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Latest video releases reviewed

BIRTH ****

Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Starring Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Anne Heche, Arliss Howard 15 cert

Wrongly assessed as a supernatural shocker rather than the intelligent exercise in surrealism it actually is, Glazer's icily beautiful film, which sees Kidman's dead husband appear before her as a round-faced child, was one of the most under-rated films of last year. Its only major flaw is a pedestrian denouement which pointlessly seeks to impose logic on the illogical. Donald Clarke

THE WOODSMAN ****

Directed by Nicole Kassel. Starring Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Benjamin Bratt, Mos Def, Eve, David Allan Grier 18 cert

Bacon, never more impressive, plays a convicted paedophile on a rocky road to redemption when he is paroled after 12 years in prison. The tone of the film is in synch with his performance, quiet and measured, and it never attempts to sensationalise the difficult material at its core. Michael Dwyer

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS/SHI MIAN MAI FU ****

Directed by Zhang Yimou. Starring Takeshi Kane- shiro, Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi 12 cert

An intoxicating Chinese cocktail of romantic melodrama and spectacular action sequences, Zhang's highly entertaining audio-visual experience is set in 859 AD as it tells a tangled tale of faked identities. But that is just a framework to trigger and support a series of deliriously staged set pieces. Michael Dwyer

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ****

Directed by Joel Schumacher. Starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver 12 cert

Boring adaptation of Lord Lloyd Webber's boring musical, in which boring Gerard ferries boring Emmy about the sewers of Paris while boring, ersatz opera drones on and on, desperately seeking - and eventually finding - the same boring melodic sedatives the composer has been flogging throughout his century-long career. The film lost a fortune. (DC produces onion.) Boo hoo! Donald Clarke