7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Arn is a young Scandinavian lad raised in a monastery during the mid 12th century in an attempt by his noble family to get him a good education. As well as learning to read and religious instruction, Arn is trained in the art of combat by one of the monks who had spent a considerable part of his life in the Crusades.
Starring: Joakim Nätterqvist, Sofia Helin, Stellan Skarsgård, Michael Nyqvist, Mirja TurestedtAction | 100% |
History | 59% |
Adventure | 57% |
War | 53% |
Foreign | 19% |
Drama | 19% |
Romance | 5% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Swedish: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Swedish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
People under the age of 30 or so probably have little memory of what life was like in the pre-internet age, but there were things called books and places called libraries where you had to go to do research. The internet has provided such an amazing amount of information, literally at everyone’s fingertips, that it’s sometimes kind of surprising when basic data about this or that subject can’t be instantly gleaned. Therefore I was kind of at a loss about a year and a half ago when I received the feature film version of Arn: The Knight Templar to review, since there was (rather surprisingly) precious little information about the project available online, even at such generally reliable sources as IMDb. Several of our extremely knowledgeable international readers were able to fill in some of the blanks that I had run up against and clarified that Arn actually originated as a Swedish miniseries which was later recut into two theatrical releases. Those two films were in turn reedited yet again and combined to make what would become Arn: The Knight Templar on Blu-ray. Now Entertainment One is releasing the original six part miniseries. There are both pluses and minuses to each of the home video releases of the Arn franchise. As I mentioned in my review of the film amalgamation, the film version seemed to lurch uneasily between various timeframes and also seemed to leave some salient plot points on the cutting room floor. Conversely, while the Arn miniseries fills in a lot of missing information, it is also inordinately detailed and lengthy, requiring a certain amount of patience to arrive at the same destination that the film version gets to in a brisker fashion.
Arn: The Knight Templar – The Complete Series is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. According to IMDb, which now has at least a little info on the project, Arn was filmed in Super 35 with a 2K Digital Intermediate, and the overall look of the miniseries is sharp, albeit tweaked in post in several (even most) sequences, which materially affects sharpness. A lot of the childhood sequences are skewed toward the blue end of the spectrum, while the initial romance scenes between Arn and Cecilia are fairly bursting with a golden ambience. Other sequences are slightly desaturated or emphasize gray scale, giving the miniseries a kind of slightly monochromatic appearance. Generally, though, fine object detail is quite good, even exceptional at times, and the gorgeous location photography which literally spans the globe often offers some staggering depth of field.
If anything, Arn: The Knight Templar – The Complete Series features even more impressive audio than the feature film version did, and the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is awash in really fulsome LFE and fantastic immersion. Right off the bat, as thundering horse hooves pound across the desert floor, the listener is surrounded in excellent directionality and panning effects as well as floorboard rattling lower frequencies. The miniseries, like the feature film, is a multilingual affair, with the bulk of the film being spoken in Swedish and English, but a variety of other languages being thrown into the mix on occasion. As with the feature film, standard English subtitles are available for the non-English segments, while English SDH subtitles are available for the entire miniseries. Dialogue is very clean and crisp, and there is a glut of excellent sound effects throughout the miniseries. The score is also quite effective, and also uses some low end sounds which add some subliminal dramatic emphasis quite a bit of the time. Fidelity and dynamic range are both top notch throughout the miniseries.
The same three supplements that accompanied the feature film version on Blu-ray are also included on this miniseries release:
I personally wish that this miniseries version had been released first, as it at least gives a sort of baseline of the story and characters that would have made the feature film version a bit more comprehensible. That said, there are pluses and minuses to both of these outings. The feature film version manages to get a lot of the most important information crammed into the exposition, though now having seen the miniseries, it's obvious that quite a bit of detail understandably got left by wayside. The miniseries is obviously much more involved, and while that gives greater dramatic heft to the characters, it also makes the agony of Arn and Cecilia's long separation almost unbearable. All things considered, I come down ever so slightly on the side of the miniseries, if only because its more leisurely pace actually better depicts the horrifyingly long separation of the two lovers. This is a gorgeous production with a top flight cast that also includes such notables as Simon Callow and Stellan Skarsgård augmenting the two leads. With great video and exception audio, this release comes Recommended.
Director's Cut
2004
2010
2011
Director's Cut
2005
Extended Cut
1991
Director's Cut
2004
2010
Xinhai geming | Collector's Edition
2011
2006
1995
Aoki Ôkami: chi hate umi tsukiru made
2007
2012
2003
天将雄师 / Tian Jiang Xiong Shi
2015
2006
Red Cliff Part II / Chinese Theatrical Version
2009
The Ultimate Cut
2004
2018
赤壁 / 赤壁:决战天下 | Chi Bi | Original International Version
2008
2014