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Sunshine [DVD] [2000]
 
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Sunshine [DVD] [2000]

DVD ~ Ralph Fiennes
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Sunshine [DVD] [2000] + Oscar And Lucinda [1997] [DVD] + Possession [DVD] [2002]
Total RRP: £46.97
Price For All Three: £10.94

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Sunshine [DVD] [2000]
79% buy the item featured on this page:
Sunshine [DVD] [2000] 4.6 out of 5 stars (14)
£3.98
Possession [DVD] [2002]
8% buy
Possession [DVD] [2002] 4.2 out of 5 stars (15)
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Oscar And Lucinda [1997] [DVD]
5% buy
Oscar And Lucinda [1997] [DVD] 3.8 out of 5 stars (4)
£3.98
The White Countess [DVD] [2005]
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Product details

  • Actors: Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Ehle, Deborah Kara Unger
  • Directors: István Szabó
  • Writers: István Szabó, Israel Horovitz
  • Producers: Andras Hamori, Danny Krausz, Gabriella Prekop, Jonathan Debin, Julia Rosenberg
  • Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
  • Language English, French
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Momentum Pictures
  • DVD Release Date: 19 Feb 2001
  • Run Time: 173 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000056IFN
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4,914 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

    Popular in this category:

    #97 in  DVD > Action & Adventure > War

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

This sprawling family saga follows a Hungarian-Jewish family across three generations, and stars Ralph Fiennes as the father, the son, and the grandson in three distinctly different roles. As a Europudding vehicle for Fiennes and a top-drawer cast (including Jennifer Ehle, Rachel Weisz, Deborah Unger, Miriam Margolyes and William Hurt), Sunshine delivers on all fronts: there's glossy melodrama, high-moral seriousness as history wears the family down like the wind, and leitmotifs--the family elixir called "Sunshine" that founds their fortune, semi-incestuous adulterous liaisons, photographs and faces--that thread the epic three-hour narrative together. Fiennes begins as a stiff Budapest lawyer-cum-officer and judge during the First World War, torn when anti-Semitism raises its head. His son is a champion fencer who denounces the family faith to attain advancement but ends up in the Nazi-run labour camps all the same. The last in the line, a policeman this time, must navigate the Stalinist forces of repression and endures through the 1956 uprising to take back the family name and faith. And yet as a film by director István Szabó (Colonel Redl, Mephisto), it's a bit of a soggy disappointment lacking the bile and spit and visual inventiveness that makes the best of his other works so outstanding. Perhaps the fact that Szabó is directing an all-English speaking cast is the problem, leaving the film feeling strangely old-fashioned and paradoxically lacking a sense of place (despite much of it being filmed in Hungary itself). Although there are some charged emotional beats throughout, pretty costumes, and lots of entertainingly tasteful bonking sequences, the fencing sequences in particular become tooth-pullingly tedious and the whole thing seems to drag, especially as it takes itself so seriously. --Leslie Felperin


Special Features

2.35 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
Cast And Crew Interviews
Trailer
See all Reviews

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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, touching movie!, 8 May 2006
By Stella Balogh (Brussels, Belgium) - See all my reviews
This movie is simply brilliant!

It tells the story of a Hungarian Jewish family through 3 generations. We get to see the history of the 20th century, the 2nd world war, how it aaffected Hungary through a family's life. And though everything changes around the Sonnenschein (later Sors) family: regimes, friends, people they can trust, etc... there is still a constancy: the bloodline, the relations, the family bond, the love.

It is such a moving an overwhelming movie, simply brilliant.

The cast is excellent! From Jennifer Ehle to Rachel Weisz, everybody is perfect! And for Ralph Fiennes who plays the 3 main characters (the grandfather, the father and the son), I can't find the words. He plays them so masterfully, that despite the physical ressemblance, you can see that they are 3 totally different persons.

Yes, of course it is dark because it deals with deportation, Jewish camps, but it is that kind of film that after seeing it, you will be thinking about it for days. I have first seen it when I was 14, and ever since it has been one of my favorite movies, not only because the acting is excellent, or the photography breathtaking, but because it gives a whole round story with such emotional depth and moral lessons that the catharsis is guaranteed.

A wonderful movie, you absolutely have to check out if you haven't seen it yet!
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars epic sunshine, 10 Jan 2006
By A Customer
this film is a rather long but very fine portrayal of a hungarian jewish family whose fate is constantly altered over the generations by the political swings in their country. wether it's the communists or the facists in power, someone in the family is supporting the wrong team. fiennes is superb in this film and it's a good thing as really is at the heart of this story as he plays several members of this family whose attempts to assimilate affect their future generation more than they consider. don't be put off, this is not a film of doom and gloom, it's rather subtle and raises interressting questions about nationalism and loyalty, tradition and another dissfuntional family
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars amazingly insightful, 16 Feb 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Sunshine [2000] (VHS Tape)
I've seen Ralph is some pretty damm good films ( and some pretty terrible ones i.e Wuthering Heights), but this one is him at his best. Fans of his work or just his looks should get this one.

However, I am belittling this movie by just talking about Ralph Fiennes. It is stunning to look at; transporting you to a world of both beauty and cruelty. The director captures the sense of turmoil within a nation ( the Austro-hunguarian empire ) and the conflict that the political instability presents to a wealthly Jewish family. The film's almost encyclopeadic approach to the three regimes within the time frame echoes a simple, yet valuable message to the three generations of that family ( who are all played by Fiennes ) and that it is to be true to ones self, even in times of adversty. Sunshine to conclude is a breathing taking and breathe stopping film that's relevant today as it was then.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Sunshine the dvd
I was interested in the subject matter because one of my friends is related to Attila Petshaur on whose family the film is based. Read more
Published 1 month ago by CLIVE CHAPMAN

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvellous...
Just want to add my 10c...
I have a weakness for Ralph Fiennes - I think he is a very good actor!
This epic movie spellbound me! Read more
Published 11 months ago by Jeep Tenk

5.0 out of 5 stars Hungarian Suicide Song
Although I do have a few reservations about small aspects of this film, overall it is beautifully made and the story well-told through the generations of the Sonnenschein family... Read more
Published 17 months ago by ianrmillard

3.0 out of 5 stars Long stark epic and unentertaining.
This is a good film if you are interested in Hungarian history. There is not what you could call a plot, just a story of 3 or 4 generations of one family and how they all faced... Read more
Published on 27 Sep 2007 by R. Wallace

3.0 out of 5 stars DISAPPOINTING, POTENTIALLY GREAT FILM
SUNSINE is the story of three generations of Sonnenscheins (which in German means Sunshine) through social and political upheavals of the 19th and mid-20th centuries. Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2005 by F. Sweet

5.0 out of 5 stars The best film of the last decade
Sunshine is the warmest cinema exeperience for me in the last decade, with fantastic taste in chosing expressiv locations, presenting wonderful actors - I cannot overemphasize my... Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars absolutely excellent
I have wanted to see this film for a very long time, it was not available at my local cinema so I waited for it to come out on DVD which I have now purchased. Read more
Published on 17 April 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars This a bona-fide epic movie which cuts no corners.
Sunshine is a very rare movie in this day and age. Most films passing themselves off as epic are little more than overblown regular movies with a heap of gloss (Gladiator for... Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Not to be missed at any price!
Being Hungarian and Jewish I was reluctant to see the film in the cinema. But I should not have worried. Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Best European film of the year.
This amazing story tells the life of a Hungarian Jewish family's 4 generations through the region's storms of the twentieth century's history. Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2001

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