HD DVD Review: Eastern Promises

THE MOVIE: 4 3/4 stars out of 5

Directed by David Cronenberg and starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts, Eastern Promises is a thriller involving the Russian mob in London. In brief, Naomi Watt’s character, Anna, is a midwife in a London hospital when a young Russian girl is admitted to the ER pregnant after having been beaten. She dies but her child is saved. Anna, after finding a diary the woman had with her, tries to have the diary interpreted so that she can try to the find the woman’s family so that the baby can be placed with them when she unwittingly get involved with the Russian mob in London. I really enjoyed this film. I found it to be very suspenseful and gritty with some rather disturbing violence. Viggo Mortensen richly deserves his Golden Globe nomination for his performance as Nikolai as he turns in an intense and riveting performance as a member of the mob. In fact, the acting in this film is uniformly excellent. Highly recommended.

THE VIDEO: 4 7/8 stars out of 5

Encoded with VC-1 and presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1, this film looks amazing on HD-DVD. The image is a sharp as a tack with a wonderful level of detail. Even though a large portion of the film is shot inside or at night or darkened interiors, the film never appears soft and maintains its sharp image, without any evidence of edge enhancement, or at least any I was able to detect. Shadow detail was impeccable as well. The colors on this release are beautiful and very natural looking which adds to the overall very impressive looking transfer. Skin tones are spot on as well. as are black levels which are very deep giving the film a very three dimensional looking through the window look. Overall, an excellent effort from Universal.

THE AUDIO: 4 1/2 stars out of 5

Presented with a Dolby True HD track, this audio encode is somewhat of a mixed bag. On the downside, the film’s sound field is not very immersive. There was not much use of the surround speakers with most of the audio coming from the three front speakers. This is disappointing given that the film is a thriller where a more immersive three dimensional sound field would have added to the tension. On the up side, the audio quality of the front three channels is excellent. Dialogue is beautifully recorded with a rich and full sound as are the other two front channels. The fidelity of the audio that is presented is excellent and very involving. I just wish that better use was made of the surrounds. Had the use and audio quality of the front three channels been repeated with the surrounds, this would have been a 5 star effort. The front three channels are so well done however that the mix still rates a 4 1/2 star rating.

IN CONCLUSION

This is an excellent film boasting excellent video and very good audio. It is well worth a look. Highly recommended.

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