Extras: The Making of The 10th Kingdom, Cast and Crew, About the Characters,
Production Notes, The Kingdoms
Directors:
David Carson and Herbert Wise
Producers:
Brian Eastman, Simon Moore and Jane Prowse
Screenplay:
Simon Moore
Music:
Anne Dudley
Cast:
Virginia Lewis: Kimberley Williams
Wolf: Scott Cohen
Antony 'Tony' Lewis: John Larroquette
Prince Wendell: Daniel Lapaine
The Evil Queen/Christine Lewis: Dianne Wiest
Snow White: Camryn Manheim
Queen Cinderella: Ann-Margaret
Relish, the Troll King: Ed O'Neill
Huntsman: Rutger Hauer
Blabberwort the Troll: Dawnn Lewis
Clayface the Goblin: Jimmy Nail
Chancellor Griswold: Robert Hardy
"Love will find a way, if you want it to", so spake progressive rock group Yes,
but I don't think even they counted beastiality as being on the cards.
Virginia Lewis (Father of the Bride's Kimberley Williams) is
your all-American gal who lives with her handyman father Tony (John
Larroquette), works as a waitresses and dreams of finding the man who
will one day sweep her off her feet.
She's soon to come into contact with a world she's never known before since
the place where she lives, near Central Park in New York, is a mere stone's
throw from a vortex to the Nine Kingdoms, a place where fairy tales are turned
on their heads. Central Park happens to be the 10th Kingdom in the title where
trolls, led by Relish (Ed O'Neill, aka Al Bundy in Married.. with
Children), emerge looking for Prince Wendell (Daniel Lapaine).
The prince's problem is that he's been turned into a dog by The Evil Queen
(Dianne Wiest) and what follows is seven hours of fantasy and humour
with added special effects, but that can get a little violent and extreme at
times, hence the 15-certificate. The extensive and talented cast also includes
Ann-Margaret, Rutger Hauer, Jimmy Nail and Robert Hardy.
"Someday, my prince will come" ?
The picture is quite reasonable having been presented in the original NTSC
video format as opposed to converting it to PAL, which would've resulted in a
significant loss of quality and given that most people will connect their DVD
player to the TV with a SCART or S-video lead, it makes sense.
I'm presuming the series was shot in standard 4:3 fullscreen, as shown here,
but I haven't found any confirmation that it was made in 16:9 although that
is tending to become the norm. The feature is split over 3 discs and the
average bitrate of the first is 4.38Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 8Mb/s.
The soundtrack is in Dolby Surround and when special FX are used, it twinkles
along nicely and effectively enough but it's not something that will tax your
speakers. The original score comes courtesy of The Art of Noise's
Anne Dudley.
The extras are all on disc one and begin with a 22-minute featurette,
The Making of The 10th Kingdom, which is a standard affair mixing
cast and crew chat with programme clips and B-roll footage. The rest is
textual information labelled Cast and Crew, giving biogs and filmogs
for all the main actors, About the Characters, Production Notes and
individual about each of the worlds in The Kingdoms.
The set contains 10 chapters for each episode, totalling 100 which is an
excellent amount, but there are no subtitles which is a shame.
The menus have subtle animation between them, but only the extras menu
has animation and sound. The three discs are packaged in a gorgeous gatefold
sleeve.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
