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MauritiusToday.com - Shopping Mall - K2
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $4.57
Your Save: $ 10.38 ( 69% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Paramount
Starring: Michael Biehn, Matt Craven, Annie Grindlay, Elena Wohl, Blu Mankuma
Directed By: Franc Roddam
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302529869
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 6302529867
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Running Time: 104
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1992-05-01
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Editorial Reviews:
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Michael Biehn plays a Seattle attorney who talks his friend, a physics instructor (Matt Craven), into joining a party with plans to climb the tallest and least accessible mountain in the world, K-2. Biehn's arrogant character immediately bumps noggins with the tour's leader (Raymond J. Barry) and the latter's strong-willed girlfriend (Patricia Charbonneau). But when various disasters begin to strike at the group, cooperation ensues, followed by assorted acts of heroism, friendship, and self-sacrifice under almost unimaginable conditions of lethal distress. Based on a play that examined the view on human values from a perch far above the world most of us know, K-2 surrounds that essential drama with extraordinary location footage. Director Franc Roddam (Quadrophenia) succeeds very well at turning a thoughtful piece into a fine action movie--and vice versa. --Tom Keogh
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Realistic
Comment: I saw this movie when it first came out and I must say I didn't expect much. But once I watched it I realized that it was a very serious and very realistic mountain climbing movie. Sure there was a little drama at the beginning involving the one guys wife but I am sure that this exact coversation has happened on a lot of occassions (check out the Everest TV show). But the climbing, the situations, the photography and everything in between is top notch. Recommended to not only fans of and climbers themselves but anybody who likes a good supsenseful action packed movie.
Customer Rating:
Summary: K2 -- the latest victims and with further comment ...
Comment: I'm motivated to write this review well after the fact of the movie's initial release [1991 in Europe and then May of 1992 in the USA] and subsequent DVD release in 2001 because K2 is again in the news with the most recent tragedy of 11 climbers being killed on K2 which occurred on August 1, 2008.
My thrust however is to once again caution at least certain viewers that while K2 is in fact dedicated [superimposed on the screen in the closing scene] to real life K2 summiteers, Jim Wickwire and Dr. Louis Reichardt, and, of note, those movie 'fictional' characters 'Taylor Brooks' and 'Harold Jameson' who just happen to share the identical professions of the real-life Jim Wickwire and Lou Reichardt, viz., lawyer and biophysicist, well, far too often what is seen on the proverbial 'Silver Screen' is erroneously interpreted as take-it-to-the-bank 'fact' versus cinematic 'for the sake of the script and pure entertainment value' fiction!
Put another way, readers are urged to research the actual 1978 K2 climb by, among further others by the way in the same expedition, Jim Wickwire and Lou Reichardt and see what the actual facts really were and are, versus, shall we say, Hollywood creativity. I 'have' actually run across folks who saw the movie and make the transposition, so to speak, of 'Taylor' suddenly becoming Jim Wickwire and 'Harold' or 'H' suddenly becoming Lou Reichardt in their minds and hence their post-movie "conclusion" is that their totally erroneous transposition sees Wickwire supposedly having 'saved Reichardt's life' [!] when Reichardt supposedly 'broke his leg' [!] on the vertical ice fall and Wickwire supposedly 'dragged Reichardt down the mountain as far as he could until the Pakistani helicopter suddenly showed up' [!] -- BIZZZZ! That is total cinematic fantasy! But 'because' of the film dedication and a few minor events that did happen in real life, it's all too easy for some folks to see the movie and feel that it's a sort of 'true event' documentary when in fact the movie is just that, a movie based on 'conjured' events!
That said, I enjoyed the movie. As a fictional movie! Particularly the music! Although my first love is playing classical piano, I've never abandoned my secondary love of the guitar and those high E string lead tones [I don't know who the guitarist was and if anyone does, let me know!] are literally haunting! BTW, the soundtrack that is offered for this movie is ==NOT== the same music in the film! Nor is it 'identical', as one poster suggested in another website, to what he termed a "Pink Floyd rip off" piece. The 'original' music for the K2 movie was by Chaz Jankel and has 'not' been released for whatever unknown reasons!
Final word on the whole, as one Amazon reviewer put it, "brotherhood of the rope" [sic], well, let me quote well known and world class mountaineer, Doc Ed Viesturs, from his "No Shortcuts to the Top" [with David Roberts] tome [©, 2006], page 37, when he rightly says, and my own noting of those 'lines' and 'bottlenecks' of climbers at Everest, K2, et al, where 'some' of these folks have very deep pockets but negligible mountaineering experience come out with, 'Ohhh, it's just a personal challenge ... and it's not like I'm all alone ...', but as Doc Viesturs realistically observes, "The fact is, money can't buy you a summit." Amen!
Doc Tony
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Great, Great Movie
Comment: This came on television late one night. It has what few movies do - a great story. Everything supported the plot, which is dynamite. Parts are perfectly cast. Acting is transparent. Well-drawn characters. Jaw-dropping conflict. Everyone I know who has seen it reacts the same way - astonished that it isn't more well-known.
Customer Rating:
Summary: great movie
Comment: Fast service and great price. Had this on VHS but wanted it on DVD.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Movie
Comment: K2 is in my personal top-5 of all time. I'm an armchair mountaineer, so I like the story and scenery, as well as climbing action (most of which is pretty accurate, with just a few petty mistakes). The very good story is a character study within an action movie, and it stars Michael Biehn, a very under-appreciated actor who was also great in The Terminator, Aliens, and The Rock (he was even pretty good in the really horrible Navy SEALS). Matt Craven is quite good as the best friend. Among mountain action movies, K2 is better than Cliffhanger (which is very good) and WAY better than that stupid Vertical Limit a few years ago.
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