"Actor: Sergei Bodrov Jr"

• War | DVD | (22/11/2004) from £13.48   |  Saving you £6.51 (32.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  'War' is set around the ongoing civil war between the Russian Federation and Chechnya written and directed by Aleksei Balabanov best known for the ""Brat"" series. Ivan a Russian prisoner is being held by Aslan a Chechyan rebel leader. Hostage negotiations begin resulting in the decision to allow Ivan and a British prisoner John to go free so that they can return with the ransom for the release of the other captives. However unable to raise the money the two men return to

• Brother | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When Chechen veteran Danila is sent to St Petersburg to live with his brother he finds himself dropped straight into a dark underworld of danger drugs and retaliatory violence. This powerful examination of life in a society hardened by poverty violence and crime is an unnerving look at the consequences of conscription and war upon a generation of young Russians. An unmissable gritty thriller for fans of quality World Cinema and cutting edge film.

• Brother 2 | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Aleksei Balabanov's powerful follow-up to his uncompromising Brother Chechen veteran Danila (Sergei Bodrov Jr) arrives in Moscow. There he meets an old army buddy Konstantin who tells him how his twin brother Dimitri has been forced into signing a crooked contract with a U.S. ice hockey team by the manager and his Russian partners. Soon after Danila finds Konstantin dead. Vowing to avenge the death of his comrade Danila sets out on a trail that leads him to Chicago and a

• War | DVD | (21/02/2011) from £7.98   |  Saving you £14.00 (233.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A British actor and his girlfriend are captured along with several Russian soldiers by Chechen rebels while on tour in Georgia. They are thrown into a hole in a remote village where the horrors of war are horrifyingly apparent. Held for ransom that doesn't materialize one of the actors is released to raise cash in Britain. Upon his return he meets a conscript who is also desperate to save another captive. The two join forces and head back to the Chechen village to wage a two –man assault that will soon become an all- out war! From the award winning writer director Aleksei Balabnov of the Brother gangster Films Comes an intense and uncompromising look at the atrocities faced during wartime. Explosive gritty and controversial this powerful film features extreme and realistic action sequences that reveal a brutal vision of a war the world would rather forget.

• East West | DVD | (24/03/2003) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  East West is, fortunately, more than the colour-by-numbers melodrama that the packaging makes it seem. On the cover, a pair of haunted eyes gaze into the middle distance above a superb example of that absurd movie poster copywriting that reads much the same wherever you put the nouns: "In a land without freedom, escape was her only hope", which is hardly more meaningful than, say, "In a land without hope, freedom was her only escape". East West deserves better. A French-Russian production, the film tells the story of a Russian doctor, his French wife and their child. In 1946 they accept Stalin's invitation to exiled Russians to return to the motherland and help rebuild the country; swiftly they discover that the reality doesn't quite match the advertising. The film follows the stresses the situation places on the central couple's marriage and focuses on the wife's dreams of escape, which revolve around an intervention by a grand dame of French theatre (played, appropriately, by Catherine Deneuve). East West suffers slightly from several disorientating lurches forward in time, but is otherwise a superior thriller and a convincing period piece. On the DVD: East West offers two different trailers, filmographies of the stars and director and scene selection. The film is in French with English subtitles. –-Andrew Muller