Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33373 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-09-26
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL

Amazon.co.uk Review
Brutal and breathtaking, Sin City is Robert Rodriguez's stunningly realized vision of Frank Miller's pulpy comic books. In the first of three separate but loosely related stories, Marv (Mickey Rourke in heavy makeup) tries to track down the killers of a woman who ended up dead in his bed. In the second story, Dwight's (Clive Owen) attempt to defend a woman from a brutal abuser goes horribly wrong, and threatens to destroy the uneasy truce among the police, the mob, and the women of Old Town. Finally, an aging cop on his last day on the job (Bruce Willis) rescues a young girl from a kidnapper, but is himself thrown in jail. Years later, he has a chance to save her again.

Based on three of Miller's immensely popular and immensely gritty books (The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard), Sin City is unquestionably the most faithful comic-book-based movie ever made. Each shot looks like a panel from its source material, and director Rodriguez (who refers to it as a "translation" rather than an adaptation) resigned from the Directors Guild so that Miller could share a directing credit. Like the books, it's almost entirely in stark black and white with some occasional bursts of color (a woman's red lips, a villain's yellow face). The backgrounds are entirely digitally generated, yet not self-consciously so, and perfectly capture Miller's gritty cityscape. And though most of Miller's copious nudity is absent, the violence is unrelentingly present. That may be the biggest obstacle to viewers who aren't already fans of the books and who may have been turned off by Kill Bill (whose director, Quentin Tarantino, helmed one scene of Sin City). In addition, it's a bleak, desperate world in which the heroes are killers, corruption rules, and the women are almost all prostitutes or strippers. But Miller's stories are riveting, and the huge cast--which also includes Jessica Alba, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, Devin Aoki, Carla Gugino, and Josh Hartnett--is just about perfect. (Only Bruce Willis and Michael Madsen, while very well-suited to their roles, seem hard to separate from their established screen personas.) In what Rodriguez hopes is the first of a series, Sin City is a spectacular achievement. --David Horiuchi, Amazon.com

DVD Description
This globally exclusive gift pack contains the Sin City DVD and the three books that inspired the film - The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard. This boxset has been personally approved by Frank Miller!

Special Features
Behind the scenes of Sin City Interactive menus Scene selection

Customer Reviews

Enthralling, Shocking, Mesmerising !
Sin City is an enthralling cinematic adaptation of various stories from the graphic novels of Frank Miller.

The presentation and production values are unusual but excellent, utilising 'green scene' photography to allow the graphic and distorted backgrounds to be rich in detail and reproduce the 1950s American-style 'world' in and around the fictional story location of 'Basin City'.

The picture is largely black and white, with certain aspects accentuated with flashes of vivid or florescent colour; the overall effect is superb.

The stories are violent, sexist and basic; but this does mean the film is not utterly entertaining, shocking or mesmerising. It demands to be watched on a large screen with a good audio presentation, but DVD playback on a decent telly will do !

The 3 storylines are intertwined and feature murder, revenge, rough justice and conflict featuring a wealth of well-known actors such as Bruce Willis, Rutger Hauer, Rosario Dawson and (most significantly) Mickey Rourke.

The cast of characters contain a mixture of the grotesque, beautiful and powerful and compliment the picture and storylines beautifully.

The DVD picture and sound quality are excellent, especially the DTS soundtrack, and there are a wealth of worthwhile extras.

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The DVD exists in many versions, with this Recut and Extended boxset being the best (it also contains a reproduction graphic novel) as it has both versions of the film.

But watch out, only the USA edition of the Region 1 version has DTS (for the original theatrical release) - the Canadian version, which can be spotted by it having French text on the packaging, omits DTS.

Also watch out - some USA-based Amazon sellers provide the CANADIAN version !

The Scandinavian Region 2 edition also has DTS, but has subtitle anomalies.

There are also differences regarding certain featurettes, but I think again the Region 1 version is best as it has the 'Sin-Chroni-City interactive feature', which is NOT a 'game' as described on the packaging ! This featurette is also on the Region 4 version, but that does not have DTS...

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Having said all that, whatever version you get will have the main feature, which provides the most entertainment !

Unexpected treat
Really enjoyed this film. With no preconceptions and knowing nothing about the graphic novels I found it visually stunning and very entertaining. Anyone interested in design, cinematography or photograpy will be delighted, but added to that the sequence of short stories is really compelling.
The performances are spot on, most notably Mickey Rourke's and Clive Owen's, but also good to see Bruce Willis doing what he does best and some strong roles for the women who are fiesty and look gorgeous, in particular Rosario Dawson.

OK there is violence and humiliation, but in such a cartoon style it's more amusing than disturbing. Fans of Tarantino and Robert Rodriquez shouldn't be dissapointed.

