K-19 - The Widowmaker [VHS]

You can't go too far wrong watching any movie starring Harrison Ford. It's a thrilling account of how the Soviet submarine K-19 was sunk. Hollywood-style, with a sad end. For aficianados of cold war tales this one is a classic, right up there with Hunt for Red October, but with a twist, since this was a real event. Also interesting to note (for history) that the Soviets thought this sub was sunk by the Americans, & some time later are believed to have deliberately sunk an American submarine in the Atlantic in retaliation. This sub sank by itself, & the later sinking of the American sub was a grave error by the Soviet Navy. The CIA launched a huge project to raise the K-19, but the sub broke in half on the way up & only partly recovered at great cost. Neither side will admit to the shenanigans-- or failure-- of their submarines during the Cold War. Highly recommended viewing for submarine adventure fans

very good

Good Movie

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who went on to make "Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty", this is a brilliant film, the true story of a gallant Soviet submarine crew that saved the east coast of the U.S. from a Chernobyl event when they lost cooling on one of their reactors. Excellent performances from Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford, and an unflinching, grisly look at what happens when human beings are exposed acutely to massive doses of ionizing radiation. I've long wondered why this film wasn't a bigger hit; the only reason I can think of, is that we are just not ready to see Soviet sailors as heroes. Yet those Soviet sailors probably saved countless American lives, and perhaps detente itself. And this is how it must have been for the teams who had to jury rig a cooling system in 10 minute shifts, watching each team before them return from the reactor room partially. . .well, melted, from the inside out. Yet the next team did go in, and the next. . .

Enough has been said regarding the film's accuracy, summaries of the plot, acting and other diverse opinions so I will only review the actual quality of the transfer of the film to Blu Ray. I do have the Standard Def version which I have watched several times but this will not be a side by side comparison. I was going to give the Blu Ray 5 stars but changed my mind to 4 which you will see why a bit later.VIDEO...An excellent video transfer in all ways; they couldn't have improved it. The transfer is as clean as you could possibly ask for. My monitor is a Panasonic ZT 65" and that would make a difference as well but to my viewing the colors are as natural as you can find. Early in the film the color grading appears to be shot with warmth in mind. For the rest of the film all colors appear to be as natural as one might actually see. Colors do not pop as they do in many CGI films and other than a cool color grading in the reactor room, all other colors are very realistic. At no point did I see any video artifacts or aliasing, no ghosting or stair stepping. Mbps rate was one of the highest I have seen on a Blu Ray and seemed to average at around 41Mbps. At no point did I see it drop below the high 20's. As far as video transfers go, despite the letterboxing on top and bottom of your screen, I give this film 5 stars.AUDIO...Thank god we get a lossless audio codec in Dolby Digital HD 5.1. There is an excellent spread of audio across the front stage with frequent use of discreet channeling to the front left and right surrounds, especially when the submarine is actually under water. The rear surrounds (I run a 7.1 system) do receive a good amount of work to do as well but not a whole lot of discreet channeling to them when, in a sub, there should be audio all over the place and almost all of it being discreet. When compared to the majority of films, the audio for K-19 would rightly deserve 5 stars BUT when I compare this film's audio to the audio in two other great submarine movies, 'Das Boot' and 'U-571', both on Blu Ray, the audio of K-19 doesn't come close. The audio on both of those films is superlative. This might not be the fairest of comparisons but I lowered the 5 star audio of K-19 just because it didn't come close to that of the two mentioned films. Never the less, all audio levels are spot on so messing with your remote's volume control from time to time should not be necessary. Dialogue is crisp and transparent due to the lossless codec. Your LFE channel is put to good and frequent use and there is frequent panning across the audio stages.EXTRAS...There are no extras on the Blu Ray version of K-19 that were not on the original Standard Definition release. You get your typical commentary and shorts docs on the makeup, Making of, Breaching the Hull and the trailer.....all extras retain their original 4:3 aspect ratio.All my reviews focus solely upon the quality of the transfer of a film to Blu Ray and I do hope this review has been of some assistance and help to you in deciding your purchase.Thanks for reading.

Critics are unfairly harsh on this movie. Which prestigious film ctitics have ever even made a film? Few. The depth and importance of this story is profoundly overlooked. It's quite possible that the valor of the men aboard K-19 averted a nuclear holocaust. Yet critics ignore such things, arrogantly sitting atop their white ivory towers of self-involved illusory superiority as they demean and degrade projects that took tremendous effort to complete. Harrison Ford's Russian accent - which is one of the 'points' critics attack - was a good effort on Mr. Ford's part, unlike a certain actor's utter failure to even attempt speaking like the 12th century Sherwood bandit he portrayed in a certain film. This is a great movie.

True story....Harrison Ford and the other actors picked from different countries...Excellent! The refurbished Russian, and the the USSR allowing us to use the Kremlin to film added much to this true story. The Russian troops were like the American troops. Faithful to their countries, had girlfriends at home and could not wait to come home and marry. We all know there are the crazies out their, that are fighting for their own idealisms, but bottom line, most people of most countries want to live a normal life with family, and friends. You have North Korea, Iran, and other instilling fear in so many lives, around the world, and people just want to live their lives, and the beauty of family and friends. Just think if we took all the money creating weapons of mass destruction, and all the time, funds, and energy, and used it to feed the people of the countries that need food and medical help. I know these are simplistic thoughts........but just imagine.........

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