The Lost City of Z 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

The Lost City of Z 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Six years ago, I covered Broad Green Pictures' Blu-ray release of James Gray's The Lost City of Z (2016). For a synopsis and analysis of the film, as well as of the disc's technical merits, please see my review here.

Percy addresses the Royal Geographical Society.

The Lost City of Z 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout! Studios advertises its 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision (HDR10-compatible) and Blu-ray as emanating from a "new restoration from a 2K digital intermediate." This would seem that the 2160p presentation is an upscale from the same DI source that was used for Broad Green Pictures' 1080p transfer. However, there are reports that a 4K DI was prepared in 2016 with some American exhibitors showing The Lost City of Z in 4K DLP. I saw the movie at one of my local theaters in late spring of 2017 but can't state with certainty a 4K DCP was prepared for projection at that venue.

In any case, the 2.39:1 picture benefits from Dolby Vision with a noticeable uptick in detail. For example, I could see skin textures on medium close-ups (see Screenshot #s 12-13, 15-16) of Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) better than I could on the two Blu-rays. Grain levels are managed better on the Shout! transfers than they are on the Broad Green disc. Also, the latter's transfer sports a bright yellow that's been toned down on both the UHD and Blu-ray. Shout!'s HEVC-encoded BD-100 (feature size: 87.8 GB) carries a mean video bitrate of 80.0 Mbps along with an overall bitrate of 89.0 Mbps. Shout!'s MPEG-4 AVC-encoded Blu-ray (disc size: 47.86 GB) has an average video bitrate of 34999 kbps. Broad Green's Blu-ray (disc size: 45.84 GB) boasts a mean video bitrate of 34328 kbps. I rate the video on the 4K a 4.75/5.00.

Shout! provides its standard twelve chapters for the 141-minute feature. (Broad Green's disc contains twenty chapters.)

Screenshot #s 1-22, 25, 28, 31, 34, 37, & 40 = Shout! Studios 2023 4K Ultra HD BD-100 (downsampled to 1080p)
Screenshot #s 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, & 39 = Shout! Studios 2023 2K-Remastered BD-50
Screenshot #s 23, 26, 29, 32, 35, & 38 = Broad Green Pictures 2017 BD-50

The Lost City of Z 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (3717 kbps, 24-bit) and a DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo downmix (2009 kbps, 24-bit). Shout! has dropped Broad Green's lossy DTS Spanish dub. Shout!'s 5.1 mix is practically identical to Broad Green's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (3795 kbps, 24-bit). Much of the film is spoken in English. There's also dialogue in Spanish and Portuguese with English subtitles burned into the cinema print. (See my first review for a visual example. The obligatory English subs are the same on the Shout! release.) In addition, there's some words spoken in Tupi, the indigenous people's native language, which are not translated at all. (James Gray did that by design.) Charlie Hunnam has such a commanding voice that it registers basso profundo on the sound track. The satellite speakers make excellent use of horses' hooves, insects trilling, raindrops, gunshots, and general ambience in the Amazonian jungle. Composer Christopher Spelman contributes a very fine score. One piece ("The Argument" on the official soundtrack album) recalls the late great Wojciech Kilar, who wrote the music for Gray's We Own the Night (2007). Other pieces are more contemplative and evoke Zimmer's work. Gray's excerpting of Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé (1912) works like magic in the film. It soars on the lossless mix.

On a second viewing, I watched the entire film with the optional English SDH on. They appear in a relatively large font and deliver an accurate transcription of the dialogue. They identify the speaker with brackets around her or his name. The SDH mistranslate only one word.

The Lost City of Z 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Shout! has brought over all of Broad Green's extras. Please note that while Gray's feature-length commentary appears on both discs, the other (short) special features are only on the Blu-ray.

• Audio Commentary with Director James Gray - the always articulate Gray delivers a very chatty discussion of Lost City, including the immense logistical problems the production posed. There are only a few very short lulls (including at the two-hour mark), but Gray remains present till the middle of the end credits. In English, not subtitled.

• Adventure in the Jungle (2:21, 1080p) - a mini-featurette with very short interviews with director James Gray, author David Grann as well as actors Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, and Tom Holland. Shows some on-location footage. In English, not subtitled.

• From Novel to Screen (3:10, 1080p) - a promotional featurette with more interview snippets featuring Grann, Gray, Hunnam, Pattinson, and Holland. The remarks are intercut with clips from the film. In English, not subtitled.

• Expedition Journal - designed like one of Percy Fawcett's own scrapbooks, this is basically a photo gallery made up of two sections: "Exploring the Journey" and "Creating the Journey." The former contains twenty notebook pages of stills from the film. The latter is comprised of eighteen pages with photos taken on the set. The stills filled most of my screen and haven't been stretched.

The Lost City of Z 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Lost City of Z holds up more than well today as it has gotten even better with age. Seeing this again makes me think of Hector Babenco's At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991), which has yet to receive a Blu-ray release from Warner Bros. or another label. Hopefully, that will be coming to physical HD soon. Shout!'s 4K transfer of Lost City on the UHD is very good, even if it is an upscale. I believe that the colors and tones have a nice, moderate saturation on the Shout! discs. Also, grain is more evenly balanced than it is on the Broad Green transfer and doesn't intrude on the film's visual splendor. Shout! retains the same outstanding DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix. Even if you own Broad Green's disc, it's worth upgrading if you can grab it at a lower price. RECOMMENDED VERY STRONGLY.