Movie Details

Original Title
» Gangs of New York

Year
» 2002

Director
» Martin Scorsese

Cast
» Leonardo DiCaprio

IMDb
» http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0217505/

 Product Photos

 Discjunkie's Comments

Packaging / Design

This set is really quite an eye-catcher. The tin box is just HUGE and it looks great. The only thing missing on it would be embossed letters or something, but unfortunetley we just get a slick metall for this one. Apart from a great outer box we get a t-shirt with the movie logo on it, as well as a plastic (pretty cheap looking) wrist watch with a picture from the movie "inside" of it.

The real suprise for me on this one was the digipack for the movie (I had no idea it even excisted, thaught I would just be looking at another keepcase-release). It's a three-piece fold out and looks really good on the whole. Oddly enough, the digipack has a pocket for some kind of insert... but there's nothing to be found to put in it (!). At first I thaught that there was something missing but then I recalled that (just moments earlier) I opened the thing sealed (!). Man, how quickly we forget. Anywhooo; The big metall box and the digipack are just stunning and as far as an exclusive looking set goes, this one is just breathtaking. And even if it's the size of the box that does most of the work, I just gotta hand it to the Portuguese - You're steel is to die for!.

Disc contents / Extras

As for the contents of the dvd, It's a pretty decent 2-disc special edition. The movie is presented with both Dolby Digital and DTS sound. No english subtitles but the portuguese ones are atleast optional so it won't be worse the real life, right ;)

The extras are both interesting and multiple. There's a bunch of featurettes and documentaries, and also a commentary track. All in all pretty much you regular 2-disc set and not really anything different from the other regions. And I guess this would make it all well good... But there's one MAJOR let down. The movie has been cropped (!!!). I can't find the precise ratio stated on the box but it looks like 1.85:1. Together with the lacking of english subs, this puts the set down quite a few marks from 'perfect'. As for the menus I'm a bit undecided. They're partually animated and look fine, but they come with some really annoying soundloops in the background (like barn-dancing or such). All in all, the dvd is OK but it could've been done better.

Sidenotes

This gift set was manufactured in Portugal and is (as far as I know) a Fnac store exclusive (?). There's no official numbering but the set appears to be OOP (I got my copy off of ebay).

Simular style sets (with dvd, large tin box, t-shirt and watch) have also been made for a couple of other films. These we're also Fnac store exclusive and the films I know about that've gotten this treatment so far are David Fincher's Se7en, Alejandro Amenábar's The Others and Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education. And as a final note (slightly OT), there's also a number of films that have been released with the same package contents (but with smaller tin boxes) in Spain. But I'm note sure if the latter were exclusive to Spanish Fnac stores or if they were sold elsewhere in Spain as well.