UHD Review Eastern Promises UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Neil Middlemiss]

Eastern Promises explores violence and the darkness that people are capable of, balanced by the humanity of those who find themselves caught up in that darkness. Director David Cronenberg, a wonderful craftsman, found great success exploring the complexity of human life in simple strokes – grounded tales of human awfulness and the streaks of kindness and hope that somehow break through. In this film he gives us moments that can make us wince with their unabashed brutality followed swiftly by moments that enthrall us with more elegant and softer views of humanity’s tragic side. Eastern Promises is a promise you should keep and one that seems to get better with age.



Eastern Promises (2007)



Released: 21 Sep 2007
Rated: R
Runtime: 100 min




Director: David Cronenberg
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller



Cast: Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Armin Mueller-Stahl...

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[TravisR]

One of Cronenberg's best dramas. I'll be picking this disc up soon.

Thanks for the review, Neil!

 

[titch]

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You gave the film 1 out of five?? Surely some mistake?

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

You gave the film 1 out of five?? Surely some mistake?

Indeed. Posting reviews late at night after an awfully long day will cause that kind of miss. I've updated with my true rating.

 

[Bartman]

I watched the DVD recently and the film is as good as I remembered. The Blu-ray gets a good review here but I've learnt to be careful of transfers made in the early 2000s, to avoid disappointment. What is your opinion of the 2007 Blu-ray release?
P.S. I don't have a 4K player or intend getting one.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

I watched the DVD recently and the film is as good as I remembered. The Blu-ray gets a good review here but I've learnt to be careful of transfers made in the early 2000s, to avoid disappointment. What is your opinion of the 2007 Blu-ray release?
P.S. I don't have a 4K player or intend getting one.

I never picked up the Blu-ray, I only had the HD-DVD, which was a good release.

 

[James Luckard]

I watched the DVD recently and the film is as good as I remembered. The Blu-ray gets a good review here but I've learnt to be careful of transfers made in the early 2000s, to avoid disappointment. What is your opinion of the 2007 Blu-ray release?
P.S. I don't have a 4K player or intend getting one.

KL explained over at another site that this film was finished at 2K, like a lot of films at the time, and it would have been prohibitively expensive to rebuild the entire film from the negative.

They used the same original 2K master, but the DP did come in, apparently, to work on, among other things, color timing, which is slightly different from the BD.

It was a good BD, so they don't look hugely different, but the UHD does offer better compression, of course, which allows for modestly improved detail, and I'm sure the HDR helps too:

Eastern Promises • US Blu-ray vs. US Ultra HD Blu-ray

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[Wayne Klein]

I never picked up the Blu-ray, I only had the HD-DVD, which was a good release.

It comes with the Blu which looks really close to the stellar transfer of the 4K. This beats the 2007 IMHO.

I watched the DVD recently and the film is as good as I remembered. The Blu-ray gets a good review here but I've learnt to be careful of transfers made in the early 2000s, to avoid disappointment. What is your opinion of the 2007 Blu-ray release?
P.S. I don't have a 4K player or intend getting one.

 

[Bartman]

I recently received the KL Blu-ray from a seller on Ebay. The original DVD had very good picture quality, that is always a good sign, and this Blu-ray is even better. It just goes to show that some quality transfers were done at the dawn of Blu-ray and hopefully KL will search them out and re-release them!