I'm surprised this film hasn't recievd more critical acclaim. I would atually give it 4.5 stars. Recommended entertainment. And in case you were thinking otherwise I'm not a bloke, or a comic fanatic.

Miller's graphic novels become Rodriguez's film noir epic
"Sin City" is a black and white world, except when the blood is being sprayed around and then be prepared for lots of red or white or even yellow. Based on three of the first four "Sin City" graphic novels by Frank Miller ("The Hard Good-Bye," "The Big Fat Kill," and "That Yellow Bastard") and "The Customer Is Always Right" short-story from "Babe Wore Red" that was the test run for this project, this 2005 film sets the standard for what film noir will be in the 21st century and advances the cause of digital filmmaker even more than "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." That film was pure eye candy, but "Sin City" is much too gritty to be that sweet. You are going to wince at some of what happens in this film and you might even turn away once or twice as the over the top violence hits you in the gut as hard as it hits some of the characters in the side of the head. But chances are you are going to love this movie to death.

Frank Miller's "Sin City" is a world where the heroes can take a whole series of punches as well as deliver them, where justice has nothing to do with either mercy or the cops, and the system is crooked from top down to pretty near the bottom of the barrel. The dames are still worth dying for and some of them might even be goddesses, but others can defend themselves quite well, thank you. This is a world where protecting women is hard-wired into the psyches of guys like John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), Marv (Mickey Rourke), and Dwight (Clive Owen). If you fail to protect a dame, then somebody has to pay and in a way that will make the scum bucket think Hell is heaven when you finally let them go there. This movie is rated R for sustained strong stylized violence, nudity and sexual content including dialogue, but that is an R that is a lot closer to NC-17 than it is to PG-13.

Ang Lee tried to have parts of "The Hulk" look like a comic book, but that meant throwing several frames on the screen at the same time. But with "Sin City" director Robert Rodriguez knows that a comic book panel can be like a frame in a motion picture and visa-versa, so his solution was to embrace Miller's visual style and make him the co-director of the film (and give him a small role as a priest hearing his final confession). The "Sin City" were done largely in black and white, although sometimes white and black, and other times when the strategic addition of a single color as in the red of a woman's lips, the yellow of her hair, or the blue of her eyes. Sometimes the red is a cool looking car.

This is the bloodiest film noir of my experience, so it is a good thing that when there is a lot of blood is it just as likely to appear as bright white or neon yellow as globs of the red stuff. But it is also evokes more bursts of laughter at the audacious violence and the perfectly timed one-liners, most of which will never work uttered in Dirty Harry fashion out of the context of the film. This is film noir in the tradition of Mickey Spillane updated for the Quentin Tarantino generation.

The standout performance in "Sin City" is clearly Mickey Rourke as Marv, who is buried under so much makeup you keep assuring yourself that he is really in there somewhere. In keeping with the formula of the film Marv is both the most violent of the protagonists, giving taking somebody for a ride a whole new meaning, and the funniest, in both word and deed. Willis and Owen are both fine as the other two protagonists, but they are more the strong and silent types, neither as reflective nor as sardonic as Marv. Willis definitely has the world weary act honed down to perfection, but Owen seems a bit too mannered in his detachment in his story line and ends up finishing third in the hero sweepstakes. Elijah Wood as Kevin does not get to speak but still creeps you out as Frodo gone over to the Dark Side. Benicio Del Toro shows some nice comic timing as Jack Rafferty and Michael Madsen has not changed a bit as Bob, while Nick Stahl is scum of two different colors. Rutger Hauer, Powers Booth and Michael Clarke Duncan all take turns playing heavies and it becomes pretty clear Rodriguez could get just about anybody he wanted to do this movie.

Of the women of "Sin City" it is Devon Aoki as Miho who stands out although she never says a word (she does not have to). Jessica Alba's best moments as Nancy are silent, although there is a change in why that is the case as we go through the movie. Rosario Dawson has fun going over the top as Gail, Brittany Murphy goes slumming as Shellie, and Jaime King plays two sides of the same coin as Goldie and Wendy. Alexis Bledel is certainly trying to get as far away from Rory Gilmore as possible by playing Becky, but I am afraid she does not get far in that regard. Then again, if you have read Miller's graphic novels you will be impressed by how Rodriguez has brought the stark black and white images of Becky, Hartigan, the Yellow Bastard and the rest of them to life on the screen. This movie is going to make a ton of money, Miller is going to sell a lot of copies of the new editions of his "Sin City" graphic novels, and hopefully it will not be too long before we get the next cinematic installment, which should have Johnny Depp playing Wallace in the "To Hell and Back" segment.