MOULIN ROUGE DVD FEATURES Region Reviewed: Region 1 Number of Discs: 2 Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1/ DTS Picture: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Special Features: Theatrical Trailer Production, Commentary by Baz Luhrman, Catherine Martin and Don McAlpine, Writing Commentary by Baz Luhrman and Craig Pearce, 8 Behind the Scenes Branches, The Making of Moulin Rouge HBO Specia,l 5 "Star" Featurettes, Earlier Drafts of Screenplay, 6 Extended Scenes & 4 Re-cut Dance Sequences, Interview with John "Cha Cha" O'Connell, and Caroline O'Conner Dance Pre-shoots 3 Multi-angle Dance Sequences, 2 Music Videos, Live MTV Performance Design and Marketing Gallery Over 10 Easter Eggs

Buy the DVD! Links Official site

Moulin Rouge Plot: "Period" musical set in Paris at the turn of the 20th Century. A young writer named Christian moves to Paris where he meets artist Toulouse Lautrec, whose party fuelled life revolves around the notorious Moulin Rouge nightclub. When there, Christian meets and falls for Satine, the most beautiful courtesan in Paris.

Moulin Rouge Review: Moulin Rouge is one of those movies that you will either love or hate. There's no in between. I saw the movie for the first time back in October with in a packed auditorium with a huge Saturday night audience.

The film started and, from the opening frame, to me looked very promising with the conducter conducting an orchestra playing the 20th Century Fox fanfare. The lights then dim and we are taked over the city scape of early 20th Century Paris. Great. But then the film takes a completely unexpected turn and displays a style of movie making we just haven't seen before. The story unfolds in a fast paced, music video type of way that makes you wonder what sort of substances Baz Luhrrman was taking whilst directing it. truly marvelous, I thought.

Then around ten to fifteen minutes in, a couple walked out of the cinema. I thought nothing of it, until a second, and then a third got up and left. I haven't seen that many times before. But, I stayed for the rest of the movie if only just to see what direction Lurmann was going to take us next.

And at the end, I thought that those three couples, had missed one of the best movie experiences of the year, if not the last ten years. I've only come out of the cinema feeling truly satisfied and entertained as much as I did when i'd seen Moulin Rouge one other time this year. And that was back in February when I saw Memento for the first time. Oh, and again more recently after seeing Lord Of The Rings of course.

But this movie is fantasic, and I beg viewers to get past the first fifteen to twenty minutes, right up to the point where Ewan McGregors character Christian serenades Nicole Kidman's Satine with Elton John's Your Song. If you're still not satisfied bugger off to see Dude Where's My Car or something because that scene still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I challenge anyone to watch the movie and not sense the same.

Apart from the two excellent central performances from Kidman and McGregor along with firm support from Jim Broadbent, Richard Roxburgh and John Leguizamo's Toulouse Lautrec, it's the music that makes this movie work. From Beck's version of David Bowie's Diamond Dogs through to the Lady Marmalade rehash, the great scenes that use Madonna's Like A Virgin, The Police's Roxanne and Fatboy Slim's version of The Can Can. The music rivals that of Lurrmans previous effort, Romeo And Juliet. Even the original Come What May (the films central love song) sounds great, a lot better than the God-awful remix that hit the charts back in September. All of these aforenmentioned tracks come together to create a soundtrack that moves the film along at a fantastic breakneck pace in some scenes, while in others setting a moving backdrop to some really emotional material.

A great movie, the best film of 2001. See it now.


Moulin Rouge Disc Review: The Moulin Rouge Region One DVD release is set on two discs. The first contains the movie with both DTS and 5.1 soundtracks, a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, commentary by Baz Luhrmann and co-writer Craig Pearce plus another commentary from Luhrmann with Catherine Martin and Don McAlpine. The second disc is packed with all of the other juicy extras (see above for full list) and for me, the stand out highlights are the HBO documentary on the production (check out Fatboy Slim remixing the Can Can on his old Atari computer) and the five mini segments on various processes that went into the making of the film. The Lady Marmalade video is also here along with the video for Come What may, the films love song.

The sound is absolutely fantastic and there's plenty going on in the surrounds. The pictue transfer is also flawless, recreating all of those wonderfull brilliant colours. Film of the year, DVD of the year. Go out and but it now!

The film is out now of region one (of which this review is based) and is released on region two (Europe) on March 4th 2002.



Overall Rating - MOVIE: 9/10 - DISC: 9/10

Read the original Moulin Rouge theatrical release review.

We have moved to our Brand new home on our own server at www.thezreview.co.uk

Please click over there for ALL our DAILY updates!