Eastern Promises (Blu-ray)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

This is a highly entertaining picture and I enjoyed every moment of it. I´ve enjoyed older films from Cronenberg such as "Scanners" and "eXistenZ." "Crash" has grown on me over the years and I appreciate his stark and unflinching look at a side of human nature we would rather ignore. I´ve also enjoyed some of Viggo Mortensen´s older roles that have often been ignored by the masses. He is a tough actor that puts a handsome face on gritty roles. I feel that "Eastern Promises" is the best work from either man and although it is violent and dark in nature, it is entertaining. This is a well acted film that only disappointed me in the fact that it ended the way it did. I wanted to see more of Nikolai and his efforts to infiltrate the Russian mafia. I wanted to see more of the well acted and written characters. This is easily one of the better films of the year and is as such for good reason.

Video:

"Eastern Promises" returns to high definition with a strong looking 1.85:1 framed film that is identical to the previous HD-DVD release. However, unlike that HD-DVD/DVD combo release, this film contains only a high definition version of the film. I had highly touted the visuals of that release and was happy to see that "Eastern Promises" is still a very nicely detailed presentation that my no longer compete with the absolute best that HD has to offer, but still looks quite strong. Details such as the tattoos found on Mortensen´s body and the textures of wet brick on the sidewalks show how detailed the film is. Building details, facial imperfections and other small details are easy to pinpoint while watching the film. Colors are equally strong and the blues, greens and reds present throughout the film all look spectacular. There are a lot of black and white contrasts present in "Eastern Promises" and they all look very good with strong black levels, shadow detail and ultra-clean whites. Source materials are strong.

Sound:

The former Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack has been replaced with a crystal clear English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that sounds a hair louder, but essentially identical to the previous HD-DVD release. This is a very good sounding film that has plenty of ambient noises and the infamous shower scene is a wonderful show of how strong this soundtrack can be. A scene where a body is dumped in the water provides some nice aural water effects. In addition to the English soundtrack, French and Spanish DTS 5.1 mixes are included as well as English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles. The .1 LFE subwoofer channel and the rear surrounds add depth to the film and the musical score by Howard Shore is strong and provides atmosphere in each of the channels. Dialogue is a very important element of "Eastern Promises" and I can guarantee that no spoken word will be missed, although the Russian requires plenty of subtitles to be read throughout the film. While this isn´t an aggressive sounding film, it is quite clean and technically proficient.

Extras:

The Blu-ray release differs slightly from the HD-DVD release. The previous Web Enabled content is now missing, but some items that were part of the web content are now featured as items on the disc. Since some people perhaps did not have their HD-DVD players attached to the web, we´ll consider this brand new content. Secrets and Stories (10:30) is an EPK style featurette that features cast and crew interviews. It briefly discusses the true existence of the Russian mafia and the making of the film. It is short, but the brief discussion on prostitution and mafia was interesting enough. Marked for Life (6:41) is much of the same as the first vignette but looks more at the tattooing of the Russian mafia and features Mortensen and Cronenberg talking about the tattoos sported by Viggo Mortensen in the film. The Blu-ray release includes the new features Two Guys Walk Into a Bath House (1:55), which is a brief discussion with Cronenberg about the film´s amazing fight scene and Watts on Wheels (:55) that is an even briefer chat with Naomi Watts talking about riding a ´motorbike.´ These are short, but I was happy to see new additions to the Blu-ray release beyond the My Scenes.

Closing Comments:

I thoroughly enjoyed "Eastern Promises" and feel it is the best film from either director David Cronenberg and star Viggo Mortensen. I also believe that "Eastern Promises" is one of the better pictures of 2007 and should deserve some praise when it comes time for the Academy Awards. The film´s climactic steam bath fight sequence is poetic violence at its finest. It is something you will want to watch again and again. With its convincing and well-written story, "Eastern Promises" excels in every aspect of filmmaking. Acting is top shelf, cinematography is solid and the aforementioned directing is Cronenberg at his best. "Eastern Promises" returns to high definition with a new Blu-ray release that includes a few new features and reworked, but essentially identical sound and video. This is an excellent film and I was happy to see it gained some minor improvements on Blu-ray.