Acclaimed filmmaker Mani Ratnam's third installment in his 'terrorist trilogy' (following 1992's Roja and 1995's Bombay), Dil Se tells a wholly unsettling and sad tale of extremism at two opposite ends of the spectrum - love and hate. Shah Rukh Khan plays Amarkant Varma, a naive happy-go-lucky radio journalist whose darker, obsessive side is brought out by the woman he falls in love with - Meghna (Manisha Koirala), a mentally scarred rape victim on a mission with her terrorist group to commit a mass suicide bombing attack. Seeing himself as the rational voice of reason, Amar attempts to disuade Meghna from the act, but all the while desperately trying to win her love in an ultimately equally futile and self-destructive manner.

A flop at the Indian box office (thanks to its serious, downbeat theme - a no-no in mainstream Indian cinema), the film has nonetheless deservedly gone on to tremendous acclaim worldwide thanks to its sterling performances, exquisite cinematography and, most of all, now-classic song sequences courtesy of music meastro A.R. Rahman and expert choreographer Farah Khan. Though the narrative gets increasingly flawed as the movie progresses, director Ratnam still provides an absorbing and thrilling experience that isn't soon forgotten. A must-see.

While Dil Se may currently be one of the most famous Hindi musicals out there, it unfortunately has garnered a rather more infamous reputation when it comes to its treatment on DVD. One would think Indian DVD distributors would be chomping at the bit to capitalise on the film’s acclaim by producing and marketing a world-class DVD release along the lines of fellow mainstream favourites Lagaan and Asoka, but alas no. As it stands, there have been a total of four sub-standard releases so far - each doing little justice to the film, its renown or Indian cinema.

Regarded as the best of a bad bunch by Indian movie lovers when it comes to their DVD releases, DEI nonetheless didn’t provide as definitive a disc as you might expect from a release labelled ‘Platinum Edition’. Still, it’s a cut above the usual junk churned out by Hindi DVD makers and does boast a cracking, 5.1 Dolby Digital track with crystal-clear clarity and booming bass that may just be the best a Bollywood film will ever sound on your home theatre system. On the video front, things aren’t quite as peachy, but still acceptable all the same. The NTSC transfer is progressive with minimal dirt/speckles and sharpness is well rendered. Colour rendition is respectable, if rather cold, but contrast levels are far too dark, leaving black shades crying out for more detail. Annoyingly, brief cuts in the print negative occur from time to time as well. The original 2.35:1 aspect ratio has also been cropped to 1.85:1 and letterboxed with no anamorphic enhancement. The English subtitles provided are adequate - translations are decent, though occasionally some words and phrases are ditched for the sake of keeping the pace slower. The biggest detriment is a lack of subtitles for the film’s five songs. Though not crucial to follow the story, the lyrics offer a metaphorical insight into the characters’ state of minds. No special features are on offer on the disc.

The release by Eros is currently the most widely available DVD of Dil Se and is actually a reprocessed version of the DEI release, but of even lesser quality. Though taken from the same print, the transfer is lacking DEI’s sharpness and clarity, resulting in a very soft look and with numerous instances of dirt and speckles. The video is also deprived of DEI’s progressive encoding, instead merely making do with psedo-progressive interlace. The first few seconds of the opening titles have also been omitted for some reason. Otherwise, the disc is much the same as DEI’s - only just slightly more mediocre in every department. Colours are a little more bleak, the 5.1 Dolby track remains a great listen albeit at a lower bitrate and the English subtitle track is also unimproved upon, but sports an ugly bold Times font this time around instead. Like the DEI release, the DVD also includes zero extras. Distributor Eros boasts the biggest selection of hit Bollywood movies on DVD in the world, but their reputation for quality is far less illustrious as is evident here.

Ayngaran's version is far more pleasing with an anamorphic transfer (cropped only slightly from 2.35:1 to 2.20:1), glorious colour and contrast rendition with satisfactory sharpness/detail and a superb 5.1 Dolby Digital track that rival’s DEI’s. The English subtitle track even includes those elusive sing lyric translations. This would be about as perfect a Dil Se DVD as anyone could hope for were it not for the unfortunate fact that Ayngaran are a South Indian DVD label and only offer the dubbed Tamil version on this disc. Other niggles rear their head as well: A low bitrate applied has meant some ugly MPEG compression artefacts appearing now and then. Like the Eros disc, the NTSC video is not encoded progressively; pseudo-progressive interlace is used instead. Some cropping is evident at the bottom of the picture, which is also on the pinkish side at times. And much like every other South Indian DVD release, the English subtitle translation is extremely sub-standard with awkward sentence structure and grammar. While a Hindi audio track would’ve still made this by far the best option for the film on DVD, it is instead only a worthwhile purchase for Tamil speakers and/or die-hard Dil Se fans.

German distributor Rapid Eye Movies offer their own release for the German market. Unfortunately, they have done an even greater disservice to the movie than their Indian counterparts with a truly atrocious PAL transfer. Sharpness and detail are non-existant, colours have a hideous green tint to them and while the anamorphic video offers the widest viewing angle of all four discs, the picture has been squashed slightly in the process and a chunk of the film has inexplicably had the bottom of the image cropped considerably. There aren’t much better things to report on the sound front, as the Hindi track provided is a distorted, scratchy 2.0 stereo. No English subtitles are provided, but a rather good extra is included in the form of an hour-long, on-location documentary on the subject of Indian film songs with original interviews (all in English) with Shah Rukh Khan, A.R. Rahman and Asha Bhosle. Weighing up the pros and cons, it looks as though DEI’s original release is the best option to go for overall - although good luck in finding it, as only a limited number were ever produced.

Score card	Digital Entertainment Inc.	Eros	Ayngaran	Rapid Eye Movies
Video:	6/10	4/10	7/10	4/10
Audio:	9/10	8/10	5/10	3/10
Menus:	3/10	4/10	7/10	2/10
Extras:	0/10	0/10	0/10	5/10
Winner: Digital Entertainment Inc.

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