now works as a forensic expert in blood patterns for the Miami Dade Police Department: the department currently investigating a spate of victims fallen at the hands of an unknown murderer branded `The Ice Truck Killer'. Discovering that the city's slayer is provocatively leaving personal messages for him to pick up, Dexter begins to wonder if `The Ice Truck Killer' is closer to him than first thought.Emmy-Award winning screenwriter James Manos Jr. (The Sopranos) delivers a dark, engrossing, yet funny adaptation of Jeff Lyndsay's crime novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Forefront of its shining cast is Michael C. Hall who takes complete control of Dexter and provides us not only with a clear insight into the mind of a serial killer but also forces the audience to grapple with the wonderfully twisted moral ambiguity of having a serial killer as a likeable `hero'.

• Flame Trees Of Thika | DVD | (07/11/2016) from £14.93   |  Saving you £5.06 (33.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When a young Edwardian family leaves the shores of England to build a home in the wilderness of East Africa what they encounter is beyond their imagination but forever remembered through the eyes of their 11-year-old daughter. Based on the beloved memoir by Elspeth Huxley The Flame Trees of Thika brings to life the color and adventure of turn-of-the-century Kenya. In 1913 Robin (David Robb) and Tilly Grant (Hayley Mills) arrive in Kenya with the dream of transforming a barren plot

• Merlin | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £8.77   |  Saving you £1.22 (13.91%)   |  RRP £9.99

  What kind of guy was the wizard Merlin, anyway? He lives a long time, raises a boy to be a king, props up a Utopian empire with his magic and wisdom, and then watches as it all crumbles under such banal forces as vengeance and betrayal. This four-hour mini-series re-tells the story of Camelot and King Arthur from the perspective of the magic man who sacrifices a great deal to guide mortals toward a better destiny. Sam Neill plays Merlin as an accessible, flesh-and-blood fellow of real passion, powerless to undo the spell of a rival (Rutger Hauer) who has virtually imprisoned Merlin's great love, Nimue (Isabella Rossellini), but gifted enough to counter the treachery of Morgan Le Fey (Helena Bonham Carter) and the wicked Queen Mab (Miranda Richardson). The battle sequences and special effects are striking and original, and it is great fun to see such art-house movie actors as Richardson, Carter, Neill, etc., in fantasy entertainment the whole family can enjoy. (An unrecognizable Martin Short must be singled out, however, for a wonderful, largely dramatic performance as Mab's sidekick, Frik.) Directed by Steve Barron (The Adventures of Pinocchio), Merlin is a nice bit of glossy revisionism of a beloved legend. --Tom Keogh

• Top Gear - The Patagonia Special | Blu Ray | (30/03/2015) from £8.00   |  Saving you £9.99 (124.88%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Jeremy, Richard and James will take a Porsche 928, Lotus Esprit and Ford Mustang through their most gruelling challenge to date: a 1600-mile trek through Patagonia to the southernmost city in the world, in order to stage an epic game of car football against Argentina.There will be swamps, deserts, forests, beaches, and ski slopes for the three V8 sports cars to suffer. There will also be broken bones, mechanical calamities and even some cows. Plus, a climax that wasn't really on the cards.