Posted: 12/30/2009

10 Things I Hate About You - 10th Anniversary Edition

by Del Harvey

A high-spirited, high school contest of wit and will marks a milestone when 10 Things I Hate About You 10th Anniversary Special Edition comes to Blu-ray™ Hi-Def and DVD on January 5, 2010 from Touchstone Pictures Home Entertainment.

Padua High sophomore Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik) has two invitations to the prom and one big problem: her father (Larry Miller) won’t let her go unless her older sister Kat (Julia Stiles) agrees to attend as well. It looks like both girls are staying home, since independent and unconventional Kat has no interest in going—until she meets the school’s mysterious new bad boy Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger). What she doesn’t know is that her sister’s suitors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Andrew Keegan) have ponied up $300 to convince Patrick to woo her. Just as Patrick realizes he has unexpectedly fallen for his “assignment,” Kat finds out about the scheme and Patrick has to launch an all out campaign to win her back.

Academy Award® winner Heath Ledger (Best Supporting Actor, 2008, Dark Knight) made his American screen debut opposite Julia Stiles (the Bourne trilogy) as the independent, smart-mouthed girl of his dreams. The talented company of co-stars includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer. Brick), Larisa Oleynik (Broken Windows), David Krumholtz (the Harold and Kumar movies), Gabrielle Union (Cadillac Records), and Larry Miller (Get Smart).

Inspired by Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” 10 Things I Hate About You takes a witty and contemporary look at the eternal battle between the sexes, high-school style. The film is an entertaining tale of the rocky romance between a pair of unconventional teens, as played by Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger. 10 Things I Hate About You is an enduring favorite as fresh and funny today as it was a decade ago.

Both the Blu-ray Hi-Def and DVD editions of 10 Things I Hate About You 10th Anniversary Special Edition include never-before-seen screen test footage of Heath Ledger, cast interviews, and more.

Bonus Features for 10 Things I Hate About You:
• 10 Things I Love About 10 Things I Hate About You 10 Years Later –
How do you turn a high school teenage romance film into a cult hit? Start with a new approach to literary classic; find some talented young actors and pepper in the right amount of punk rock! Ten years after the film’s initial debut, director Gil Junger and writers Kirsten Smith and Karen Lutz reflect upon their work as they tell us the story about how this classic teen comedy came to be. Through these interviews and never-before-seen behind the scenes footage, original cast interviews, deleted scenes, original screen test and personal photos from the writers’ scrap books we discover the remarkable story of this smash hit and why everyone loves 10 Things I Hate About You.

Del Harvey is the founder of Film Monthly, a film teacher, a writer and a film critic in Chicago.

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