Snow White And The Huntsman/ The Huntsman: Winter's War [Blu-ray] [2015]

Snow White And The Huntsman/ The Huntsman: Winter's War [Blu-ray] [2015]


Collection of two fantasy adventure films. In 'Snow White and the Huntsman' (2012), when the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) learns that her stepdaughter, Snow White (Kristen Stewart), has surpassed her as the fairest in the land and will eventually become ruler of the kingdom, she recruits a huntsman, Eric (Chris Hemsworth), to take Snow White into the woods and kill her. The Magic Mirror (Christopher Obi) has assured Ravenna that if she eats Snow White's heart, she will live and reign forever. But the Huntsman takes pity on the girl, and instead of killing her he takes her under his wing and begins to teach her the arts of war. With the help of the Huntsman, seven dwarves and her handsome young suitor, Prince William (Sam Claflin), Snow White sets out to vanquish the Evil Queen and put an end to her tyrannical rule. In the sequel 'The Huntsman - Winter's War' (2016) Hemsworth reprises his role as Eric the Huntsman who has been trained by the embittered Ice Queen Freya (Emily Blunt) to become a solider in her army of deadly hunters. When she realises that Eric and another, Sara (Jessica Chastain), have broken her one sacred rule - that her huntsmen forever harden their hearts to love, they are banished. The fate of the kingdom may be in their hands however, when Freya brings her sister, the evil Queen Ravenna, back from the dead using the Magic Mirror and their combined power threatens to cast the land into darkness.



Definitely not your average retelling of the classic Snow White fairy tale, Snow White and the Huntsman is a dark, action-fantasy film that's based more on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale than the well-known Disney version of the story. It features intriguing concepts, impressive special effects, and some disappointingly lackluster acting.

The essence of the "Snow White" story is preserved in this recounting: the queen's beautiful daughter Snow White, who is heir to the throne, is displaced and persecuted by an evil stepmother after her mother dies. Here, the evil stepmother Ravenna possesses a disturbing power to maintain her own perpetual youth by stealing youthfulness from the hearts of the young and beautiful, but her magic mirror warns that Snow White's innocence and purity as she comes of age will destroy Ravenna's chance at immortality. When Snow White escapes from the castle prison, Ravenna hires a downtrodden Huntsman to bring her back so that Ravenna can steal her youth and achieve personal immortality. But Snow White runs into a dark and sinister forest where mushrooms disperse hallucinogenic spores, trees come to life, flocks of bats spring from inanimate objects, and dwarves lurk in the shadows. The roles of the seven dwarves and the Huntsman in this version of the story prove to be quite different from the original, but what remain steadfast are Snow White's inner strength and absolute goodness, and her stepmother's innate evilness.

This film is full of fascinating imagery that's brought to life through powerful special effects, great costuming, and captivating cinematography--the scenes in the dark forest and the fairy-filled wilderness beyond are reason enough to see it. Unfortunately, the story moves a bit slowly and the acting by Kristen Stewart (Snow White) and Chris Hemsworth (Huntsman) is rather stoical and passionless and lacks chemistry, though Charlize Theron does stand out as a particularly disturbing Ravenna. --Tami Horiuchi

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