Customer Reviews

Män som hatar kvinnor [Import][Region 2 DVD]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I became a huge fan of Steig Larsson after reading the Millennium Trilogy. His death is a great loss to all readers worldwide who have discovered this trilogy and the unforgettable character Lisbeth Salander.

So it was with great excitement that I discovered that the first book in the trilogy was made into a movie by the swedish filmaker "Neils Arden Oplev". And what a movie! Mind you, there were no english subtitles, but having read the book I was able to follow the story line very easily. As with any books that are made into film, sacrafices were made and some characters were overlooked but the essence of the book was kept intact. No new characters were introduced nor was the story line changed as is the wont of many Hollywood producers that bring to the big screen books that are much loved by readers. Oplev's adaptation did not disappoint.

The two main actors "Michael Nyqvist's Michael Blombkvist and Noomi Rapace's Lisbeth Salander were outstanding. These actor's captured the characters perfectly as described in the book but Noomi Rapace's Lisbeth Salander is outstanding. She made Lisbeth dark and broody, strong yet fragile and capable of the most hideous revenge. She is anti social, abused by a social system that is supposed to protect her yet Lisbeth Salander is the most original heroine to emerge in crime fiction for many years. I am an avid reader and have not come across a character quite like her in crime fiction or any fiction for that matter and Noomi Rapace did her proud!!!!

The film's landscape is beautifully filmed and had me mesmerised. There is a scene that is supposedly in Australia but Oplev failed to capture Australia's outback as it really is. I only comment on this because I am from Australia and it did not quite ring true, but I will not hold that against him. the film's grittiness more than makes up for that little oversight. I would hate to think what Hollywood would do to a trilogy like this and I am glad that I got the chance to see this story filmed by Oplev. It has that understated intense and realistic atmosphere that many Hollywood films lack. The second book "The Girl who Played with Fire" has already hit the screens in Sweden in September and I am eagerly awaiting its DVD release. I just hope that english subtitles are included as this trilogy has become a worldwide hit and I am sure that many readers would love to get their hands on these movies.

I also cannot wait for the third and final installment, The Girl who Kicked the Hornetts Nest. An extremely satisfying end to a phenomenal trilogy with characters that are rare, unforgetable and original. Mr Oplev please take a bow.........oh and please, please include english subtitles.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a.k.a. Men Who Hate Women)

"Män som hatar kvinnor" (Swedish for "Men who hate women," renamed in the English translation as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is an award-winning novel by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson, the first in his "Millennium Trilogy."

A middle-aged journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, publishes the magazine Millennium in Stockholm. He is hired one day by Henrik Vanger, the aged former CEO of a group of companies owned by a wealthy dynasty, in order to chronicle the family history. His real mission, however, is to solve a cold case - the disappearance, some forty years previously, of Vanger's great-niece when she was sixteen. Blomkvist encounters "the old Miss Marple closed-room scenario" with all the wealthy suspects marooned on the family estate on an island; a village we grow familiar with, full of hostile locals peering out from behind their curtains." The real main character of the story is Lisbeth Salander, an asocial punk who has been victimized by authorities throughout her whole life. By accident she meets Blomkvist and the unlikely couple become another classic detective pair where the hunters become the hunted.

Here is a link to the original (Swedish) version of the movie: Män som hatar kvinnor [Import][Region 2 DVD]

The movie came out in Sweden in February. It will be showing in theathers throughout Europe in September 2009.

I don't know when the DVD will be out - but I will the first in line to buy it.

"Men Who Hate Women" (original title "Män som hatar kvinnor," English title also known as "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") is the first installment of "The Millennium Trilogy," crime thriller series based on the bestselling books by late writer and journalist Stieg Larsson. The complicated story of the Swedish thriller unfolds with two strong performances from the lead. Though it contains graphic violence and gratuitous nudity, "Men Who Hate Women" looks more like a solid, old-fashioned thriller that keeps us guessing.

