THE MOVIE

Bran Nue Dae is out on Blu-Ray now.

Bran Nue Dae is a film that was adapted from the musical, which premiered back in 1990 at the Perth Festival. The film is set in 1969 and tells the story of a young boy called Willy, who heads to boarding school. He gets thrown out for smuggling Cherry Ripes and tries to get back to Broome, where his mother and love interest, Rosie live.

Willy has no money and no sense of direction, so he teams up with Uncle Tadpole (played by Ernie Dingo), who promises to take him back to Broome. Bran Nue Dae is the type of film that's hard to put into one genre, it's a drama, comedy and a musical all rolled into one.

Ernie Dingo and Missy Higgins.

The film stars some famous Australian actors and singers, such as Ernie Dingo, Geoffrey Rush, Jessica Mauboy, Missy Higgins, Deborah Mailman, Magda Szubanski and Dan Sultan. Brand Nue Dae is a real coming of age film, it will make you laugh and cry and it's the type of film that you could watch several times and see something new every time.

Bran Nue Dae will draw you in from the very beginning. The music, the comedy and the storyline is top notch and while some Australian films can be of a questionable quality Bran Nue Dae is a film that every Australian should watch, proudly.

The brilliant Geoffrey Rush as Father Benedictus.

VIDEO
Bran Nue Dae's video transfer is solid, if not spectacular on occasion. The VC-1 encoded 1920x1080p image shows off some of the wonderful locations in Western Australia and Bran Nue Dae looks its best when we see some of the beautiful rivers and iconic areas of this great country in High Definition.

Having said that, the image quality can also be a bit up and down. While the movie looks sensational in some scenes, there are other times when the transfer looks overly grainy, especially during the darker scenes. The PlayStation 3 showed a bitrate that varied greatly between 17Mbps through to 37Mbps depending on the scene.

AUDIO
The soundtrack in Bran Nue Dae is great. The songs are catchy and the film contains a DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio Track. The sound hovers around the 3.4 – 3.6 Mbps rate. The voices are clear and the music is clear and sounds dynamic through a decent sound system. For most of the movie there is some music in the background and the voice talents of Jessica Mauboy are utilised often.

Jessica Mauboy dances up a storm.

EXTRAS
There are a few extras to be found on the Bran Nue Dae Blu-Ray disc...

The Making of Bran Nue Dae (24:17): The making of Bran Nue Dae is quite interesting and features interviews with the director, as well as some of the stars from the film. The making of feature also touches upon the movies musical roots. What makes this featurette such an excellent feature to view is that it actually mentions some of the history on aboriginal conflict.

Bran Nue Dae Making of Interviews (32:16): This featurette goes for 32 minutes and contains interviews with several members of the cast from the movie, such as Jessica Mauboy, Rocky McKenzie, Deborah Mailman, Ernie Dingo and several behind the scenes cast members. This featurette is only in standard definition.

Aboriginies perform a traditional ceremony.

Film to Storyboard Comparison (5:32): This is a quick featurette which goes over several scenes from the movie and compared the scenes on the storyboard to the actual film. Disappointingly this special feature is also in standard definition.

OVERALL
Bran Nue Dae is a fantastic coming of age movie. It's one of the most successful Australian films of all time and it's a movie that is unashamedly Australian and proud of it.

Review By: Luke Van Leuveren

THE MOVIE	8/10
THE VIDEO	6/10
THE AUDIO	8/10
THE EXTRAS	5/10
OVERALL	7/10