Customer Reviews

Sharkwater [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one thing you will certainly come away with after watching the film.

As a scuba diver, sharks are what you want to see, especially the whale shark, but they are generally so shy they will certainly keep their distance.

The film sees Rob Stewart explore the `Darwin's theory of evolution' Galapagos islands and Costa Rica. Rob is a professional underwater photographer and videographer so the images he captures while gliding through the depths are stunning. That is until they turn to the finning operations, the corruption and images of sharks caught in a long lines where you can but ponder `what is humanity doing'.

This film really gives you a wake up call to the importance of the oceans and the sharks place at top of the food chain to keep everything balanced.

The books emphasis goes more on the role of the Sea Shepherd, the ocean's eco systems and gives you a chance to look again at the gracefulness of the shark.

A must watch/read.

Sharkwater: The Photographs

I was fortunate enough to be in Canada last year when this amazing film was being shown at a university theatre. Having won over twenty international film awards and garnered much critical acclaim, it's shocking how little exposure and theatrical play this film has had in the US. Regardless, this is easily one of the very best documentaries I've seen.

I was taken off-guard by how little I really knew about sharks aside from the terrible misconceptions so many of us have been fed since childhood. Rob Stewart does a magnificent job of thoroughly dismantling the caricature of sharks as ferocious monsters deserving of our fear and hatred, instead capturing the gentle beauty and vital importance of these creatures to life as we know it. The frightening ordeal Stewart finds himself in while filming is worthwhile viewing in itself. You don't need to be an environmentalist to appreciate Stewart's courageous documentation of the heart-wrenching barbarity imposed upon sharks (and other aquatic life).

Watch this film with as many friends and relatives as you can. We all need to be more aware of the impact humans are having on the environment. Sharkwater is a milestone effort in raising this awareness.

A stunning and remarkable documentary film about the illegal fishing of sharks for the Asian food market that is both riveting and beautiful to watch. The film documents director Rob Stewart's discovery and determination in letting the public know about the plight of sharks being killed off. The High Def imagery/cinematography is simply incredible and I'm sure the Bluray disc will look equally impressive as when I saw it on the AFI' Silver Theatre DLP system in March of 2006. The film is essential in educating all about the misconceptions and slaughter of sharks, it is both enlightening and ultimately heartbreaking - highly recommended!

I like to eat shark fin soup until I read reports and watch this title.. This show speak a loud for Sharks.
It is a wake up call for humans. I am not only concerning about sharks but all other animals too. Eg Tigers hunted for the skin and other product, Fur creatures skinned for their furs.(Just to name a few.) This young man risk his life to produce this show to warn all of us, The message is simple. Do not upset of food chain of the ocean as Sharks has live in the ocean longer than any of us. It is maintained the food chain of the ocean well until man started to hunt them for their fins. If the world comes to an end, it is not God's ideal but we end this mother world by ourselves.
Be kind to animals as we are all created by God.

This is an amazing documentry!! I've seen it before my purchase but wanted my own copy to share with others. Great filming, great message. As far as Amazon go's very easy to order and very fast delivery. You got to see this movie!!! Thanks

This movie should be watched by everybody! It shows how we are allowing the killing of millions of sharks for just obtaining their fins! It is unbelievable. I hope that with more and more people aware of this fact, if they know who are paying lots of money to eat shark fin soup, will stop them doing it. As soon as we stop paying for shark finning, there will be nobody willing to do it. I sincerely hope this is easier than stopping people to pay for drugs.
Even if you are not militant on the conservationism troops, this movie will entertain and leave a strong feeling about the importance of sharks in Nature, before we discover it the hard way.
The bluray transfer quality is very good. I just hope a new version with multilingual subtitles is made available soon to increase its effect around the world.

A concise, clear, graphic documentary about the state of over-fishing of one of our top predators in the Sea - & the inhumane - & often illegal - treatment meted out to them.

A sickening reflection on Mans' greed & destruction of ecosystems without thought for any future generations or planetary concerns.

