Wow, that's unexpected. I wonder who did the remastering though. Being a European title it might very well end up in the hands of Hiventy or Ritrovata, and well, we all know what happens then....
Wow, that's unexpected. I wonder who did the remastering though. Being a European title it might very well end up in the hands of Hiventy or Ritrovata, and well, we all know what happens then....
Dune 4K remaster was done by LSP Medien, maybe they did this one too who knows.
My memory might be playing tricks, but I recall that the longer European version shown there is in French, with Bronson dubbed, but most everyone else speaking French live on set. The English-language version was re-shot in English, with the shorter run time down to linguistic differences, and don't think it ever received a remaster. From the release information, it looks like it's only presented on Blu-ray.
In other words, the proper way to watch the 4K UHD is in French with English subtitles. I don't think the French version even has an English dub available, since it would be redundant.
The presence of English subtitles is exciting, since the back cover doesn't seem to mention them.
I’ve got this edition today and just want to add a few thoughts to the transfer since there might be some confusion because of the screenshots Plaion posted, especially one with Charles Bronson and the sky in the background looking “teal”.
Based on recent experiences with the European 4K transfers of the Three Colors trilogy and The Conformist, I decided to give this a try because these newer transfers seem to adhere much more to the actual colors envisioned by the filmmakers instead of the neutral DVD-era transfers these films have often received.
Rider on the Rain also clearly is an European restoration and (thankfully) follows the trend of the in my opinion very well-realized new restorations. So, there is no yellow tint to be found, neither a teal-fest or whatever blanket over the colors. The skies in particular look like skies do in the sections I tested. So I guess these screenshots don’t exactly represent the final look, maybe something went wrong during the SDR conversion or they wanted to appeal the Michael Bay / Zack Snyder crowd by posting such a shot with such exaggerated colors?
The colors are very beautiful on my LG OLED and the encoding is top-notch in DV. I saw no artifacts of any kind and could honestly mistake this encode for a FiM joint. I didn’t check the HDR10 or SDR layers. The only rough spots are the opticals.
English subtitles are included on the disc, so that should be a no-brainer for everybody. Although I am from Germany, I don’t have many Koch / Plaion releases in my collection due to the ever-present annoyance of German and French labels imposing German onto on-screen titles (don’t worry, this isn’t the case here) and often shoddy encoding but this is top-notch and so far my favorite release from them if that’s any indicator.
The colors are very beautiful on my LG OLED and the encoding is top-notch in DV. I saw no artifacts of any kind and could honestly mistake this encode for a FiM joint.
For what it's worth, and while I didn't watch the whole thing yet, I'd like to second this: Looks lovely.
I’ve now watched the entire film and felt compelled to reiterate how phenomenal this film looks as presented by Plaion.
Their encode (in DV) and disc presentation rivals anything by Fidelity in Motion. Yes, it’s that good and beautiful. Some shots are honestly beyond belief - for a somewhat oddity of a film, for the period and stock / lens limitations and for the astounding quality of the restoration as done in France. I felt like getting to see a DCP on my TV.
I wish every 4K UHD would look like this. I may even say that this is my favorite 4K UHD I’ve seen so far image-wise - and I own roughly 700.
This is demo material for a shot-on-film joint. There are no opticals apart from the title- and end credits with only a handful of second-gen material throughout, likely for scenes they originally had to cut.
The film is odd in how it jumps in tone pretty wildly but Bronson clearly had fun doing this part, unlike some of his later works. Don’t expect action, much more a thriller / drama European style. It’s no masterpiece but a good watch made even more special by reference quality video and very good audio.
All labels and authoring houses still struggling with getting across a perfect encode should take a good look at this disc. A two-hour movie on a BD-66 with a couple language options and a flawless encode. It’s all possible… if they want it.
So does this mean I can sell off my US Kino release?
If you prefer the English-language version of the film you’ll need to stick with the Kino disc.
I’d still advocate very much for the 4K release since it presents the original French version in the best possible quality. This French version should be regarded as the definitive one since the cast is predominantly French.
Charles Bronson is obviously dubbed but in my opinion the dub is very good.
English subtitles are available even though they are not listed on the back cover.
Verrry pretty, and verrry tempting. But I really needs ma' Charlie Bronson to sound like Charlie Bronson. And for that, I'll have to stick with the older master until some industrious US/UK label (re)releases something.
Oh, one more thing, which no one stated here as clearly before...
The German release also includes 2 BDs: One with the long version which uses the same new transfer (and also no English audio) and another one with the shorter American version (English titles and all), which uses an older (but not horrible) transfer and comes with English audio only. PQ wise it's obviously worse than the remaster, but I don't think it's much worse (if at all) than what I see here on Kino BD caps. I'd have to compare that properly though, i.e. by no means did and also have no intention to.
Long story short: I also think the longer French version with French audio is the one to watch here anyway, one will also get a BD of the shorter American version with English audio (only) and whether there will be a remaster of the shorter version: ?
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Rider on the Rain 4K (Der aus dem Regen kam/Le passager de la pluie)
This film seems a bit underrated. I like Bronson in general but he really has great chemistry here with Jobert 
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