DVD Reviews: Anzacs

Contained in this 3 disc set is the wonderful story about the ANZACs that was done quite a number of years ago starring among others, Paul Hogan, Andrew Clarke and John Blake. The tale is a historical one and most of us should know bits of it through our Australian history lessons.

I remember when this series was aired and loving it at the time. It has dated a bit in terms of special effects and when put up against Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan, there truly is no comparison. However if viewers do take the age of the series into account, the special effects are to be forgiven due to the great acting and general spirit of the show.

The tale is of a company that served during World War I and fought in campaigns including the bitter battle fought at Gallipoli all the way through to the Western Front. The interesting thing about it all is that the story is based on the true story of this company whilst some soldiers in the show are purely fictitious, there are also a number that were based on real life men who served during this period.

The effort of the actors is what truly makes this DVD shine and come to life. The spirit of the Aussie battler is exemplified in the tale of these young men, these "Diggers" who volunteered to fight overseas for a number of reasons, for some not the least of which was to see the world. It's important to remember that the men of the AIF were volunteers and not forced into the Army to fight. I do think that this series helps do some justice to the spirits of those brave men as well as serve as an entertaining history lesson to the younger generation.

The disc looks nice and in some ways betrays the age of the source material. Audio is in Dolby 2.0 which is unfortunate as there were a number of times that a full surround sound accompaniment would have been wonderful. The story, being based on real events is wonderful and purely from an entertainment perspective, the series makes for wonderful viewing. The extras on the disc are not that magnificent, though fortunately the feature itself more than makes up for it.

I thoroughly recommend the title and believe it would take pride of place in many a collection.