"Actor: Rico Alaniz"

• The Magnificent Seven | DVD | (11/06/2001) from £8.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (71.53%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum... Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! --Robert Horton

• War Of The Colossal Beast | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A frightened young man races his truck down a dirt road constantly looking back in terror. He is being pursued by some unseen menace! Undoubtedly it is this menace that is responsible for a series of mysterious food truck robberies and the main suspect is the 60-foot tall Colossal Man! Previously presumed dead he is discovered living in a desolate mountain range in Mexico insane and horribly disfigured his face covered in scar tissue and missing an eye. Every effort of communicating with the giant fails and the military drugs him and transports him back to America where he promptly escapes to wreak havoc on an unfortunate city!