There are a couple of DVD versions of "Blood Diamond" hitting shelves this week. If you're at all interested in the real-life situation the movie dramatizes, lay down the extra six bucks for the two-disc special edition.

The single-disc set will get you the film, a superbly made thriller starring Oscar nominees Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou and set against the backdrop of civil war in Sierra Leone in 1999, and a commentary track by director Edward Zwick. The extras on the second disc in the special edition, however, put the events depicted into film in better historical context and highlight the fact that, several years removed, the diamond trade still isn't completely clean.

Zwick's commentary and featurettes focusing on DiCaprio and co-star Jennifer Connelly all allude to the care the filmmakers took to be as truthful as they could in depicting the story of diamond smuggler Danny Archer (DiCaprio) and fisherman Solomon Vandy (Hounsou), who work together to recover both a valuable pink diamond and Solomon's son, who's been drafted as a child soldier by rebels who use diamonds to fund their campaign.

What emerges in the extras is that as incredible as the events depicted in "Blood Diamond" may seem, the backdrop to the story is only too real. Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura, who was a consultant on the film, vouches for the accuracy of the scene depicting the rebels' advance on the capital city, Freetown -- and he was there, so he knows. Of the conventional extras, the featurette dissecting the preparation and filming of that sequence is the most interesting.

The centerpiece of the bonus features, though, is a clear-eyed and engrossing documentary called "Blood on the Stone," in which Samura looks into the state of the diamond trade today. Although dozens of nations have signed on to the Kimberley Process, a system that aims to ensure diamonds are not used to fund conflicts, Samura finds some fairly sizable holes through which to smuggle stones.

Whether it's crossing the unchecked border to Guinea to get a better price on stones mined in Sierra Leone or selling uncut diamonds to New York dealers who don't even ask to see the stones' certification, Samura makes clear that there are ways around the system. In most cases, it's apparent that miners have no other motive than supporting their families when they work the black market, but it raises the question of how hard it would be to detect conflict diamonds in the supply chain.

"Blood Diamond" is a fine film with some very strong performances. But it's "Blood on the Stone" that's going to be sticking with me.

EXTRAS: Commentary by director Edward Zwick; "Blood on the Stone" documentary; featurettes "Becoming Archer," "Journalists on the Front Line" and "Inside the Siege of Freetown"; music video "Shine On Em" by Nas.
PRICE: $34.98