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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Cold Blood Legacy (aka Cold Blood) (Blu-ray) (2019)

Cold Blood Legacy (aka Cold Blood) (Blu-ray) (2019)

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Released 23-Oct-2019

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Action None
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2019
Running Time 91:36
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Frederic Petitjean
Studio
Distributor

Universal Pictures Home Video
Starring Jean Reno
Sarah Lind
Joe Anderson
David Gyasi
Francois Guetary
Ihor Ciszewycz
Case Standard Blu-ray
RPI ? Music None Given


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1
French dts 5.1
Russian dts 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 1080p
Original Aspect Ratio 2.40:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired
French
Dutch
Danish
Finnish
Norwegian
Swedish
Russian
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

     After crashing her snowmobile in the Rocky Mountains wilderness in Washington State a badly injured and bleeding Melody (Sarah Lind) crawls into the isolated cabin of Henry (Jean Reno), who starts to nurse her back to life. Henry is a hitman hiding out in the wilderness after ten months previously, in New York, fulfilling a contract to kill a wealthy industrialist named Kessler. From there Cold Blood Legacy jumps between three stories being told simultaneously. The first is that of Henry and Melody, who is certainly not the innocent she is supposed to be, in the cabin in the snow, the second concerns executor of Kessler’s industrial empire Brigleur (Francois Guetary) and his gunman Malcolm (David Gyasi), who are searching for Melody, and finally New York cop transferred to Spokane Washington State Kappa (Joe Anderson) and his partner Sheriff Davies (Ihor Ciszewycz) who are trying to work out who killed Kessler, and why. All stories come together for a climax at the cabin in the snow.

     While Cold Blood Legacy (aka Cold Blood) is set in the US it is in fact a French / Ukrainian coproduction filmed in the Ukraine standing in for Washington State and directed and written by Frenchman Frederic Petitjean, his only feature credit. There are a number of things to like about Cold Blood Legacy starting with Jean Reno. He has put on weight and looks substantially older these days but he is always charismatic to watch; he was excellent in Leon: The Professional (1994) and in Ronin (1998), and even managed to be the best live thing in Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla (1998). Sarah Lind is also decent, and she and Reno have the screen time to develop their interrelationship, something the other characters don’t have so that they fail to make an impact.

     Indeed, Cold Blood Legacy is sparse, pared down storytelling, with little exposition, no explanations and limited dialogue as the film jumps back and forward between the characters in the three stories as the mystery is gradually unwound. The result is that while the wilderness, the snow clad mountains and forests look spectacular, courtesy of cinematographer Thierry Arbogast (who had shot a number of Luc Besson’s films including La Femme Nikita (1990), The Fifth Element (1997) and Leon: The Professional, which of course starred Jean Reno), and the mystery is interesting as the stories gradually intersect, the motivations of the various characters are pretty much absent and the climax feels rushed and the conclusion perfunctory.

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Transfer Quality

Video

     Cold Blood Legacy is presented in the 2.40:1 aspect ratio, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.

     The print has a crisp, glossy digital look which works well in a film that is predominately set in a snow clad wilderness; the dark forests, the isolated cabin on a frozen lake, the flakes of snow falling on trails, trees and mountains are all clearly delineated. Cold Blood Legacy clearly did not have a sufficient budget to allow them to wait for suitable weather to match shots; in some sequences shots from one angle show a clear sunny day while the other angle is dark and snowy! Colours are, not surprisingly, muted, the lights in the city having that digital yellow look. Blacks and shadow detail are very good, skin tones natural, contrast and brightness consistent. There is deliberate distortion in some frames indicating Melody’s dazed point of view as she recovers from her injuries in the cabin but otherwise marks and artefacts are absent.

     English subtitles for the hearing impaired are available plus there are French, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Russian, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio choices are English DTS HD-MA 5.1, French and Russian DTS 5.1.

     There is not a lot of dialogue in the film, but what there is is clear. For much of the film the effects are limited to wind in the trees, footsteps or vehicles plus the music of Xavier Berthelot but there is a surprisingly number of directional effects in the rears such as voices off screen or doors opening or closing. The gunshots when they occur are loud and reverberate. The subwoofer was not used much, but nor did it need to be, and it supported the weather effects appropriately.

     For such a multilingual cast there are no lip synchronisation issues.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

     There are no extras.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

     There are UK and French Region B Blu-ray releases of Cold Blood Legacy that are also extra free. Buy local.

Summary

     Cold Blood Legacy is too inconsistent in its plotting to be coherent and motivations and development are sparse but it looks beautiful and while Jean Reno is on screen it is a diverting mystery thriller. There is nothing new here but it flows along nicely and so there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes in front of the TV.

     The video and audio are fine. No extras of any kind.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ray Nyland (the bio is the thing)
Saturday, August 08, 2020
Review Equipment
DVDSony BDP-S580, using HDMI output
DisplayLG 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 DecoderNAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
AmplificationNAD T737
SpeakersStudio Acoustics 5.1

Other Reviews NONE