Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Red Dawn 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Shout! Factory has released a 4K UHD presentation for the 1984 film 'Red Dawn.' New specifications include 2160p/Dolby Vision video. No new soundtrack is included. No extras are included on the UHD disc, and the bundled Blu-ray appears to be identical to the Shout! Factory release from 2017 (note that I did not review, nor do I have access to, that disc and cannot confirm that 100%...thanks to a PM that states that the included Blu-ray is different from the 2017 Shout! disc).

Red Dawn 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray disc included in this set.

The opening titles, flying through thick, dense clouds, notably offer an improvement to white pop and punch and intensity to the film's red title. The picture proper sees some substantial gains over the 2017 Shout! disc in terms of both filmic clarity and stability and color boldness and intensity. Look at a static shot of the scoreboard at the 3:07 mark. The improvements to grain management, sharpness, and color vividness, especially the bright blue sky and the darker blue scoreboard, are obvious. Throughout the film, grain management is excellent. It has a sharpness about it, but also a pleasantly natural texture and feel. The 2160p resolution and strong filmic quality prove beneficial throughout, and particularly through the Colorado terrain. Viewers will appreciate the sharpness gains and lifelike clarity with which things like trees, leaves, and rock formations are rendered. The UHD certainly offers a sincere upgrade in terms of location details and drawing the viewer into the mountain lifestyle and into several key scenes that take place in some of those rock formations where key battles occur. Of course, items like winter jackets, truck body characteristics, and faces present with impressive definition and a solid boost over the old Blu-ray picture.

The Dolby Vision color grading, as noted, yields a superior sense of tonal vividness and brightness. Skies are more beautifully blue and bright, natural greens pop with more lifelike accuracy, earthy elements are solidified for depth and realism, and orange fireballs blast with impressive orange push and vitality, all superior to the comparatively flat and drab Blu-ray. Those aforementioned winter jackets, whether they're dark gray or beige with blue accents, enjoy superior depth and accuracy as well. Black levels see gains to depth and realism; look at the scene where the boy visit their father at the concentration camp at night for an example of the imperfect, but deeper and more honest, realism at work. Whites are vivid and flesh tones are lifelike. The picture shows only fleeting examples of print wear. No major encode issues are in evidence. This is a very good-looking image from Shout! Factory. Longtime fans of the film are going to love it and immediately notice the various gains that make this the clear-cut definitive presentation of the film in its long history of home video releases.

Red Dawn 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Rather than remix for Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, Shout! Factory has simply repurposed the existing DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack from its 2017 release. For a full review, please click here.

Red Dawn 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

It appears that the included Blu-ray is identical to the Shout! Factory issue from 2017. It houses all the extras in this set; there are no supplements on the UHD disc. See below for a listing of what's included. For full coverage of the on-disc supplemental content, please click here.

Blu-ray:

• A Look Back at Red Dawn
• Red Dawn Rising
• Training for WWIII
• Building the Red Menace
• WWIII Comes to Town
• Theatrical Trailer

Red Dawn 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Red Dawn often seems misunderstood as a one-sided pro-war picture when, indeed, it seems to evolve into something of an anti-war picture by film's end. The seeds are there throughout and they sprout slowly, even through all of the go-get-em and shoot-em-up "Wolverines!" elements that wrongly define the movie beyond the superficial. Red Dawn is a far deeper picture than those run-and-gun action visuals suggest. It's a potent Drama about the terrors of war and coming of age in a world suddenly shattered and drastically altered in the blink of an eye. Without question, it also overtly and subtly alike constructs and champions ideas both as they relate to the hardship on the body and the survival of the soul in war, and it's through those elements that the movie finds its real purpose as a story that's not against war in a completely blanket sense of the term but that certainly speaks out as a warning to what happens in war. Red Dawn may certainly be enjoyed, or despised, as a goofy and implausible 1980s Action flick, but understanding the movie's deeper thought processes and not just watching its violence turns the experience into something else entirely and shapes it as a classic movie that's strongly acted and one that's better than most in its ability to paint both dire and hopeful pictures almost simultaneously. Shout! Factory's UHD offers a rock-solid 2160p/Dolby Vision presentation that fans are going to adore. The included 5.1 audio is fine, as are the returning supplements. Highly recommended.