The Hunger Games [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray] [Includes Digital Copy]

Director: Gary Ross Gary Ross

Overview

Based on the best-selling young-adult novel by author Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games tells the dark tale of a 16-year-old girl named Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), who volunteers to compete in a vicious televised tournament in which 24 teenagers from a post-apocalyptic society fight to the death for the entertainment of the masses. In the future, North America is no more. In its place has risen Panem, a divided nation split into 12 districts. Every year, each district selects a teen of each gender (called "Tributes") to test their worth in a competition known as the Hunger Games, which are broadcast across the nation as entertainment, and to reinforce the government's total power. When her younger sister is selected as District 12's latest "Tribute," Katniss volunteers to take her place, and trains under hard-drinking former Hunger Games champion Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) to sharpen her killer instincts. Now in order to survive the game and emerge the victor, this young combatant must put all of her skills to the ultimate test. Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth co-star.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/08/2016
UPC:	0031398252764
Original Release:	2012
Source:	LIONSGATE - 600000-AEC LGE
Language:	English
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	9,737

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jennifer Lawrence	Katniss Everdeen
Josh Hutcherson	Peeta Mellark
Liam Hemsworth	Gale Hawthorne
Woody Harrelson	Haymitch Abernathy
Elizabeth Banks	Effie Trinket
Sandra Ellis Lafferty	Actor
Lenny Kravitz	Cinna
Stanley Tucci	Caesar Flickerman
Donald Sutherland	President Snow
Wes Bentley	Seneca Crane
Toby Jones	Claudius Templesmith
Alexander Ludwig	Actor
Isabelle Fuhrman	Actor
Amandla Stenberg	Rue
Willow Shields	Primrose Everdeen
Kimiko Gelman	Venia
Latarsha Rose	Portia
Nelson Ascencio	Venia
Dayo Okeniyi	Thresh
Jack Quaid	Actor
Karan Kendrick	Actor
Amber Chaney	Actor
Raiko Bowman	Actor
Troy Linger	Actor
Rhoda Griffis	Actor
Sandino Moya	Actor
Dwayne Boyd	Actor
Anthony Reynolds	Actor
Judd Derek Lormand	Actor
Ian Nelson	Actor
Kalia Prescott	Actor
Ethan Jamieson	Actor
Mackenzie Lintz	Actor
Jackie Emerson	Actor
Annie Thurman	Actor
Dakota Hood	Actor
Shane Bissell	Actor
Katie Kneeland	Actor
Steve Coulter	Actor
Sharon Morris	Actor
Tim Taylor	Actor
Jack Ross	Actor
Leven Rambin	Actor
Brooke Bundy	Octavia
Jacqueline Emerson	Fox Face
James Newton Howard	Composer
T-Bone Burnett	Composer

Technical Credits

Gary Ross

Billy Ray

Suzanne Collins

Gary Ross	Director,Screenwriter
Billy Ray	Screenwriter
Suzanne Collins	Screenwriter,Executive Producer
Nina Jacobson	Producer
Jon Kilik	Producer,Second Unit Director
Robin Bissell	Executive Producer
Louise Rosner-Meyer	Executive Producer
Steven Soderbergh	Second Unit Director
William R. Dean	Sound/Sound Designer
Lon Bender	Sound/Sound Designer
Kris Fenske	Sound/Sound Designer
Debra Zane	Casting
Chad Stahelski	Second Unit Director,Stunts
Scott Farrar	Second Unit Director
Peter Rodger	Second Unit Director
Alan Poppleton	Stunts
Mark Rodahl	Digital Effects
Todd B. Mesher	Digital Effects
Brennan Prevatt	Digital Effects
Dawn Gilliam	Script Supervisor
Carl Rudisill	Sound Mixer
Mark Weingarten	Sound Mixer

Editorial Reviews

There was a subtle humming noise that could be heard just after the announcement that Suzanne Collins' wildly successful novel, The Hunger Games, would be adapted for film. It was the sound of everyone on the Internet going "OMG," industry executives planning whatever it is that rich people plan before getting richer, and T-shirts being printed with "Team Peeta" and "Team Gale" where "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" had been before. It was typical white noise, and none of it mattered. Director Gary Ross' take on The Hunger Games works because it's strictly, unabashedly, Team Katniss. Forced to survive in a postapocalyptic society divided into 12 districts (each one poorer than the last save for the wealthy Capitol, home of the totalitarian government and the very lucky), 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a fiercely capable young woman. Certainly, she had some help along the way. Her friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) provided her with invaluable hunting tips, and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), a boy from town, gave her bread when starvation seemed inevitable. Even those experiences, however, were lessons in self-reliance. Her family couldn't help her (her father was dead, her mother too depressed, and her sister too young), and receiving government aid meant entering one's name multiple times into a lottery system that determined which children would participate in an annual, government-sponsored, televised death match called the Hunger Games. Despite unlikely odds, it is Katniss' 12-year-old sister Prim (Willow Shields) who is chosen to fight for her life in the arena. Katniss immediately volunteers in her place. Making matters worse, one of her competitors is Peeta, the baker's son responsible for saving her life years before. Clearly, Katniss is a protagonist who can take care of herself in a crisis. When the novels were adapted for film, the question became whether or not actress Jennifer Lawrence could carry her story. On the plus side, this is Lawrence's movie as much as it is Katniss' tale. Like Katniss, Lawrence is beautiful, but in a way that is secondary to the task at hand. She is able to capture the beaten-down, yet doggedly determined (and, when nobody's looking, kind) aura that a heroine of this nature needs to seem real. Her biggest strength is in her facial expressions, which capture happiness, sadness, and everything in between without ever going over the top. Hutcherson is somewhat bland as Peeta, but this isn't entirely his fault, as his role is much less prominent in the beginning of the series. And the supporting cast is excellent (most notably Stanley Tucci as flamboyant television host Caesar Flickerman, and Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss and Peeta's troubled mentor). Inevitably, The Hunger Games has been compared to Battle Royale, a 2000 Japanese film adapted from Koushun Takami's novel about a twisted government plot which forces a group of classmates to fight to the death on a deserted island. Despite an undeniably similar theme of kids killing kids per the demands of adults, the stories are different enough. Battle Royale, however, never shied away from bloodshed, while The Hunger Games loses something as result of its restraint. Though the combination of sensitive subject matter and a PG-13 rating must be taken into consideration, the fight sequences are at times inexcusably lazy, repeatedly relying on shots of violently rustling foliage and sounds of distress to imply mayhem, rather than show it onscreen. However, this is the only major stylistic mishap. The juxtaposition of the bleakness of Katniss' poverty-stricken mining community with the Capitol's Oz-like metropolis is appropriately jarring, and the absence of both malice and compassion from those watching the Games makes the disconnect between the haves and have-nots palpable. As the film closes, the audience gets the sense that The Hunger Games never really ended, and not simply because there are two books to go in the series. The people responsible for this movie have allowed the material to stand on its own, and respected the ability of young adults to allow romance to take a backseat to issues of class, mass media, and one truly badass female whose bravery and compassion are a welcome change from the swooning, boy-crazy heroines of days gone by.