1920 X 1080 H.264 video @4000k video bitrate
384k Dolby AC3 6 ch main English audio track
224k Dolby AC3 6 ch secondary Italian audio track
Added English third audio track of approx One hour length at 96k bitrate
is also included from an NTSC DVD source featuring the (Indian)
Director Shekhar Kapur who gives us his own take on western culture versus his own and especially his distaste for British ideas of colonization and crusading in respect of selling Chrsitianity abroad when wars are resorted to etc. He suggests that the British are "afraid" of intimacy, and that they
are a "very violent people" which is why he says, they engage in
colonizing others. A preacher in the movie suggests colonization
of these other areas on the planet by the British is Gods way of ensuring that the more noble (spirit) prevails instead of lower classes of (unchristianly thinking) beings perhaps. Kapur
says he is disturbed by this comment in addition to other
things he says - such as making reference to "women ending
up with their skirts up, and men with their trousers down" in his impression of the goings on at the sort of gathering in a scene - how very poorly chosen this man turned out to be for a Director it seems. Such a vulgar comment as that should
have been rejected from his script I should think as showing
unacceptably bad taste and judgment in this matter.
subtitles included for:
Danish English (reg and forced) Finnish Italian Polish Portuguese (plus Brazil) Romanian Russian Spanish
This is an interesting movie exploring the ideas surrounding volunteering perhaps for the army at the moment of going to war -
versus wanting to stay behind in order to get married, or pursue
other interests rather than risking life and limb in some war (Sudan in this case) which doesn't fully capture the imagination as a cause
worth dying for - in order to motivate it would appear. (Leave the
fighting to the more dispensable instead perhaps).
A British man's fiancee and close friends declare him to be guilty of cowardice and each send him a white feather - meant to convey this message to him - as a result he seeks
to redeem himself together with his sense of honour whatever
the risk.
The story, set in 1875, follows a British officer (Heath Ledger) who resigns his post when he learns of his regiment's plan to ship out to the Sudan for the conflict with the Mahdi. His friends and fiancée send him four white feathers which symbolize cowardice. To redeem his honor he disguises himself as an Arab and secretly saves the lives of those who branded him a coward.
