This film is bad history. It misrepresents the situation in the five points in almost every way. It presents a bad history of the draft riots and worst of all it misreprents race relations of the period in ways that simply offensive.

What the director wants to do is make a dreamworld story of the salt-of-the-earth Irish rising against their "nativist" oppressors to bring about a new golden age in the streets of new york.

The problem for the director of course is the fact that his centerpiece for the film, the civil war draft riots, involves his heroic gangs going a racial rampage which involved acts of unbeleivable viciousness. The director tries his best to ignore such events. While he has no problem with violence in other parts of the film, the racial violence of the draft riots is something that he is shy about and repeatedly quick cuts away from. And his heroic Irish gangs of the five points just happen by coincidence to have been occupied fighting the nativists.

To make the hands of the noble Irish gangs even cleaner, the director makes their gang and even their church tolerant and integrated. If anything racial is to be said, the director makes sure Daniel-Day Lewis or one of his evil minions says the words.

And then there are the Chinese. The director totally misrepresents the tiny Chinese community of the era. While there were Chinese communities in the US in the era, they were not in New York. The chinese population at the time of the film was tiny and not mixed into the five points.

The nature of the five points itself is completely misrepresented. There was never anyone like Butcher Bill running the neighborhood. The bowery boys, the closest model to what is shown in the film, were as their name suggests located in the Bowery, not five points.

The other thing absolutely wrong in the film is how the police are shown (or not shown). The police of the era were a gang as much as any gang and they very much protected their own. If one of the police had been slaughtered and hung up as shown the film, they would have come down hard on everyone involved rather than (as in the film) ignoring it.

The point of the film could have been the continuity of gang violence in the five points and the continuity in terms of "gangs" cynically claiming to be for their people and against anyone different from them. It might have also been about the pointlessness of revenge. The director might have used the draft riots in particular to show how quickly "victim" becomes the new oppressor.

And if you really wanted an honest film, the film would have shown a five points with a mixed african-american and Irish population up to the draft riots at which point the Irish population turned on the african-american population with incredible violence.

On the positive side, in terms of sets and getting the look of the historical setting correct, the film is excellent. Daniel-Day Lewis also gives what I would consider his finest performance in the film and acts Leonardo DiCaprio off the screen. Cameron Diaz is miscast, in over her head in terms of acting and very forgettable.

It's a beautiful picutre. It contains brutal fighting. The acting of main actors are good. It's worth watching.

Version: U.S.A / Region Free
VC-1 BD-50
Running time: 2:46:35
Movie size: 41,75 GB
Disc size: 48,30 GB
Average video bit rate: 22.67 Mbps

LPCM Audio English 6912 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz

Subtitles: English SDH / French / Swedish / Norwegian / Danish / Finnish / Icelandic

#Audio Commentary
#History of the Five Points (SD, 14 min.)
#Set Design (SD, 9 min.)
#Exploring the Sets of Gangs of New York (SD, 23 min.)
#Costume Design (SD, 8 min.)
#Discovery Channel Special: Uncovering the Real Gangs of New York (SD, 35 min.)
#U2 Music Video: The Hands That Built America (SD, 5 min.)
#Trailers (SD, 5 min.)

The movie is a great, but we're talking about the Blu-Ray version of it. This is the worst Blu-Ray transfer I have yet seen. I already had the original DVD version, and expected a 1080p top quality transfer for the Blu-Ray, which this is not. I went back and watched some of the DVD version on an upscaling player, and it was indistinguishable from the Blu-Ray; both were well below the usual quality of a Blu-Ray. This may sadly indicate a growing trend, where an existing DVD transfer is run through an upscaler and put out on Blu-Ray, with the lie that it is a 1080p transfer. Judging from the many favorable reviews on this forum, many buyers' eyes or video system cannot tell the difference. I guess that is what the scoundrels who put out this Blu-Ray were banking on. I've just learned to be more careful about buying a Blu-Ray of something I already have on DVD.

This film/movie is absolutely awful, dreadfully violent, pretty disgusting, and likely to be nightmare-inducing, but it is totally riveting, nonetheless - I give it five stars, but I don't recommend watching it and won't do so myself again!