Django Unchained (Blu-ray) (2012) |
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Django Unchained (Blu-ray) (2012) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Western |
Featurette-Reimagining the Spaghetti Western: The Horses and Stunts Featurette-The Costume Designs of Sharen Davis More…-Soundtrack Spot Featurette-Remembering J. Michael Riva: The Production Design More…-Ultraviolet redemption code |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2012 | ||
| Running Time | 165:22 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Quentin Tarantino |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Jamie Foxx Christoph Waltz Leonardo DiCaprio Kerry Washington Samuel L. Jackson Walton Goggins |
| Case | Standard Blu-ray | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | None Given |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 German DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Turkish Dolby Digital 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.40:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 1080p | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English English for the Hearing Impaired German Hindi Turkish |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, right at the end of the final credits | ||
After turning his attention on the martial arts (Kill Bill Vol. 1 / 2 (2003/2004)) and World War II (Inglourious Basterds (2009)) genres, film uber-geek Quentin Tarantino fixes his sights on the spaghetti western with Django Unchained.
Plantation slave Django (Jamie Foxx) is rescued by bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Schultz needs Django to identify some wanted men he is seeking, but Django has a mission of his own; he wants to find where his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) is being held as a slave and rescue her. They reach an agreement: Django will help Schultz find the men he seeks, then Schultz will help Django rescue Broomhilda. After various adventures during which Django becomes very proficient with a pistol, they discover that Broomhilda has been sold to the Candyland plantation and its owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Posing as purchasers of Mandingo fighters, Schultz and Django travel to Candyland. But while they may be able to fool Candie about their real intentions, they arouse the suspicions of his head house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), which leads to a bloody climax.
Django Unchained is both very bloody and very funny. The violence is chaotic, loud and messy, and in sequences such as the shootout in the mansion copious blood squibs are utilised that spray all over the walls and floors, which end up covered in bodies and blood. The humour, as in many a Tarantino film, is very diverse. It includes, for example, knowing winks to the audience such as when the original Django star Franco Nero in his cameo confirms that he knows the “D” in “Django” is silent, and totally over the top silliness such as when the KKK band have a problem seeing out of their hoods before they attack. As well, the teal blue “Blue Boy” costume worn by Jamie Foxx in one sequence is probably the most outrageous costume in an action film since that worn by Bunny Wigglesworth (George Hamilton) way back in Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981). Some have criticised the abrupt changes in tone in Django Unchained, from brutality to comedy, but this is pure Tarantino and generally works well; for me the only misstep is the section where Tarantino has his cameo, a section that contains a plot reversal that is just too out there, even in a film with such twisted logic as Django Unchained!
But amid the silliness Django Unchained is sustained by some beautiful images, good acting and fabulous music. The great plains, snow and mountains, muddy towns and plantations look wonderful in widescreen thanks to cinematographer Robert Richardson, providing some of the most beautiful images in any Tarantino film. Richardson had previously won Oscars for JFK (1991), The Aviator (2004) and Hugo (2011) and was nominated for Django Unchained, but lost out to Claudio Miranda and Life of Pi, certainly a hard act to top. Christoph Waltz, in his second collaboration with Tarantino after Inglourious Basterds, is fabulous. For this role he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar; although Jamie Foxx is also very good Waltz carries the film, and I must say that to me the criteria for Best Supporting Actor, as opposed to Best Actor, remains a bit of a mystery. The music, in typical Tarantino style, is again extremely diverse; since Django Unchained apes spaghetti westerns we get a lot of Ennio Morricone (of course) and Luis Bacalov (the original composer of Django), but also thrown into the mix is music as diverse as Verdi, Beethoven, Richie Havens and Johnny Cash.
I may be in a minority about the films of Quentin Tarantino. I enjoyed Reservoir Dogs, but was underwhelmed by Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. But from Kill Bill onwards (if one perhaps ignores 2007s Death Proof) I think Tarantino is maturing. Tarantino won an Oscar for best original screenplay for Django Unchained and the film is wonderfully inventive, unexpected and wildly entertaining, a joy for fans of Tarantino, spaghetti westerns or anyone just interested in the art of filmmaking. If you know your spaghetti westerns you will have a lot of extra fun, but you don’t need to be a fan of that genre to enjoy the pleasures of Django Unchained.
Django Unchained is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1, the original aspect ratio being 2.35:1, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.
The result is incredibly sharp and detailed print that looks spectacular and contains some stunning images of the landscapes; mountains, snow clad hills, muddy western towns, southern slave plantations. Colours are natural; the costumes are mostly dull, which makes the exceptions, such as Django’s teal blue or Broomhilda’s vibrant yellow in Django’s dream, really stand out. Blacks are deep, shadow detail pristine such as in the opening scene where every detail can be clearly seen. Skin tones are natural also. A couple of flashback scenes have all the colours deliberately leached out so it looks silver.
Other than occasional slight ghosting with movement against some mottled backgrounds, such as Django’s ride back to the plantation amid tress, there are no marks or artefacts. The brightness and contrast is consistent except during the journey out to Candyland. In this sequence, and during the arrival, the print takes on a glarier, lighter hue; but this is how I remembered the film looked at the cinema.
Subtitles are available in English, English for the hearing impaired, German, Hindi and Turkish. Yellow subtitles come on automatically to translate a couple of German sentences.
A Blu-ray print that is frequently stunning.
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The film comes with English and German DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks, a Turkish Dolby Digital 5.1 plus an English descriptive audio for the vision impaired.
The sound design was superb. The dialogue is mostly clear and easy to understand except for a couple of lines. There is ambient sound in the surrounds, such as weather, birds, insects and music, and the action sequences were loud and aggressive providing a wonderful experience; gunshots resonate, bullets fly around the sound stage, and bullet hits, ricochets and debris reverberates. The sub-woofer added oomph to gunshots, music, horses’ hooves and the explosions without unbalancing the audio mix.
As noted, the score blends spaghetti western tunes by Ennio Morricone and Luis Bacalov with music as diverse as Verdi, Beethoven, Richie Havens and Johnny Cash. It worked a treat.
Lip synchronisation was fine.
The audio provided a wonderful surround experience.
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Django Unchained comes with an Ultraviolet redemption code. The extras included on the disc are:
With behind the scenes footage and some film footage, stunt coordinator Jeff Dashman, along with Quentin Tarantino, the producers, three stuntmen, a quick draw expert, special effects supervisor and cast Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz discuss the scene when the wagon exploded and horses fell, plus riding, gun handling and a few other stunts. They reiterate that no animals were harmed during the making of the film.
Costume designer Sharen Davis talks about the look of the costumes for each character. There is additional comments from the producers, the four main cast members ( Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio and five other cast members. Only Samuel L. Jackson is absent.
Ad for the film soundtrack album.
Production designer J. Michael Riva passed away during the filming of Django Unchained. This featurette looks at Riva and the film’s design with on set footage and photographs, recorded interviews with Riva and additional comments from three producers, two cast members, the set decorator and the art director.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Blu-ray release of Django Unchained in Region A US is the same technically and with the same extras. The only different is some language and subtitle options.
Django Unchained is wonderfully inventive, unexpected and wildly entertaining. The action, humour, music, acting and landscapes of Django Unchained make this film a treat for fans of Tarantino, spaghetti westerns or anyone just interested in the art of filmmaking.
The video and audio are excellent, the extras are of interest but are light on for a Blu-ray release of a recent high profile film.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony BDP-S580, using HDMI output |
| Display | LG 55inch HD LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
| Audio Decoder | NAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated. |
| Amplification | NAD T737 |
| Speakers | Studio Acoustics 5.1 |