Brotherhood of the Wolf

The Brotherhood of the Wolf is that profoundly irritating thing, a movie which just fails to lift itself from the mundane into the realm of the truly exciting.

It seems a fault more of the script and editing than of premise or direction - this starts off as a racy, energetic telling of a mysterious beast which is terrorising 17th century rural France - and of the strange Brotherhood which has emerged around it.

This is an 18th century France as no-one ever knew it. The film-makers aren't content with the French tradition of martial-art - the sword and the stave. This is the territory of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with no apologies for anachronism, as Asian martial-arts visits rural France.

I really wanted to like this movie. But despite the action, and despite the visual beauty, it became - well, long-winded and boring. It would approach a point, then retreat, and wait a while before tackling it again. On and on it went. On and on and on. Such a shame; it held such promise.

It's interesting to note that this Australian PAL release runs for 132 minutes. The American single-disc release runs for 144 minutes, suggesting that the Region 1 US version is quite longer, even after allowing for the PAL speed-up effect.

The widescreen anamorphic transfer is as clear and sharp as the excellent Region 1 transfer I've seen. Colour hues are rich and finely textured with fine attention to detail.

The audio is enough to disqualify this disc out of hand.

The American Region 1 disc offers an outstanding Dolby 5.1 soundtrack and the Canadian disc has gone one better, with a DTS option. But this release only offers us a flat-sounding Dolby Digital two-channel stereo for the main French soundtrack.

We're also offered an English dubbed soundtrack, in 5.1, but the dubbing is a second-best audio option, virtually unlistenable. Why weren't Australian consumers given the choice of both soundtracks in Dolby 5.1 or DTS?

This two-disc set is loaded with features.

On Disc one, we find an interview with French historian Michel Louis who gives us facts behind the legend of the Beast of Gevaudan - a horrific creature bred to kill, to satisfy its owners' sadism. These owners produced a beast which was half-dog and half-wolf. Before it was killed, it had hunted down and ripped to death more than 150 people. That, Michel Louis explains, is the amazing truth behind this movie.

Disc one concludes with the original cinema trailer.

Disc two's features are not anamorphic, but are of good image quality. First up is a 77-minute Making Of feature, in chapters including Genesis, Casting, Direction, Fighting, The Beast and Digital Effects. It gives worthwhile background in the early chapters - I couldn't judge the later chapters as my review disc is water-marked and break ups badly through this section.

Next is a section of deleted scenes, six in all, with director Christophe Gans introducing each segment and giving its context within the complete movie.

There are filmographies of four of the actors, and storyboards for six scenes. Finally, we are offered interviews with six actors and the director, in a feature running for 49 minutes. The usual stuff - how good was the experience? How good is the director? How good is the film? How good are you? It's very repetitive and mainly purely promotional in intent.

This two-disc set does have its swag of bonus features, but the US single-disc version is still the better offering because of its option of the original soundtrack in Dolby 5.1, and the longer feature running time.

Of course, true Brotherhood of the Wolf fanatics will turn up their noses at both the Australian and US releases, and opt instead for the deluxe three-disc set available in Canada.