The film is, of course wonderful. I will not go over ground covered in the other reviews here, except to say that this is a beautiful, moving and inspiring film. I remember seeing it in my school hall when I was 9 years old and hadn't seen it again until I viewed this DVD. The years have only sderved to improve the film; comparing it to modern movies is a bit like comparing the 1924 Olympiad to Athens 2004- we seem to have lost something wonderful in the interim.

The DVD, however, is terrible. Others have mentioned the sound: this is not an isolated problem. Throughout the film the speech is muddy, the music harsh and distorted. Often there is mismatch between speech and film- an unforgivable offence. For such a beautiful film the picture itself is grainy; although this may be a deliberate cinematic effect (I can't quite believe that!), given that the sound is so bad it is more likely just poor transfer. As for extras, erm... what extras? I'm not usually too bothered but in a film like this, a Best Picture Oscar winner and a historical tale to boot, I would expect a little more, even a short documentary of the true facts, pictures of the athletes or brief biographies of the protagonists would be nice. Particularly galling as that this is billed as a "Special Commemorative Edition" yet is identical to the previous edition bar a cardboard slipcase bearing the words "Commemorative Edition"!; commemorative of what, exactly? 80 years since the events shown? Then why no documentary abut the 1924 Olympics or the development of the Olympic movement? Or perhaps commemorative of this year's (Athens) olympics? I suspect the words "cash" and "in" are involved here.

I can't help but feel that the producers of this DVD have betrayed the ideals which they promote so highly in this film.

A Great Film Of Passion!
Review date: 2004-05-31 Rating: 10 out of 10

Ultimately this film is about both passion and faith. The passion being both competitors extream will to win at all costs, and the faith for Liddell in God, and for Abrahams in himself.

'Chariots Of Fire' features Ian Charleson as the devoted protestant Eric Liddell who runs because he belives that God made him able to run fast for a purpose, and also because he feels that running brings him closer to God.

Ben Cross plays the Jewish Harold Abrahams whose sole purpose for running is basically to win at all costs, even if it means employing the help of a proffessional coach (which at this time was strictly not allowed) to enable him to do so.

Both competitors travel to Paris for the 1924 Olympic Games however when Liddell realises that his first head is on a Sunday (the sabbath), he simply refuses to play, until a fellow runner who has already won a gold medal, offers for him to swap an do the 400 metre dash. Liddell agrees and goes on to win that race, despite the fact that he has not really trained for that race.

Meanwhile Abrahams who has trained like hell all year in order to beat Liddell, is dissappointed that he cannot come up against him, but when he finds that there is even bigger competition from an American athelte, he soon forgets about Liddell and concentrates on winning.

With a great cast, some excellent direction and a theme tune that comes very close to the Rocky tune, this really is a good film, which any sports fan is sure to enjoy, and even relate to. Highly recommended.

where is the sound?
Review date: 2004-02-20 Rating: 2 out of 10

I borrowed a copy of this DVD from my local library. I played it on a playstation 2 and just couldn't hear the sound. I thought that there was something wrong with the DVD from the library and was going to purchase a copy from Amazon when I read Mr. Randall's review.Many thanks.

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