Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I agree that this is a brilliant series filled with black humor, pathos, social satire and horror. Set in and actually filmed at Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet, it is essentially a ghost story, a haunting, but told in a quirky, refreshing way. One can see why it attracted Stephen King and inspired him to write his subsequent novel "Kingdom Hospital." It certainly deserves all the 5 stars it gets at this site.
However there is a problem with the DVD edition issued by Koch/Lorber. On Disc Two, Episode 3, during the scene where Helmer enters the Central Archive after Mogge, the picture suddenly skips (at just after 39mins) to a part of the movie that is actually from Episode 1 on Disc One (the scene where Helmer's nose is being patched up). This sequence from the previous Disc then goes on for about 2 minutes before you suddenly switch back to the current episode but several minutes later with Dr Mogge already out of the Central Archive and running for his life. You are left wondering what happened in between.
This is not a problem with an individual disc. Replacing the disc makes no difference because they all have the same flaw. It is a production issue. It probably occured during the video-editing or mastering process. How this could have been passed for release is beyond me. I know Fox Lorber's previous reputation for producing shoddy DVDs but after the name change and several fairly good early releases under the Koch/Lorber label, I actually believed they had reformed. Alas not. This kind of sloppiness is wholly unacceptable. Koch/Lorber goes into the same black book as its disgraceful predecessor. If it had any conscience, Koch/Lorber would order a recall and replacement. But with this company's reputation, it's hardly likely. Hopefully the rumors are right and Criterion will pick this up for release in the future as part of a Lars von Trier retrospective.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Kingdom - Series One (Riget) (1994)
Acclaimed director Lars von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) delves into the world of the supernatural with the acclaimed series that inspired Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital. At The Kingdom, Denmark’s most technologically advanced hospital, a number of strange and otherworldly events begin to occur, much to the dismay of its doctors and patients. A ghostly ambulance appears and disappears, the voice of a little girl calls to a patient in an elevator shaft and a doctor’s fetus begins growing at an alarming rate.
Click here for more information about The Kingdom - Series One (Riget) (1994)
0 comments:
Post a Comment