"Actor: Yoshi Oida"

• Silence | DVD | (08/05/2017) from £5.89   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Martin Scorsese's Silence tells the story of two Christian missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) who face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan in search of their missing mentor (Liam Neeson)‰‰at a time when Christianity was outlawed and their presence forbidden. The celebrated director's 28-year journey to bring Shusaku Endo's 1966 acclaimed novel to life, examines the spiritual and religious question of God's silence in the face of human suffering.

• Silence | Blu Ray | (08/05/2017) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Martin Scorsese's Silence tells the story of two Christian missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) who face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan in search of their missing mentor (Liam Neeson)‰‰at a time when Christianity was outlawed and their presence forbidden. The celebrated director's 28-year journey to bring Shusaku Endo's 1966 acclaimed novel to life, examines the spiritual and religious question of God's silence in the face of human suffering.

• Taxi 2 | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £5.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This action caper, once again written and produced by Luc Besson (who directed "The Fifth Element"), is a follow up to the 1998 original, and follows a demon taxi driver who helps the polic rescue a kidnapped ambassador.

• Wasabi | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £9.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (100.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This high-energy Dirty Harry in Japan stars Jean Reno (The Professional) as a maverick Paris cop with sledgehammer fists and a short temper. Promoted to sudden fatherhood when he "inherits" a spunky Japanese daughter (Ryoko Hirosue) he never knew, he becomes her droopy guardian angel, protecting her from an army of yakuza gangsters. Written and produced by Luc Besson, the former fashionista director of Euro-sleek shoot-'em-ups, this colorful B-movie blast is as gritty as an oil slick on a water slide but packed with explosive action. Director Gerard Krawczyk punctuates his gunfights with the Hong Kong school of recoil (bullets blast victims across the screen) and an undercurrent of humor. As long as you don't lean too hard on such niggling details as logic, legality, and the laws of physics, this silly, splashy, family bonding bulletfest is a spirited good time.

• The Pillow Book | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £10.48   |  Saving you £-0.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers) continues to delight and disturb us with his talent for combining storytelling with optic artistry. The Pillow Book is divided into 10 chapters (consistent with Greenaway's love of numbers and lists) and is shot to be viewed like a book, complete with tantalising illustrations and footnotes (subtitles) and using television's "screen-in-screen" technology. As a child in Japan, Nagiko's father celebrates her birthday retelling the Japanese creation myth and writing on her flesh in beautiful calligraphy, while her aunt reads a list of "beautiful things" from a 10th-century pillow book. As she gets older, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) looks for a lover with calligraphy skills to continue the annual ritual. She is initially thrilled when she encounters Jerome (Ewan McGregor), a bisexual translator who can speak and write several languages, but soon realises that although he is a magnificent lover, his penmanship is less than acceptable. When Nagiko dismisses the enamoured Jerome, he suggests she use his flesh as the pages which to present her own pillow book. The film, complete with a musical score as international as the languages used in the narration, is visually hypnotic and truly an immense "work of art". --Michele Goodson

• The Pillow Book - DVD | DVD | (09/05/2011) from £11.98   |  Saving you £4.01 (25.10%)   |  RRP £15.99

  As a young girl in Japan, Nagiko's father paints characters on her face, and her aunt reads to her from The Pillow Book, the diary of a 10th-century lady-in-waiting. Nagiko grows up, obsessed with books, papers, and writing on bodies, and her sexual odyssey (and the creation of her own Pillow Book) is a parfait mlange of classical Japanese, modern Chinese, and Western film images.

• 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