The 152 minute film features a middle-aged journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) working for the monthly magazine "The Millennium." After losing a libel case, Mikael is hired by a retired billionaire Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), who wants him to investigate an unsolved case of a missing girl 40 years ago - 16 year-old Harriet, who suddenly disappeared when the family members gathered on the isolated Hedeby Island in 1966. Mikael enlists a help from a gifted, enigmatic computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), and she has gone through a lot of hardships, some of which you will witness in the film.

The film takes time to introduce the main characters, and its conclusion is drawn-out a little, but as a crime mystery it delivers. The way the incongruous pair of Mikael and Lisbeth follows the clues and draw conclusions is not exactly very original, and even the clever use of photos might remind you two classics (of Antonioni and De Palma), but the film manages to keep us interested.

For the film's real strength lies in two fleshed-out characters Mikael and Lisbeth. Perhaps the intriguing relations between them - she knows everything about him while he knows virtually nothing about her - makes a unique crime investigating team and their story is more interesting than the film's mystery itself. Luckily they will come back in the two follow-ups "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest."

This imported, Region-2 DVD has NO ENGLISH subtitles or audio.

Audio: Swedish
Subtitles: Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish

(Swedish)
Nordens mest lästa roman har blivit årtiondets mest sedda film!

(Filmatiseringen av Stieg Larssons rekordsäljande thrilleroman sågs av över 1 200 000 svenskar på bio)

Journalisten Mikael Blomkvist får i uppdrag att lösa en 40 år gammal mordgåta tillsammans med en av Europas bästa hackers - den piercade och tatuerade Lisbeth Salander.

The book was great and I was very fortunate to recently finish reading the book and discovering there was already a movie! Took some doing to get the movie, first I watched w/o subtitles, then thankfully was able to watch with the english subtitles. There were several parts that differed than the book and of course many short cuts taken which I know happens to all books made into movies. Don't get me wrong, the movie was good and some of the changes increased the storylines effectiveness. But just watching the movie would leave out so many details that one would never get as good a understanding of Lisbeth. So in that regard it fell short. The movie did include Salander quite a bit so that part was good. Nyqvist plays a good Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace sizzles at Lisbeth Salander. Shes a little more muscular than in the book, but otherwise perfect for this part. But altogether is was very enjoyable for me to read the book and then watch the movie and see the characters come to life. Really 4.5 stars.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", or "Men who hate Women" ("Männ som hatar Kvinnor") in the original Swedish, premiered in Scandinavian movie theatres in February 2009, and it has been out on DVD for a while, too. I saw it on the big screen, and I've just watched it on DVD, and I am still amazed at how good it is.

I don't particularly like Stieg Larsson's books, to be honest. I think they're overrated, catoonish, lecturing, and not very well written. There, I said it.
But the first one in particular had one thing going for it: It had a really great story to tell. And Danish director Niels Arden Oplev's 150-minute film version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" cuts away the fat and the gristle, leaving only as tight, well-structured and exciting a thriller as you can imagine.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is the story of a missing girl. And very much more. It is a dark and sometimes disturbing movie; actual graphic violence is quite rare, but there are a few scenes which'll make you tense up in your seat, a gruesome and painfully realistic rape scene among them.
Injustice, malice and outright cruelty are everywhere (but I did smile at times, and even laughed once, as I suspect you will, unless you are a prude), but not in any stereotypical Darth Vader-fashion. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" avoids all the pitfalls of many lesser thrillers. The acting is superb all the way through, the manuscript is perfectly structured, and characters that could've easily ended up as bland clichés come to beautiful, three-dimensional life on the screen. Or in some cases hideous three-dimensional life.

This is a highly effective thriller, one of the darkest and most engaging I've ever seen. The story in itself is no better than those laid out in dozens of other thrillers or whodunnits, but it is beautifully, virtually flawlessly realized. A must-see, really.

I'm still waiting for the version with English sub titles to arrive. The version sent to me did not have subtitles.