Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
Action, Adventure, Thriller, War • 1h 36m
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Charles Napier, Steven Berkoff, Julia Nickson, Martin Kove, George Cheung, Andy Wood, William Ghent, Vojislav Govedarica, Dana Lee, Baoan Coleman, Steve Williams, Don Collins, Christopher Grant, John Sterlini, Alain Hocquenghem, William Rothlein, Tony Munafo, Tom Gehrke, Mason Cardiff, Roger Cudney, Jeff Imada, John Pankow, John Sabol
Best video release
Eagle Pictures Italy > StudioCanal UK, better compression than StudioCanal
Updated 6 months ago
Upcoming
A new Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray with DV upcoming including with the rest of the films.
UHD tiers
Italian imports
better compression than SC and no forced subs on non-English dialogue
About the film
John Rambo is released from prison by the government for a top-secret covert mission to the last place on Earth he'd want to return - the jungles of Vietnam.
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- Alternative Titles
- Rambo II, Rambo II - First Blood Part II, Rambo First Blood II, Rambo II: First Blood; Part II
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
France Rimini 4K Blu-ray see caps vs Artificial Eye Blu-ray
Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti & Charles Crichton & Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Director: Otakar Vávra
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray see nic review
Restored: Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray
Unrestored: Czech PAL DVD
Preferences will vary, the restored track sounds good, but not necessarily faithful to the original elements.
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
(Indicator 4K Blu-ray, based on review)
Director: Anthony Mann
Criterion 4K Blu-ray, Universal 2008 DVD
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
2008 Universal DVD mono
The mono on the Criterion is severely filtered resulting in it sounding incredibly muffled. It is nearly as filtered as the 2003 original Universal DVD which had extreme filtering and sounds horribly thin. The 2008 DVD remaster and original Laserdisc analog mastering are mostly left alone. The original LD master is from a worn element but otherwise sounds very natural. The 2008 DVD is the highest quality version we have without the heavy filtering and the defects of the LD master. It isn't perfect but easily the best of the main four sources by a dramatic margin.
The existing 4K SDR restoration looks excellent, but the Criterion extras are limited and disappointing. The classic Stewart interview commentary from the LD is ported over but given a new mastering. Compared to past releases it has been very slightly noise reduced.
Director: Basil Dearden
Excellent 4K master and encode, except for opticals grain is very fine, grading is beautifully silvery and luminous, nice HDR re-grade by Fidelity in Motion
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Disney 4K Blu-ray for the 4K Theatrical Cut or 2002 Vista Series DVD for the Director's Cut
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab) · lddb.com (opens in a new tab)
Theatrical Cut: Disney 4K Blu-ray caps
Director's Cut: 2002 Vista Series DVD, alleycat's DC restoration better
Alleycat's DC restoration better
Closest to original: 1994 Hollywood Pictures LaserDisc
Other LDs are probably the same
Blu-rays only have 5.1 upmixes but probably fine
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
The 2.0 and 4.0 mixes are said to be particularly strong against the muted / dull 5.1
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray's HDR10 encode and audio tracks are poor, film looks fine in Dolby Vision
Director: Jamie Babbit
Australia All Interactive Distribution 4K Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
> Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray is a disaster. The compression on the base layer is horrid, and the oversized 18 Mbps FEL barely helps.
Australia All Interactive Distribution better encode than the US disc
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray includes original matrixed Dolby Stereo mix, albeit lossy, and a 5.1 surround upmix. The stereo track on previous BD and DVD releases is also lossy and sounds about the same.
Theatrical Cut: Italy Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray
Redux Cut: Lionsgate vs Eagle Pictures?
Final Cut: Lionsgate or Eagle Pictures, both are not great (visible chroma noise)
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Theatrical: Germany 4K Blu-ray/US Blu-ray DD 5.1 (1979 mix)
In the Lionsgate US/UK 6-disc set, there are 4 discs of the main feature. For whatever reason, the 4K discs lack the *original track. The Germany 4K Blu-ray release is different on this matter.
UBD: Final Cut: Atmos, DD2.0
UBD: Redux/Theatrical: Atmos
BD: Final Cut: Atmos, DD2.0
BD: Redux/Theatrical: Dtru5.1 (Redux mix?), DD5.1 (?), DD5.1 (Theatrical only), DD2.0 (downmix??)
As a result the Theatrical Cut has 4 tracks, The Redux has 3. Differences are unclear.
BD: Hearts of Darkness
BD: Special Features
Director: Barry Jenkins
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4k
Criterion 4K Blu-ray announced by director Barry Jenkins
Director: Damien Chazelle
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
US Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray re-release announced with Dolby Vision, a new exclusive bonus, and the previously retailer pre-order bonus-exclusive/Hong Kong-exclusive bonus interviews in HD
Italy Eagle Pictures has DV, better encode, and no brightness shifts compared to Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray for the original Dolby Atmos mix
Hong Kong Panorama 4K Blu-ray has two interviews available in HD that are SD everywhere else and only included as retailer-exclusive pre-order bonus DVDs with the US Blu-ray
Director: Werner Herzog
Director: Paul King
StudioCanal UK 4K Blu-ray minimal picture upgrade (2K upscale)
StudioCanal UK 4K Blu-ray has good new Atmos mix
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Both come from a 4K scan of a 35mm film out which was made from the original 2K DI but the Lionsgate release has visible dust and damage marks while the Universal release is cleaned up more thoroughly. Both releases suffer from DNR which seems to have been baked into the DI. The colour grade is basically the same for both releases but the Lionsgate has Dolby Vision whereas the Universal is HDR10 only. The compression on the Lionsgate UHD base layer is apparently fine so the FEL doesn't make much of a difference.
The Lionsgate UHD has Dolby Atmos whereas the Universal UHD has DTS:X. Kick-ass was originally released with a 5.1 track which may be on the Universal Blu-ray.
The Lionsgate UHD is on a BD-100, the Universal UHD is on a BD-66.
The Universal UHD has no extras.
Director: Alexandre Aja
Theatrical Cut: Austria NSM Blu-ray
Director's Cut: France Metropolitan Blu-ray
Metropolitan got better picture (higher bitrate + better grain + more detail) than Lionsgate
Director: Roman Polanski
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray see caps. Much better contrast and grain exposure but the grade is a bit questionable as it skews heavily towards magenta in some caps and the encode looks low-pass filtered.
Atmos Remix: Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Original 5.1: Imprint Australia Blu-ray or StudioCanal Germany/France Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray encoded the "Original 5.1" as lossy Dolby Digital, which is very different from the AC3 on the original DVD. This new "Original 5.1" may in fact be a downmix of the Atmos track. FWIW, the original DVD AC3 still sounds very good.
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