SYNOPSIS: Inspired by Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 Academy Award® Winning short, Flight of the Red Balloon is the latest masterwork from director Hou Hsiao Hsien (Three Times, Millennium Mambo).  Expanding on the key elements of Lamorisse's short - a young boy, a red balloon and Paris - Hou weaves the tale of a boy, Simon (Simon Iteanu) dealing with the increased fragility of his loving yet preoccupied mother, Suzanne (Academy Award® Winner Juliette Binoche).  When a Taiwanese film student, Song (Fang Song), is hired to help care for Simon, a unique extended family is formed - utterly dependent on each other yet lost in separate dreams mirrored by a delicate, shiny red balloon.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Oh did I ever enjoy this film. It was a wonderful slow time with several characters that I thoroughly enjoyed. I write slow on purpose, to set the viewer's expectations. This film moves along at a rhythm that is very particular, very deliberate, and, to me and my family, perfect. There is a subtlety here that either draws you in deeply, or pushes you far away. I can't see a middle ground with The Flight Of The Red Balloon.

The most important point about Flight is the film production. I'm certain most reviewers have missed the fact that cut to cut time averages well over 3 minutes, maybe more like 5 to 10. The shots are very long, and a lot of character development and story progress happens in each long take. Compare that to the average film shots are rarely more than 10 seconds, and long is 20 seconds. Anyone that has seen this film once, should watch the film again and pay attention to when cuts are made in the film. It's incredible the choreography that had to take place for this to work.

I felt like this was two hours spent with some wonderful people, a boy, his mother, a nanny, a neighbor, and a host of minor characters. People float in and out of this movie just as they do in real life. The story isn't resolved, just like in real life. But the path these characters follow is interesting and pleasing.

The connection with the fabulous movie Red Balloon, it's a bit tenuous. There's homage in here, that's critical to understand. It's homage in the film sense, a director does things in a similar way or uses cues that make us think of the other film. The single most important homage to me, shot length and rhythm of the original Red Balloon. The director used this aspect to perfection. It's NOT a continuation or retelling. Anyone searching for that will be sadly very disappointed with this film.

The director did a lot with reflected images in glass. Early on it's very hard to tell if we are looking at the person directly, or a reflection. As the camera pulls back or a person moves, we discover it was a reflection all along. Another significant point is when we start to see a character seeing themselves reflected (a two shot with the reflection being the second image). The two shot doesn't appear until much later in the film - when we start to see more of the red balloon.

Juliette Binoche, Song, and Simon Iteanu as the young boy are fabulous actors. They have an incredible charm that I enjoyed very much.

The DVD has no bonus features of any kind. It is simply the movie with original French soundtrack, and English subtitles.  (review by Daniel Lebryk)

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* This DVD will play in North America only.  This DVD should play in most players outside of North America as well, but it's not guaranteed. This DVD will play in any computer DVD-Rom.  This is NOT a DVD-R.

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STARRING: Simon Iteanu, Ju;iette Binoche, Fang Song, Hippolyte Girardot.
DIRECTOR: Hou Hsiao Hsien.
AVAILABILITY: In stock! Ships within one business day.
LENGTH: 115 minutes.
LANGUAGE: French, with OPTIONAL ENGLISH SUBTITLES.
SPECIAL FEATURES: 1.85:1 (16:9 Widescreen); Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 audio; 1 disc; Uncut.
VIEWER DISCRETION: No objectionable content!
PICTURE QUALITY: Excellent picture quality. (what's this mean?)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: France (2007).
ALSO KNOWN AS: Ballon rouge (France) (working title) / Orsay (France) (working title) / The Red Balloon (International: English title) (working title) / À la recherche du ballon rouge (France) (working title).
DATE ADDED TO OUR LIBRARY:  June 26, 2009.
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