david.widlake

I've just seen the English dubbed Spanish DVD. With Pixar raising the bar and Disney and others raising their game to produce high quality animated movies with great stories it is hard to comprehend how this got made. The animation is fine but the story ... oh dear. Set some time after the well known story of Don Quixote this follows the same group as they try to find Dulcinea but the story is told from the point of view of their steeds - a brave donkey and a cowardly horse. Was this only made with Government/European Union taxpayer subsidies to help the Spanish film industry (a 'europudding')? I suspect so as the number of logos appearing in the credits is amazing. If you are a fan of Don Quixote you won't like this - If you aren't a fan you still won't like this!

Taichi is a high school drop out hoping to be a pro boxer when a road accident leaves him paralysed from the waist down. During a long stay in hospital and an even longer convalescence, he wallows first in thoughts of suicide, then in aggressive and self-destructive behavior. Things begin to look up when he's mistaken by racketeers for the attempted rescuer of a rape victim: he's offered a job, meets a great woman and gets accepted as a pupil by a master of aiki-jujutsu, the martial art which channels aggression back to the aggressor, who takes him on because he's intrigued by the challenge of teaching someone confined to a wheelchair.

Very uplifting picture which never depresses the viewer. If you've seen The Karate Kid (and who hasn't) you'll love the martial arts tournament where our hero fights a thuggish karate master who wants to kill him.

Betty Blue (37.2 le Matin) is out to buy in Australia on DVD. The disc contains the 3 hour directors cut and is in the PAL format which might prove a problem to people in the US - though if your TV/DVD player can cope with that the good news is it is region free so can be watched anywhere.

Get hunting on the Internet - An ESSENTIAL purchase.