The Last Witch Hunter 4K REMUX Blu-ray 2015

The modern world holds many secrets, but the most astounding secret of all is that witches still live amongst us; vicious supernatural creatures intent on unleashing the Black Death upon the world. Armies of witch hunters battled the unnatural enemy across the globe for centuries, including Kaulder, a valiant warrior who managed to slay the all-powerful Queen Witch, decimating her followers in the process. In the moments right before her death, the Queen curses Kaulder with her own immortality, forever separating him from his beloved wife and daughter in the afterlife. Today Kaulder is the only one of his kind remaining, and has spent centuries hunting down rogue witches, all the while yearning for his long-lost loved ones. However, unbeknownst to Kaulder, the Queen Witch is resurrected and seeks revenge on her killer causing an epic battle that will determine the survival of the human race.

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For more about The Last Witch Hunter 4K and the The Last Witch Hunter 4K Blu-ray release, see the The Last Witch Hunter 4K Blu-ray Review published by Jeffrey Kauffman on March 10, 2016 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.5 out of 5.

The Last Witch Hunter is presented on 4K UHD Blu-ray with an HEVC / H.265 encoded 2160p transfer in 2.40:1. According to the IMDb, this was captured at 3.4K from which a 4K DI was prepared, one which I'm assuming was utilized for this release. As with Sicario 4K, a 4K source seems to have provided some significant evidence of uptick in detail levels, as well as improved gradients and contrast which are probably attributable at least in part to HDR.

Right off the bat with the pre-credits "historical" scene there's markedly improved shadow definition once the warriors go into the cave and confront the "beast". Gradients throughout the darker tones are more subtly blended and offer better details in textures on both the cave walls as well as some of the more blatant CGI elements like the destruction of The Witch Queen. Later, in the first "contemporary" sequence, the purplish hue that bathes the scene in the plane doesn't deplete detail levels and there are again some rather pleasing gradations in even the darker tones which are so prevalent throughout the early part of the film.

Once the film gets into more brightly lit sequences, including some outdoor elements, detail pops with excellent sharpness and clarity. Elements like facial pores are offered with pinpoint accuracy, while fabrics and props have sometimes minute levels of detail. Interestingly, despite the prevalence of CGI throughout this film, there's less of the "cartoonish" look that both I and my colleague Michael Reuben have mentioned in previous 4K UHD reviews.

In the first dreamwalking sequence, there's a brief burst of white light (probably less than a second) where it appeared there was some minor banding, and occasionally whites are pushed just to the edge of blooming, especially in a couple of outdoor scenes where the camera is pointed either toward the sky or light sources. Conversely, there are still moments where blacks tend to blend even with the improved management of gradients, and (to cite one example) a scene with Kaulder wearing a black jacket in a dark interior space provides little improvement in delineation between clothing and background even in this new presentation.

On a somewhat different subject, though, this disc provided my first experience in what I have perhaps whimsically termed the FUBAR Club that my colleagues Marty Liebman and Michael Reuben have documented in Marty's article on setting up gear and in both of their reviews of this first wave of releases. I had considered myself blessed not to have experienced much beyond occasional HDMI handshake issues. Playing this disc, however, presented immediate and recurrent HDMI handshake issues, which finally abated and allowed me to start the film. At that point, though, suddenly there was a loud pop and my display powered off, only to reboot to its television home page. When I reselected the HDMI input, I was surprised to get a reading that it was set to 1080p resolution. The film was still playing and looked like 2160p to me, so I reselected a display option for the HDMI port and it was now showing as 2160. This is probably not indicative of a complete meltdown, but it certainly reinforces the impression that early adopters of this format are getting that not all the kinks have been worked out (to put it mildly).

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