New DVDs

Michael Dwyer and Donald Clarke on the latest DVD releases.

LUST, CAUTION/SE, JIE

Directed by Ang Lee. Starring Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom 18 cert

Lee's wartime drama spans the period 1938-1942 as a Shanghai student (beguiling newcomer Tang) is assigned to seduce a Japanese collaborator (Leung) and to set him up for assassination. Their controversial sex scenes are vigorous and candid, but there is much more to Lee's intense, contemplative film of betrayal, passion and conflicted allegiances. MD

Directed by Adrienne Shelly. Starring Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Adrienne Shelly, Jeremy Sisto, Andy Griffith, Eddie Jemison 15 cert

Russell is radiant as a small-town waitress with a remarkable flair for devising original pie recipes in this charming serious comedy that charts the complications when she unexpectedly becomes pregnant by her domineering husband (Sisto). Writer-director Shelly, who was murdered in 2006, engagingly plays her geeky co-worker.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS

Directed by Chris Weitz. Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Eva Green, Sam Elliott, Simon McBurney, Clare Higgins 12A cert

The adaptation of Phillip Pullman's mighty His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy, in which Richards's young heroine joins forces with bears and witches to confound a mighty quasi-religious conspiracy, kicks off with a passable first entry. It's a trifle rushed, but the story is robust enough to withstand this degree of pruning. The expected two-disc edition fairly groans with extras.

PARANOID PARK

Directed by Gus Van Sant. Starring Gabe Nevins, Taylor Momsen, Jake Miller, Dan Liu, 15 cert

Van Sant pursues his preoccupation with alienated US teens in a slight, non-linear picture of a 16-year-old student (Nevins) faced with a moral dilemma when suspected of involvement in the death of a railway security guard.

BALLS OF FURY

Directed by Robert Ben Garant. Starring Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, James Hong, Robert Patrick, 12 cert

Even Walken can't save this tacky would-be comedy in which he plays a flamboyant gangster and ping-pong aficionado. The gormless Fogler plays a former table tennis prodigy recruited by the FBI for a secret mission. It's all very silly, but not silly enough to be funny. MD

Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Michael Caine, Jude Law 15A cert

SLEUTH

A novelist argues with his wife's young lover. Harold Pinter has taken his scalpel to Anthony Schaffer's play - the basis for the 1972 film starring Caine and Laurence Olivier - and turned it into a characteristic exercise in sexual cruelty. Hampered by lumbering direction from Branagh and an awful performance from Law, the film is certainly a failure. But it's an interesting failure. DC

© 2008 The Irish Times