"Actor: Qing Wu"

• Puccini: Madame Butterfly -- 1995 film version | DVD | (04/03/2002) from £23.82   |  Saving you £-3.83 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Like the finest of film scores with its fluid beauty and succession of intensely romantic tunes, Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly has a surprisingly cinematic feel. In 1995 director Frederic Mitterand exploited this quality of the story, exposing a young woman's disillusionment against a backdrop of cultural chasms. Shot on location, with Tunisia doubling convincingly as a turn of the century Nagasaki, this Butterfly shines with fragile beauty. The house becomes a brilliantly used set; airy and full of the scent of flowers and at the same time a cage for the trapped woman. Archive footage of bygone Nagasaki is used skilfully to underline the distance between the 15-year-old bride and Pinkerton. Purists may prefer a more traditionally robust, stage-bound Butterfly, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a more visually heartbreaking interpretation. Chinese soprano Ying Huang doesn't rock the rafters with her vocal power; hers is a tender, delicately observed performance. Tenor Richard Troxton's self-seeking Pinkerton is well sung. Overall, this is a haunting cinematic treatment of an enduringly popular opera. On the DVD: Madame Butterfly is presented in a letterbox widescreen format (enhanced for 16:9 widescreen televisions). The Dolby Digital surround soundtrack engulfs the listener in some of Puccini's most memorable tunes, stringing you out and leaving you emotionally spent. The main special feature is a charming portrait of Ying Huan, providing interesting insights into how the film was made and how she won the role. --Piers Ford

• Unknown Pleasures / Xiao Wu | DVD | (23/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Unknown Pleasures: 19 year old friends Bin Bin and Ziao Ji live in the provincial Chinese city of Datong; disaffected and without jobs or ambition they pass their days wandering around town on their motorbikes hanging out at the smoky pool hall dreaming of girls and escape. Around them China is changing television informs them of their nation's rapidly developing political and economic role in the world and the inexorable encroachment of globalisation... Xiao Wu (aka P

• Not One Less | DVD | (17/09/2001) from £12.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (53.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In a remote mountain village, the teacher must leave for a month, and the mayor can find only a 13-year old girl, Wei Minzhi, to substitute.