Die Hard 4K 1988 Ultra HD 2160p REMUX

New York City detective John McClane, newly arrived in Los Angeles to spend the Christmas holiday with his estranged wife, but as McClane waits for his wife's office party to break up, terrorists take control of the building. While the terrorist leader, Hans Gruber rounds up hostages, McClane slips away unnoticed. Armed with only a service revolver and his cunning, McClane launches his own one-man war. A crackling thriller from beginning to end, Die Hard explodes with hear-stopping suspense.

Die Hard 4K 1988 Ultra HD 2160p REMUX Review
Die Hard is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with a 2160p transfer in 2.36:1. The original Fox press release announcing this version stated it was an "all-new 4K Ultra HD™ re-master", and the results are consistently impressive in terms of upgraded clarity, palette saturation (and in some cases variances due to HDR), and grain resolution. This is in fact one of the first shot on film features that I've reviewed on 4K UHD where I've personally liked the look of the grain field. It can occasionally "swarm" just a tiny bit on lighter backgrounds, but some of that tendency happens during opticals, as in the opening credits sequence where a white railing on a balcony is seen for a moment. Overall, though, grain looks really wonderfully organic throughout the presentation. There is a wealth of excellent new detail here, some of it admittedly subtle on "typical" items like facial pores or even the fabrics of some of the costumes, but perhaps surprisingly even some of the old school composited effects look rather good as well. Some of the increased resolution occasionally provides some minor surprises, as what for me was a new noticing of how Bruce Willis backs his head just slightly out of focus in one of his first close-ups on the plane as the film is just getting started. The palette is nicely suffused throughout, with some incredibly deep blacks (which can mask shadow detail just slightly in a few selected moments) and some nice new nuances in repeated gray and blue tones utilized within the offices. Especially impressive is the whole opening sequence, which is almost bathed in a gorgeous pink-orange tone now that is subtly different from the 1080p Blu-ray version.

Note 2: This is really neither here nor there, and I may be getting to this particular party considerably late (as is my tendency), but it suddenly occurred to me as I watched Die Hard again that I could query the all knowing internets as to what is up with the decidedly odd, anamorphically stretched Fox logo that starts this film out on a somewhat skewed note.

Unfortunately, Fox has not upgraded the audio on this release to either DTS:X or Dolby Atmos. Instead the same DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that has been on previous 1080p Blu-ray releases of this title is utilized here (the stereo mix is also presented in DTS-HD Master Audio). It's a solid mix on its own terms, with good, consistent engagement of the surround channels and some fun LFE when those aforementioned things go boom, but I'm sure there will be audiophiles who think this release would have benefited from a sonic upgrade.

Seeing 'Die Hard' for the first time as a teenager was a one-of-a-kind experience. This level of raw, "edge-of-your-seat" action was unknown to me prior to this film; it made my head spin and the intensity of it was nearly unbearable. When it was over, I could only think of one word: Wow!

For a long time - at least in western cinema - the only "true" action movies (by that I mean films that were all about the action and you went to see them because of the action) were the 'James Bond' movies. They had the most unreal stunts and crazy, over the top action sequences that you could imagine at the time, and they were (and still are) great fun. However, they usually lacked three vital ingredients:

1. A sense of realism (meaning: the hero is only human and can get hurt)

2. Grit (messy, unpolished action, dirty people and LOTS of swearing)

3. R-rated violence (showing the audience what real weapons do to the human body)

Well, it took John McTiernan to bring those three key elements together in 'Die Hard' - and thus the modern action film was born (it had a good run through the late eighties until the end of the nineties – then the studios figured out they could maximise the box-office by taming down the swearing, violence and sex and thus, alas, the contemporary, toothless PG-13 action film was born). Sure, there have been a couple of others before McTiernan's masterpiece ('First Blood', 'Terminator', 'Predator' - which was also by McTiernan - or 'Lethal Weapon' and probably some more), but those films could have fallen into any number of other categories as well ('Adventure-/Survival-/War-', 'Sci- Fi', 'Horror-' or 'Buddy-movie') – and I can't think of another film that was just such a relentless, pure-action-from-the-beginning-to-the-end film as was 'Die Hard'. To me, it's the ultimate thrill ride. The formula has since been repeated so many times, but the original still sets the standard by which I judge an action film. Should be seen every Christmas. 10 stars out of 10.