District B13 [Blu-ray]
Brought to you by the producer of Transporter, Transporter II, Ong-Bak, The Professional and La Femme Nikita. Paris, 2010. An isolation wall surrounds the ghetto cities of District B13. Within these walls, without effective law enforcement, gang rule is absolute. Damien is a member of an elite police squadron highly trained in martial arts. He goes undercover to infiltrate a gang in order to defuse a neutron bomb and save District B13 from annihilation. Damien recruits the help of a criminal named Leïto-whose only goal is to save his sister from the clutches of the same gang. SPECIAL FEATURES * Making of District B13 * Deleted Scenes/Outtakes * Stunt ReelFor eye-popping kinetic thrills, District B13 tops the class. In the near future, the worst ghettos of Paris have been walled in and left to rot. When a neutron bomb gets stolen by a criminal kingpin in seedy District B13, Damien–a cop who specializes in deep cover assignments (Cyril Raffaelli, a stuntman turned actor)–has to team up with Leito (David Belle), who grew up in the district and has his own reason for going back: the kingpin kidnapped his sister (tough yet adorable gamine Dany Verissimo). The plot takes a few preposterous turns, but it’s beside the point–every turn serves only to maintain the relentless flow of sheer physical prowess. Belle is one of the inventors of a sport called parkour, which treats a city’s architecture like an obstacle course; while running from gun-toting thugs, Leito leaps, bounds, and scrambles up and down buildings with astonishing grace. The fight sequences are just as down-to-earth yet over-the-top as Damien whirls, kicks, and crunches through armies of bad guys. Just as important is the tongue-in-cheek tone that never turns smirky; the movie doesn’t take itself seriously, but doesn’t mock itself or its basic cinematic pleasures. Anyone looking for a break from the overbearing CGI and self-important pomp of Hollywood action movies should watch District B13. –Bret Fetzer
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Fun movie but the Blu-ray is lacking.
Great film with lackluster features on the BD. The audio and video quality are good throughout. There should have been better features though.
5 Stars Amazing Action Flick w/ Morals
In Paris, in 2010 (I guess this isn’t prophetic), some ghettos have been walled off and segregated from the general population. Leito was born and grew up in one of these walled ghettos B13. He tries to live an honest, clean life, keeping drugs and violence away from his apartment building and the tenants living inside. When a dealer comes around, Leito flushes the drugs causing a deadly conflict between himself and the kingpin than ends with Leito in jail (due to a crooked cop) and his sister in the hands of the kingpin. When the police need help in B13, they enlist the aid of Leito offering to help get his sister back in exchange for help.
The fight and chase scenes in this film rival the best that Hong Kong has ever sent to the US and put to shame modern American “action heroes” who can’t even do their own stunts let alone Parkour stunts where the actors fly up, over and around walls, rooftops, and extremely small escape routes. The two actors, David Belle, Leito, and Cyril Raffaelli, Damien a cop who teams up with Leito, are out of their minds amazing! Whether gunfights, hand to hand, stunts, or chase scenes this film exceeds all expectations.
Some may be turned off by the French language and English subtitles but don’t be. This is an amazing film that deserves to be on the watch list of every one who appreciates action movies. Highly recommended.
3 Stars Great movie, questionable release on Blu-ray
Those people who loved director Pierre Morel’s surprise 2009 smash Taken [Blu-ray] would do well to check out his first movie DISTRICT B13, which is even more loaded with great action and stunts, plus is not as predictable. Unlike TAKEN, which takes about a third of its runtime to catch up to its title and is slow going until it does so, this film is a total rush from beginning to end and action fans will be pleased. Though the story is involving, you don’t nessescarily need to understand all of the dialogue in order to understand what is going on because of its action-oriented nature, so people who are norally scared of forigen language movies shouldn’t shy away from this particular title. If you do, you’ll be missing a tremenously exciting romp which is refreshing because of its decided lack of much computer graphics in the action sequences.
However, this Blu-ray release is extremely questionable because the only form of subtitles on this French film are closed captions for the hearing impared, which contain unintentionally hillarious descriptions of every sound effect and physical action in the movie in addition to a translation of the dialogue. This is doubtlessly helpful for customers who are hearing impared and should be included, but should not be the only option available because it gets fairly annoying very quickly for viewers who don’t need that kind of description. Because the limited theatrical release featured a perfectly normal subtitle track, its exclusion here is both puzzling and highly bothrsome. The only other option for viewing the film is a poor English dub which serves as the default soundtrack (unless you are fluent in French and can leave the subtitles completely off.) Unfortunately, even with Pierre Morel’s rising popularity, this is a older release now and I highly doubt it will be corrected. I assume the regular DVD version suffers from the same problem but can’t confirm that because I have never seen it in that form.
It’s still a fun movie and very much worth watching if you can get past this issue, but be forwarned when making your purchasing choices. I definately watch the movie less than I would if it had a proper subtitle track.
5 Stars Wow what action!
Another title I saw on the HD network. It was subtitled but although I find this something I’d rather not have, I ordered it just for the excitement in the film. And when I received the DVD it was dubbed too. So, it is among my latest collectibles. Although a foreign film, it shows how other countries have caught up with American action films.
5 Stars Fast Pace Action
What can I say about this movie… well… I love it.
Note it is a foreign movie so you must be able to like foreign films which are very different that typical U.S. films.
It is more about action and chase seens than story but I love real stuntwork when I watch a action flick.
If your into fast pace action this movie is for you.
Filed under: Blu Ray Movie Reviews