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Ultra HD : Must Own
Ranking:
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Release Date: October 12th, 2021 Movie Release Year: 2021

The Green Knight - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Overview -

The tale of Sir Gawain and his odyssey that will change the course of his life has an ultimate cinematic vision with David Lowery's The Green Knight. With ripe and perfect visuals and some impressive performances by everyone involved, The Green Knight is one of the year's best and memorable movies. The 4K transfer with Dolby Vision HDR (and HDR10) looks excellent and the Dolby Atmos audio mix is simply marvelous. The bonus features are worth everyone's time as well. MUST-OWN.

 

An epic fantasy adventure, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain (Dev Patel),
King Arthur's reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in what becomes a deeper journey to define his character and prove his worth in the eyes of his family and kingdom.

OVERALL:
Must Own
Rating Breakdown
STORY
VIDEO
AUDIO
SPECIAL FEATURES
Tech Specs & Release Details
Technical Specs:
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Blu-ray + Digital
Video Resolution/Codec:
Dolby Vision HDR / HDR10
Length:
125
Aspect Ratio(s):
1.85:1
Audio Formats:
English: Descriptive Audio
Subtitles/Captions:
English SDH, Spanish
Special Features:
• Theatrical Trailer
Release Date:
October 12th, 2021

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Ranking:

A different kind of Christmas movie serves up tales of courage, change, and terror in David Lowery's wonderful epic movie The Green Knight. Through a fantastic vision, Sir Gawain is granted a certain opportunity to prove his worthiness to the King and Queen, by making a deal with a creature that takes a year to see through. Gawain's (Dev Patel) transformation from a party animal who is only thinking about drinking and sex, soon embarks on an adventure that will test his faith, courage, and trust in himself and others to do the right thing and stay on the correct path of righteousness and peace when needed.

With impressive visual and practical effects, and award-worthy performances from Patel, Alicia Vikander, and Joel Edgerton, The Green Knight is a rare gem of a film that doesn't come along very often. Its poetic dialogue, wonderful and adventurous story full of haunts, thrills, and beauty is awe-inspiring.

For the Full Review - Read Bryan Kluger's Take

 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Green Knight journeys its way to a 2-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital set courtesy of Lionsgate. The discs are housed inside a hard, black plastic case with a cardboard sleeve, featuring artwork Gawain celebrating in that glorious red and yellow color palette. There is an insert for the digital code as well which is not Movie's Anywhere compatible. Both discs are housed in an eco-friendly two-disc case with identical slipcover.

 

Video Review

Ranking:

The Green Knight comes with an impressive 2160p native 4K UHD transfer with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 that looks particularly stunning from start to finish. Comparing the 1080p HD Disc to this 4K Disc with Dolby Vision/HDR, it's easy to see the excellent upgrade with this 2160p image.

The first sequence reveals a dark room with the main protagonist sitting on a throne, engulfed in flames. These black levels are exquisite and inky all around, showcasing some fine detail in the outfit, but the fire brightens up the area with its intense orange and yellow flames perfectly. From here, the misty and cool exteriors of the castle that mix with the greys and amber coloring inside the structure look amazing.

The Green Knight itself has vivid browns and greens where the many nuanced tree-like colors come to life through the Dolby Vision. Even its eyes have wood and odd red color to them. Outside in the forest along the magical journey, earth-like tones of yellows, greens, browns, and oranges are sweeping and always extremely detailed. Once at the luxurious castle, elements of blues and other primary colors can be observed and look wonderful. During the nighttime ghost sequence, the white angelic presence along with the almost pitch black darkness and underwater sequence is pitch-perfect. With the many visual filters, the color palette is detailed and comes alive due to its Dolby Vision enhancement to make it all look set in this time period.

The detail is never hindered with this color palette either, revealing well-defining closeups on the actor's faces, including individual facial hair, makeup effects, and intimate textures in the wardrobe and set design. The CGI effects also look incredible and never soft. There were no issues of banding aliasing, or other video noise on this 4K presentation, and is one of the best-looking Lionsgate 4K releases.

 

Audio Review

Ranking:

This release comes with a most triumphant Dolby Atmos track that is a fully immersive experience from its beginning. The haunting voiceover packs enough bass to rumble the bones and walls, which leads to an energetic character introduction inside a brothel and party inside the castle. Many sound effects of people, laughing, moaning, and talking can be heard through the surround speakers. Other elements of wood hitting stone walls, footsteps, and horses galloping sound fantastic.

Once the journey begins, all of the forest elements of trees, wind, grass, and other animals and insects chirping off in the distance sound phenomenal. While there might not be many big explosions or gunshots here, this Dolby Atmos mix provides ample robust sound effects and ambient noises from start to finish. The Green Knight's low voice and the score always bring in a wonderful low-end of bass. The dialogue is clean, clear, and easy to follow along with, free of any audio issues. This Dolby Atmos mix is simply outstanding.

Special Features

Ranking:

There are 72 minutes of bonus material, all of which are worth watching. The behind-the-scenes documentary is exactly how studios should make these extras.

  • Boldest Of Blood And Wildest Of Heart: Making The Green Knight (HD, 36 Mins.) - A truly excellent behind-the-scenes documentary that features the entire cast and crew of the film, discussing, all elements of making the movie. Building the sets, the tones, story themes, casting, and shooting on location are all covered. This was a wonderful glimpse inside the film.
  • Practitioners Of Magic: Visual Effects (HD, 15 Mins.) - Another excellent featurette that reveals how some of the visual effects were added to the real-life filming of the production in real-time.
  • Illuminating Technique: Title Design (HD, 18 Mins.) - This is an energetic interview with the title designer who talks about the main and end titles for the film.
  • Trailer (HD, 3 Mins.) - Trailer for the film.

Final Thoughts

The Green Knight is a truly memorable and one-of-kind film and only furthers the genius and remarkable artistic eye of director David Lowery. His vision of this old poetic tale is some kind of wonderful and gets better with each viewing. The 4K with Dolby Vision video presentation is top-notch and a step above the already great 1080p HD version and the Dolby Atmos track is demo-worthy. The few extras are all worthwhile as well. This is a MUST-OWN release.