6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
J. Chandler is sentenced to death only to re-emerge as his own brother, courtesy of the CIA who have arranged the subterfuge so they can use him as a double agent.
Starring: Henry Silva, Fred Beir, Evelyn Stewart, Peter Dane, Bill VandersForeign | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.20:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Emilio Miraglia's "Assassination" (1967) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary by critics Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, as well as restored international trailer for the film. In English or Italian, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
The birth of Philip Chandler
Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.20:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Assassination arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.
As soon as the thick title of the film appeared on my screen, I assumed that the technical presentation would be lovely. Assassination has been recently remastered in 4K and what I saw during the opening five or so minutes gave me the confidence to conclude that the technical presentation would be comparable to that of Grand Slam. (Both films were licensed from Unidis Jolly Film). Unfortunately, something is off with this 4K master. I am not going to speculate why because I don't know what type of work was done. I will simply describe what I saw on my system. So, the overall quality of the visuals ranges from good to very good. There are some areas with small fading and density fluctuations, but these are acceptable limitations. However, something isn't right with the movement of the film frames. On my system, I saw quite a bit of light jerkiness and, more importantly, what appeared to be frame skips. A lot of these skips look like the type of anomalies that emerge during an improper conversion from PAL or 1080/50i to 720p or 1080p. Obviously, there is something else going on here, but the anomaly is very similar -- it is as if some frames are abruptly dropped and other frames are accommodated to appear proper. Now, there are large areas of the film where everything looks fine, but elsewhere these skips are easily noticeable. Will you notice them? I don't know. But this is what I saw on my system, and it is what I am reporting in our review. The color grading job is very nice. There are no traces of problematic digital corrections. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.
I viewed the entire film with the lossless English track, which should be considered the original track because Henry Silva and the many other characters utter their lines in English. However, there is overdubbing as well, so you should expect to encounter some minor unevenness. Clarity and sharpness are good, but the overall range of nuanced dynamics is fairly limited.
While a small film that would appeal only to great admirers of Henry Silva and his work, Assassination has a lovely period atmosphere and personality that I found quite attractive. The film has been recently restored in 4K on behalf of Unidis Jolly Film, but its transition to Blu-ray is unconvincing. If you decide to pick it up for your collection, I recommend that you plan to do so only when it is heavily discounted. In the meantime, consider picking up Grand Slam, which is another very enjoyable and great looking genre film from Unidis Jolly Film's catalog.
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