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Saturday, April 11, 2015

Blu-ray Review: Return of Sabata (Germany)

Slipcover and DVD case
 

New from Germany by Explosive Media (who also have released The Big Gundown, Death Rides a Horse and Sabata), comes the worldwide debut of Return of Sabata on Blu-ray.  Yul Brynner's Adios Sabata has also been released to complete the trilogy.  While the packaging does state this is a Region B (Europe) disc, it played with no problems on my Region A (US) player.

main menu
 
VIDEO:

The transfer for Return of Sabata appears to be an older HD transfer supplied to Explosive Media by MGM.  I suspect this is the same transfer that has been used for sporadic HD broadcasts in the past 10 years.

It is a very good looking transfer, and is on par with their Sabata release.  The overall presentation is faithful to the source material.  No major print damage.  Color is very good.  Close ups exhibit fine detail.  Definitely a worthy upgrade to the MGM DVD.

Screencaps below (click to enlarge!) -






 
 
AUDIO:

The audio is available in German, English, Spanish and Italian.  German and English subtitles are also available.  Overall it sounds exactly how you would expect, and faithfully reproduces the soundtrack of the time.  "If you wanna get money, if you wanna get rich, and if you wanna good life ya gotta ba son of a .... bom, bom, bom..bom bom....bom...bom..."


EXTRAS:

Explosive Media has put together a fantastic array of extras for the film.  All are presented in HD.  The German trailers for this film and other LVC films, are a real treat as I had not seen some of them before.  The location comparisons were disappointing as they each feature about 2 minutes of footage from a scene (set to Marcello Giombini’s score, not the film audio), and the about 5 seconds of the location today (not necessarily matching up).
  • German Sabata trailers (entire trilogy)
  • English trailers
  • Radio spots
  • German Lee Van Cleef trailers
    • For a Few Dollars More
    • The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
    • Day of Anger
    • Beyond the Law
    • Death Rides a Horse (US trailer)
  • Locations
  • Image Galleries (publicity photos, lobby cards, posters)
  • Booklet interview with Reiner Schone (in German)


IN CONCLUSION:

I would recommend this set to all LVC fans.  I imagine Kino might release this stateside (as they have released Sabata), but likely their US release would not contain any of the above extras.  As this is a region free disc, and can be had for about $20 US, there is no reason not to pick this up!
THE GOOD:
  • Very good picture quality
  • Quality Extras
THE BAD:
  • No complaints!

Full stats and ordering info- 

  • Region: A/B (US playback confirmed)
  • Language: German, English, Italian, Spanish
  • Subtitles: German, English
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Studio: Explosive Media
  • Run Time: 106 minutes (1:45:46)


     

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