Region 4 Winners and Losers

    Che: Part One has been released in Region 1 in the United States as a 3 DVD box set with Che:Part Two in the Criterion Collection. The standout feature of this release are the extras, as the video and audio transfer are fairly similar to the Region 4 release by Paramount Pictures. My Region 1 Criterion copy of Che:Part 1 takes up 6.56 gb of space on a dual-layered DVD, with an average bitrate of 6.67 m/b per sec. There is no Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack on the Region 1 release, rather a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is reserved for biographer Jon Lee Anderson's audio commentary.

    Disc 3 of this box set includes a 50 minute Making Che documentary about the making of the film, a 33 minute feature called Che and the Digital Revolution which looks at the digital camera technology, a 26 minute documentary from 1968 by Brian Moser entitled End of a Revolution which looks at Che's failed Bolivian campaign, 20 minutes of deleted scenes, a 35 minute interview sequence entitled Interviews from Cuba conducted by producer Laura Bickford and star Benicio Del Toro in Cuba with actual participants in the revolution and some historians who discuss its long-range effect on Cuba’s history at the time and after the fact, a 20 page booklet which includes an essay by film critic Amy Taubin and a foldout poster of Benicio del Toro as Che Guevara.

    The Region 2 release of Che: Part One by Optimum Releasing is identical to the Region 4 release, with the same video and audio transfers and extras. The Region 2 release is also available as a 2-disc box set including Che: Part Two, whereas the Region 4 releases of Che by Paramount Pictures are currently only available as separate movies.

    The overwhelming quality of extras on the Region 1 Criterion release makes that version the best available on DVD, but if you are content with just viewing the film without a plethora of extra features then the Region 4 release of Che: Part One - The Argentine is more than suitable.