Product Description

Johnny Depp unlocks the gates to hell in Roman Polanski's newest thriller. Depp stars as Dean Corso an unscrupulous rare-book dealer who is hired to locate the last remaining copies of "The Nine Gate of the Shadow Kingdom" a demonic manuscript that can summon the Devil. Corso becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving murder theft and satanic ritual and ultimately finds himself confronting the devil incarnate.System Requirements:Running Time: 133 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS Rating: R UPC: 012236212850 Manufacturer No: 21285

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5879 in DVD
• Brand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2007-05-22
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 133 minutes

Customer Reviews

memorable, highly satisfying, largely overlooked
Probably no need to sum up the story here, if you are reading this - I suspect you are aware of the movie's plot, premise, and backdrops.

I found it to be a striking piece of work, the actors delivered performances that would make me forget I am watching a movie - and Roman Polanski is probably the last of the great directors.

The criticisms I hear don't really stand up, and I'd like to examine some of them here. The film is lambasted for being too much of a departure from the book...which would indicate these people do not grasp the reason for making a film in the 1st place. Why just do the book, detail for detail? It is brought to the big screen because a filmmaker has a strong vision....elements of the story he wants to highlight. That may mean doing away with parts of the book that less than essential to that vision (or the movie may wind being 6.5 hrs. long). Or that a character (and the ending) is too obscure - if that's the case for you, go watch a film adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book. A good artist provokes thought, so the consumer is forced to put forth some effort (the Mona Lisa, for example) in considering what the possibilities are. Did Hitchcock ever explain what caused a several day frenzy amongst the local winged creatures in West Marin County, California in "The Birds"? Nope - sure didn't. Or how about "the film drags and uses cliches". The film is *paced*, and the story *unfolds*, folks. Getting back to Hitchcock again, he has been quoted as saying, "...in making a suspenseful movie - you can light the fuse of the bomb - but never show it exploding (paraphrasing here)". Well, that's what Polanski does here - it's called "building tension". As for cliches, some may exist in this film and I suspect are used for a quasi-comedic effect or simply because they are a reasonable means of broadening the appeal of the film (as making movies is a business, too). I don't know if you can expect to be taken seriously if you say both "it's too obscure" and "it uses cliches". Jeez - make up your mind, how can it be both not obvious enough and too obvious at the same time??

I'd also like to say the cinematography and soundtrack are quite engaging. They make an already interesting movie even more appealing. The sets are detailed, the scenery is breathtaking, the women are sexy & beautiful, and the shots are all first-rate and inspired.

I am not saying everyone should love this movie, or that it's a modern day "Maltese Falcon". But it is solid entertainment, has some strengths, and should be given some credit for being a valid piece of work by some talented people. And the criticisms should be considered as, simply a matter of the film not suiting everyone's tastes. If it did suit everyone's tastes - there would no doubt be something very wrong with it (i.e. the modern film series where teenagers seemingly cheat death, but find it coming back around to make good on it's original purpose. hahaha - now there's your montage of tired cliches!!!).

The Gate to Mediocre Filmmaking
Roman Polanski is an uneven filmmaker. Somtimes he produces a great, original story that captures the imagination, as in The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945(2002) and Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition) (1974). Other times, he manages to create creepy psychological drama, as in Rosemary's Baby(1968) and The Tenant(1976). In fact, Chinatown continues to be one of my favorite newer film noirs, and Rosemary's Baby is the ultimate example of how to combine horror and humor in what is ultimately a scary movie.

But sometimes Polanski's films are just okay, as in Frantic (1988) and downright bad, as in Pirates [Import] (1986). The Ninth Gate (1999) is one of those okay movies.

It's based on the book by Arturo Perez-Reverte called The Club Dumas, which was recommended to me by my friend J. Mark Bertrand. I loved it. The book was about a conniving book dealer who is researching two books at once--a lost version of a chapter by Dumas and another book called The Ninth Gate. What made Perez-Reverte's version great is the way that the main character, Corso, gets mixed up in both of them. By the end, it's almost as if he can't distinguish fantasy and reality, and so he ends up falling into several strange situations dealing with satanism and Dumas lovers. And they look a lot alike, too.

But Polanski removes all of the Dumas stuff and makes the movie solely about Corso and The Ninth Gate, a book supposedly ghostwritten by Lucifer. What he creates here is a creepy movie with a great character. Johnny Depp plays Corso as laid-back yet unscrupulous, and his acting fits the character superbly. For the first hour, the tension is taut and building. And then you learn what is actually happening, or at least what may be happening. And it goes downhill from there.

Sure the ending is left open, but it's not necessarily a good thing. Sure there is psychological drama. But by the end, I don't care anymore. The plot has become so ridiculous that I don't care about the characters or whether they manage to actually conjure the devil. And the movie incidentally features one of the stupidest sex scenes on film.

So all in all, it's an okay movie.

Great Movie!
Johnny Depp brings real acting ability to this movie. He makes for a really interesting character - Is he just a scholar who handles rare books or something more? He gets caught up in the machinations of the Illumanati over the book he's chasing.

I love the ending!

Charlie