This is an absolute must-see. Biologist Rob Stewart dives with sharks around the world, showing that they're far from the mindless monsters the media has portrayed them as. On the contrary, Stewart and other experts show that sharks are shy, sensitive creatures who kill fewer people per-year than elephants or -- get this -- vending machines falling on people. It's such a crucial film for our time because sharks, in just a few decades, have gone from being the top-predator on earth to one of the most preyed up on. Sharks have survived on earth for more than 400 million years through five mass extinctions. They're older than the dinosaurs. But their population has declined more than 90 percent due in large part to shark finning, the practice of killing sharks for their fins alone, which can fetch up to $300 per pound in Asia where shark fin soup is a delicacy. The finning industry (which wastes the entire shark except the fins) in combination with long-lining and other dubious fishing methods kill 100 million sharks per-year and could quickly decimate the shark population, which would throw off the entire ocean balance in devastating ways. If the top predator isn't around, fish and seal populations could boom, hitting plankton populations which provide us with 70 percent of the oxygen we need to breathe. Stewart argues that protecting sharks is protecting ourselves and he teams up with Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd (see Whale Wars) to expose the illegal shark finning industry and more. The result is a harrowing adventure that will change your perspective of sharks forever. To learn more about sharks and what you can do to save them go to [...]

By Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha

The documentary, "Sharkwater," by filmmaker and naturalist Rob Stewart, has, essentially, a twofold purpose: to rehabilitate the reputation of the shark by countering many of the myths and misconceptions that, over the millennia, have grown up around the creature, and to raise awareness in the general public that the shark is basically being hunted out of existence by poachers eager to sell its high-priced fin - shark-fin soup being one of the priciest delicacies in Asian cooking. Compounding the tragedy is the fact that the fin is largely inedible and used mainly for ornamentation. According to Stewart, 100 million sharks are killed each year to support this billion dollar industry, resulting in the world's shark population declining by an estimated 90%. Yet, because they are not cute and cuddly creatures, there is no real constituency fighting for sharks as there is for dolphins and seals. Stewart's film is a small-step attempt to rectify that situation.

Stewart begins by demonstrating that sharks and humans can exist in harmony together. This he does by donning scuba gear and plunging into shark-infested waters where he proceeds to pet, cuddle and play with the animals, all without incident. He also cites a number of statistics to back up his assertion, the prime one being that only five people per year on average are killed by sharks while a hundred or so are killed annually by elephants.

Then he moves on to the more political aspects of the issue. The movie sets up an interesting dichotomy between two realms of existence, juxtaposing the beauty of nature with the ugliness of the human world. For while we're being shown eye-popping, multi-colored images of life under water - all in gorgeous hi-def, I might add - there's plenty of drama taking place on the high seas, as Stewart joins up with Paul Watson, a "direct action" conservationist who has devoted his entire adult life to roaming the oceans, trying to put a halt to the wholesale slaughter of the creatures who reside therein. We see Watson and his crew getting into tense confrontations with poachers, only to find THEMSELVES the object of pursuit by Costa Rican authorities. Stewart points out how corrupt governments like the one in Costa Rica outlaw shark hunting on an official level - in order to maintain their appeal to eco-conscious tourists - then secretly profit from it by looking the other way as poachers illegally operate off their coasts.

And it isn't just out of compassion for the shark that Stewart and his buddies have mounted a crusade against this mass poaching. It's out of concern for the ecosystem itself, as the diminution or, heaven forbid, the elimination of one of the world's great predators could upset the delicate natural balance in ways we can not yet fully comprehend - including potentially increasing the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere if plankton-eating creatures that are current shark prey are allowed to flourish in ever-greater numbers.

But there is hope. At the time this film was released (2007), sixteen countries had already banned shark-finning (hopefully more effectively than Costa Rica), and the general public had begun to fight back, as evidenced by mass street protests that began springing up in places like Costa Rica to help raise awareness of the issue - much as this film itself does.

Stewart - who wrote, directed, produced and served as cinematographer for this amazing and inspiring film - can be justifiably proud of both his mission and his work.

Fantactic documentary. Shows mankind's inhumanity & dispicable treatment of sharks. As a diver and human being, it just broke my heart to see the way these sharks were treated. Countless sharks killed for a fin. Very hard to watch, but a must see. I had to turn it off at times and restart at a later time because it made me sick to see these creatures destroyed for a bit of shark fin soup. Hopefully it opens a lot of peoples eyes. Highly reccomended.