Product Details

• Actors: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano, Jack Thompson
• Directors: Nagisa Oshima
• Format: Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English, Japanese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Criterion Collection
• DVD Release Date: September 28, 2010
• Run Time: 124 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003UM8T3A
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #88,453 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (The Criterion Collection)" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Nagisa Ôshima turned to Sir Laurens van der Post's semiautobiographical The Seed and the Sower for this fascinating prisoner-of-war saga. It's 1942 in Java, and the captors favor Colonel Lawrence (Tom Conti) for his honorable nature and facility with languages. New arrival Jack Celliers (David Bowie), on the other hand, has no intention of playing by the rules. Captain Yonoi (Oscar-winning composer Ryûichi Sakamoto, The Last Emperor) finds himself drawn to the blond major, while the brutal Sergeant Hara (filmmaker Takeshi Kitano in his dramatic debut) treats him like any other captive (if anything, Hara prefers him to Jack Thompson's combative commander). When Lawrence and Celliers disturb Yonoi's sense of order, he decides to punish them both--guilty or not--but Celliers receives the brunt of his anger, frustration, and thwarted desire (a point on which Ôshima remains ambiguous).

As in later works, like Gohatto, the director combines grit (seppuku, burial in sand), glamour (pop stars), and lyricism (the lilacs of Jack's childhood). If the regal Ryûichi inhabits his role with discomfort, Kitano, then best known as a comedian, fits his like a glove. And though Sakamoto's synth-based score sounds like a product of the 1980s, it adds to the mood of the piece.

This two-disc sets offers an essay from critic Chuck Stevens, interviews with Sakamoto and screenwriter Paul Mayersberg (The Man Who Fell to Earth), a profile of van der Post, and two featurettes, including The Ôshima Gang, in which Bowie describes Nagisa's work as "an expression rather than an impression of an idea." In its volatile mix of repression and respect, Merry Christmas plays like a psycho-sexual response to The Bridge on the River Kwai. As producer Jeremy Thomas notes, Ôshima liked to work quickly, and his first English-language feature isn't perfect, but it's certainly powerful. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

In this captivating, exhilaratingly skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses, Empire of Passion), David Bowie (The Man Who Fell to Earth, Basquiat) regally embodies the character Celliers, a high-ranking British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Music star Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also composed this film’s hypnotic score) plays the camp commander, who becomes obsessed with the mysterious blond major, while Tom Conti (The Duellists; Reuben, Reuben) is British lieutenant colonel Mr. Lawrence, who tries to bridge the emotional and language divides between his captors and fellow prisoners. Also featuring actor-director Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine, Fireworks) in his first dramatic role, MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE is a multilayered, brutal, at times erotic tale of culture clash that was one of Oshima’s greatest successes.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Betrayal, regret, and redemption in a POW camp. December 12, 2005

By R.P.

Format:DVD

This marvelous film, based on my favorite novel "The Seed And The Sower" by Sir Laurence Van Der Post, is light years away from the stereotypical prisoner-of-war film. It is so because of its profound understanding of clashing cultures, the hatreds that drive them, and the love that redeems hostile nations time and time again. David Bowie is often cited as the main character, but in actuality, his is a compelling supporting role. Tom Conti has the best role of his career as Lieutenant Colonel John Lawrence, a British officer imprisoned in a camp on Java. Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto scored the film and also plays Captain Yonoi, the aristocratic, Shakespeare-quoting commandant of the camp. These two characters have a strong relationship which, nevertheless, is handicapped by the fact that Lawrence understands the Japanese better than Yonoi understands the British. Yonoi, and Bowie's character, Major Jack Celliers, are wracked with guilt over incidents in their past; Yonoi was unable to be with, and die with, his comrades, the "shining young officers" of Japan's February 1936 military coup. Celliers betrayed his deformed younger brother while attending boarding school. Lawrence is caught in the middle of these two tortured men. He is repelled by the brutality of the Japanese, even as he respects them, and their samurai code of honor. Indeed, wayward Japanese guards are dealt cruel and lightening-fast corporal punishment by their officers; and mistreatment of the prisoners is due to cultural belief, not simple sadism. The beauty of this film lies in the empathy that ostensible enemies feel for one another, and the unexpected kindnesses they show toward one another. But Yonoi's devotion to bushido, and blindness to the British sense of honor, leads to a startling climax. If the final scene doesn't make you weep, then get your heart checked, will you?

An amazing film, only slightly marred by a few botched scenes and poor editing. (Oshima rarely shot more than one take.)

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, A DVD release to be proud of! January 21, 2006

By R. Max Totten

Format:DVD

I've been suckered into a few other DVD releases of this film, so I was skeptical about this one. However in selling my other two copies and taking the money from those sells and buying this one, well need I say this is the last version, but the one I'm completely satisfied with. The extras included filmed memories by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Producer JeremyThomas and Director Nagisa Oshima as well as an 1983 thirty-minute behind the scenes short. The film is beautiful and has been mastered from a new 35MM print and the haunting score by Ryuichi Sakamoto makes this DVD a treasured film for years to come.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983, Nagisa Oshima) July 14, 2005

By Sam

Format:DVD

A highly unusual war movie with as many detractors as fans, this English-language feature directed by Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses) stars David Bowie as a silent, ethereal POW in a Japanese camp. Protesting--via his own enigmatic rebellion--the camp's brutal conditions and treatment of prisoners, Bowie's character earns the respect of the camp commandant (Ryuichi Sakamoto). While the two seem locked in an unspoken, spiritual understanding, another prisoner (Tom Conti) engages in a more conventional resistance against a monstrous sergeant (Takeshi). The film has a way of evoking as many questions as certainties, and it is not always easy to understand the internal logic of the characters' actions. But that's generally true of Oshima's movies, in which the power of certain relationships is almost hallucinatory in self-referential intensity. The cast is outstanding, and Bowie is particularly fascinating in his alien way.