Welcome to February’s Blu-ray Bounty column, looking at interesting new 4K Blu-ray releases from February 2025 that will make a fine addition to your home theater hardware.
Blu-ray Bounty is where we indulge TechRadar’s institutional love of the rich quality of 4K Blu-ray discs – you can read all the Blu-ray Bounty entries here. We fire up the best 4K Blu-ray players in order see what the best TVs can really do during our reviews, and naturally we use them to push the best soundbars to their full potential.
In January’s 4K Blu-ray round-up, we looked at why The Wild Robot, Se7en, and Seven Samurai (1954) all make great additions to your collection. This month, I’ve picked The Last Voyage of the Demeter and a couple of Criterions: Winchester ’73 and Punch Drunk Love.
As ever, I tested these discs on a Panasonic DP-UB820 4K Blu-ray player, with a Panasonic MZ1500 OLED TV capable of supporting all forms of HDR, and the Samsung HW-Q990C Dolby Atmos soundbar.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Image 1 of 3
A fun idea for riffing on a classic: The Last Voyage of the Demeter basically tells just the story of the ship that carried Dracula to England, building on the ship’s log from the original Stoker story. It wasn’t much of a hit, but it has something I can’t resist: a superb Dolby Atmos soundtrack.
This is a great surround-sound showpiece right from the opening scene, with rain falling precisely across the screen and thunder rumbling from behind. And it goes on from there – as the ill-fated Demeter sets out into choppy waters, you get a great sense of the waves crashing across the front, and the wind and rain whipping around the sides and rear. A hand knocking on wood echoes around the still air, distinctly moving around the room convincingly. Creepy whispers and the creaks inside the ship layer in the mix all over – it really makes the most of its setting, and of the abilities of Dolby Atmos, to create its atmosphere.
It’s a very contrasty movie visually, too, and while I have mixed feelings about the cinematography overall, it’s a solid showcase for the best OLED TVs. Lots of shots fill the frame with great sections of inky black, while other scenes use barely visible details in the darkness to build the tension. It helps that it has an impressive physical ship set to make great use of for these shots. You’re not getting a better contrast-y showcase than Se7en, from last month’s list, but that’s fine – it’s the sound that sells this disc for me.
Winchester ’73
Image 1 of 3
Let’s move from a movie you should primarily own for its audio prowess, to one you absolutely should not buy if audio impact is your goal. It’s not very often that the sound readout on my Blu-ray player reports “1ch” – but you’re getting mono audio in glorious LPCM here. It’s really well mixed, clear and presents dialogue impeccably, so it’s an excellent example of the form – but don’t expect to give your speakers a workout.
The title card says that this movie is about the Winchester rifle, the “gun that won the West”, which is true in the same way The Lord of the Rings is about the One Ring – what the movie will show us is how such a prize as owning a super-rare Winchester interacts with the varying morals and character of people in the Old West. The titular gun, one of only 1,000 in existence at the time and coveted by all, is won fairly by Lin (James Stewart) early in the movie, then immediately stolen by his nemesis, Dutch. Dutch then loses it in a dodgy poker game, then it’s taken forcefully by a Native American tribe… it’s a more dangerous thing to carry than it is to use. Following the gun over even just a short time shows the cruel tapestry of life at the time, while Lin and Dutch both work to track it down, heading towards an inevitable showdown.
The advantage of this 4K restoration is less in its ultra-sharp detail and texture (a beautiful soft film grain plays over the latter, as long as your TV’s processing allows it to) though it can be wonderfully crisp, especially since its broad depth of field keeps the background clear at all times, making its towns feels large and its rooms feel worn-in. Visually, what plays well here is nuance across the gray and dark tones, especially in the shooting compeition scenes near the start, where deep dark hat tones meet a plethora of clothing tones, light skin tones, and white targets. It’s a very fine example of capturing and highlighting the quality of film from the time.
Punch-Drunk Love
Image 1 of 3
Paul Thomas Anderson’s strange love-story-meets-mild-thriller was incredibly influential. It follows Barry (Adam Sandler), a seller of novelty tchotchkes and junk, whose lonely life gets nudged off balance by the sudden arrival of a crash, a woman, and a piano. And then some heavies from a fake phone sex line turn up to try to extort money out of him, while his many, many sisters try to ruin his life (accidentally? on purpose?). It makes more sense when you watch it.
This 4K Dolby Vision HDR presentation is so striking in its use of color, really popping the vibrance of Barry’s blue suit, the spectrum of ready meals in the supermarket, the warm wood of the piano, the visual art between scenes – all contrasted against the more muted palate of most of the rest of the world. It’s vibrant in a way that movies rarely try to be any more, and is so beautiful for it – it’s a way to show off the richness of a great TV or projector without resorting to super-stylized animation. You’ve got beautiful ’00s chemically-processed colors here in gorgeous HDR.
It’s a great audio presentation too – the movie has its powerfully dynamic moments that the Dolby Atmos track is able to really jump on, and the ambient and background noises that the movie relies on are mixed just-so. Like the colors, the audio is just a little over-real, exactly as it’s supposed to be.
You might also like
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/w4L63Y4gHTJC2gog7orbhS-1200-80.jpg
Source link
