Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55894 in DVD
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 147 minutes

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

Customer Reviews

The complete package!
This film is fantastic. We all know that. But this limited edition box set takes things one step further.

Included in the box set are the 3 graphic novels from the Sin City series by Frank Miller on which the film is based. Before purchasing this box set myself I had never read these books before. They are brilliant! It is truely amazing to see just how closely the film stuck to the plots of the stories in the books. Right down to positioning of objects in frames, lighting and dialogue.

As mentioned before the box set looks great, no tacky materials to be seen! Looks great with my collection!

Superb! If you want this film on DVD then BUY THIS VERSION! Seriously, you will really enjoy reading the books and comparing them to the film itself.

Now I'm looking to extend my Sin City graphic novel collection in time for the release of Sin City 2!

Top Class Boxset
The film as we know is great. This boxset though is something else !! Suprisingly heavy because of the weight of the books, this boxset has the DVD plus the 3 books that the film is based on. The box itself looks fantastic - very solid and great visuals giving it a real quality feel. Frank Miller has apparently approved it so it's not really a surprise it looks so good. The books also look great and if you haven't read them before, it soon becomes obvious how close the film is to the originals. This really is worth buying. If you're still not sure, ask a friend who's got one, take a look, and you'll be ordering it by the end of the day !! Then gloat to all your friends who didn't manage to get one before they sold out !!

Truly the ultimate Sin City experience
It's always a thrill to see a movie get the DVD treatment it deserves, and Frank Miller's Sin City: Recut - Extended - Unrated is a really fantastic package loaded to the gills with all kinds of good stuff. If you're a Sin City fan, you'll want to just take a day off and indulge yourself in this ultimate Sin City experience - and it will take you the better part of a day to watch and go through everything this little box holds. Even if you bought the regular DVD when it came out, I really think you'll want to upgrade to this special edition.

I was unfamiliar with Frank Miller and his series of Sin City graphic novels. When I first saw trailers for the film, all I knew was that Jessica Alba was in it, and that was reason enough for me to want to see it. When you don't know Miller's work, the trailers for the film are hard to get your head around. You're intrigued by the unique look of the film, with all the dark, gritty backgrounds and the selective use of color in certain scenes, but it isn't easy to figure out what the film is about, exactly. When you do sit down and watch the film, you're just blown away: the whole look of the film is absolutely mesmerizing, unlike anything you've seen before; the cast is just full of one huge star after another turning in dazzling performances; the stories are dark and haunted and just draw you right in; but it's the characters most of all that captivate you.

The film is really four stories assembled into one finished product. The Customer is Always Right is a short introduction for what is to come - and then Marv takes over. Marv is one of the most fascinating characters to come along in years. He's a huge, ugly guy, a thug and killer you can't help but like and respect - and Mickey Rourke is simply amazing in the role. Marv has the night of his life with a gorgeous woman named Goldie (Jaime King), then wakes up to find her dead. Framed for the crime, Marv swears to find Goldie's killer, and he lets nothing stand in his way. Even if it means dying, he's not going to back out - just because Goldie was nice to him. There's plenty of violent action in this story, and Elijah Wood is surprisingly good as Kevin, an almost superhuman killer who eats his victims. Then we're off to The Big Fat Kill, where Clive Owen and Benecio Del Toro steal the show, along with Devon Aoki as the beautifully lethal Miho. She dishes out a lot of graphic violence, including a most excellent beheading. Alexis Bledel lights up the screen with eyes you could dive right in to. There's a fair bit of dark comedy in this one, including one incredibly funny bit you won't want to miss. Finally, there's the story of Hardigan and little Nancy Callahan, a girl that good cop Hardigan saved from a brutal rapist/murderer before having the tables turned completely over on him. Skinny little Nancy grew up strong and drop-dead gorgeous (like I said, I would buy the movie just for Jessica Alba), but she's still in danger - and only Hardigan can save her from That Yellow Bastard (basically a yellow Ferengi thanks to the damage Hardigan did to him eight years earlier -it's not easy regrowing a set of family jewels, you know - those side effects are brutal). Bruce Willis is masterful as the tough and gritty yet sensitive Hardigan.

It's impossible to truly describe these stories - you just have to see them for yourself. The performances are so darn good that this movie actually gets better every time you watch it - and this special edition DVD gives you plenty of chances to do just that. Along with the original theatrical release, you get the uncut version of the movie, split up into four separate, independent chapters; there's some 23 minutes of extra footage - including a couple of scenes that really help embellish the storylines. You get two commentaries (one with co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, the other with Rodriguez, Quentin Tarentino, and Bruce Willis). My favorite version features a recording of the Austin premier audience reaction; the depth of the dark comedy in these stories didn't really hit me full force until I was able to join in with that live audience atmosphere. As if all that isn't enough, though, you also get a series of great featurettes. Herein is where you truly learn to appreciate the film. The vast majority of the actual filming was done in front of a green screen, and many of the actors who performed in the same scenes never even met. And it was all filmed very quickly - all those great backdrops and that unique atmosphere made with CGI. It's incredible to see just how this movie was shot and put together.

There's nothing else out there remotely like Sin City. It truly makes Frank Miller's comic come to life - for the most part, the movie mirrors the graphic novels themselves almost frame by frame. Director Robert Rodriguez calls this an anti-movie; in a sense, Miller actually drew his comics in such a way that they could never be filmed. Rather than adapt the graphic novels to film, Rodriguez went the other way - he adapted the film format to the graphic novels. When you look at the movie in comparison to the books (and you get a copy of The Hard Goodbye with this DVD package), you'll see exactly what he means. Sin City is truly an unparalleled, 100% complete success. I just can't get enough of it.