Why So Blu?

Re: Born (Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray Review)

Toshiro (Tak , formerly Tak Sakaguchi, Versus), a former special forces operative, now lives a quiet life in the Japanese countryside. Despite his seemingly peaceful existence, Toshiro struggles to contain the destructive impulses that once made him the top soldier in an elite unit of killers. When his former commanding officer, the enigmatic Phantom (Akio Ôtsuka), comes out of the shadows seeking revenge, Toshiro goes on a kill-crazy rampage against a squad of ruthless assassins. Utilizing an unorthodox form of close-quarters combat (referred to by the director and lead actor as Zero Range Combat ) Re:Born features some of the most stunningly choreographed martial-arts fight sequences in recent years, and Eureka Entertainment is proud to present the film in its UK debut on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Film 

There are certainly times when a film comes along and, for all intents and purposes, body slams you on concrete. Re: Born is that film and it’s the first film of 2018 that has done that to me. I knew I was in for something rather special when I got the notification that the film was coming to Blu-ray soon. I watched the trailer and proceeded to share it with everyone that I knew. It got a great reaction and then I finally sat myself down to watch it when my copy came in. As you can already see by the film’s rating. I was not disappointed to say the least!

Toshiro (Tak) is living a simple yet complicate life in Japan. He’s seems to be raising his young niece, Sachi (Yura Kondo), by himself, with help from a friend or two. Sachi also seems to have a high level of empathy to her environment, as she walks by home from school and discovers a dead animal on the side of the road. Instead of leaving it alone she takes it and buries at the beach, because that’s the kind of girl she is. Toshiro, on the other hand, has been suffering from what seems to be PTSD — he used to be a soldier in an elite unit and his flashbacks and nightmares start to get the best of him.

Toshiro’s clouded past comes back to haunt him as a mysterious unit comprised of several hundred operatives literally come out of nowhere to try and lay waste to him and what remains of his former contacts. Good thing for Toshiro he does have plenty of options under his wings. His senses are beyond heightened and he is a master of a special brand of close quarter hand-to-hand combat called Zero Range Combat. ZRC is coined by the directed. It’s basically some of the fastest “point blank” range hand-to-hand combat that you have ever seen. It involves minimal kicking, but relies mainly on punches, movement, limberness and a variety of bladed weapons…along with a portable shovel. You have to see it to believe it.

Re: Born takes about ten minutes to get to the rock ‘n roll, but when it does, it never slows down. the choreography is exquisite and literally had me covering my mouth every other minute. It was like Stefan from Saturday Night Live. The filmmakers could very well be planning a series out of this film, because Toshiro’s murky past seems to not really be explored in detail. The essence of the story is that he’s being hunted by his former squad and the leader of that squad.

Now a thin past does not make the film boring or less great. In fact, it peaks my curiosity even more, because a sequel or prequel, or even full feature series with Tak or any of the cast of Re: Born would be welcome. as I did my research for the film I saw that it was released to film festivals way back in the latter part of 2016. Some foreign territories saw it released in 2017 and now we finally get it (at least in the UK) on Blu-ray in March. Re: Born will most likely be region B locked, so that means that folks interested in purchasing the film will need a region-free Blu-ray player for proper playback.

Re: Born is a less dense brutal martial arts film. Some complained that when the sequel to The Raid was released it suffered from “too much story.” Re: Born does not suffer from that at all. Toshiro is charismatic and his relationship with Sachi is a sweet one. They carry the film well as protagonists. Re: Born is also less than two hours long with credits, so there is a nice middle ground in terms of running time. Granted, I wish the film would never end, but that’s wishful thinking on my part again.

 

Video 

Encoding: AVC/MPEG-4

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Clarity/Detail: Re: Born is presented in full 1080p and looks quite clean, crisp, and rather grungy. The grunge can be applied during the many fights involved. That is not to say that the film quality itself is dirty — but the visual aesthetic can take that form. This is a good thing.

Depth: Scenes involving the city, beach, and wooded areas fared the best in terms of depth, while scenes involving anything else remained focused and detailed. Only rarely did I ever spot a scene that was soft.

Black Levels: Re: Born has many fights and some take place in the dark. Literally. The Blu-ray handled those scenes quite nicely and there was never an instance of me having to squint or mess with any of my television’s settings.

Color Reproduction: Re: Born’s color palette tends to shift from an almost bleak and muted palette into a more colorful one depending on the location. The most colorful scenes involve the city and wooded forests.

Flesh Tones: Everyone has seemingly healthy flesh tones unless they’re bleeding out. Then the transfer does a great job conveying the pasty and pale likeness of someone who has lost a massive amount of blood.

Noise/Artifacts: The overall image was free of any noise and/or artifacts. It may have been shot digitally, but certain scenes did have a film like grain structure, which is great.

 

 

 

Audio 

Audio Format(s): Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1

Subtitles: English

Dynamics: Re: Born is presented in flawless DTS-HD MA 5.1 sound. You will most certainly feel every hit, slice, and destruction Zero Range Combat has to offer.

Low Frequency Extension: The LFE subwoofer channel handled high powered weaponry fine along with the occasional grenade and blunt force trauma. If your subwoofer hasn’t gotten a proper workout in sometime then Re: Born is the perfect film to shake it out of atrophy.

Surround Sound Presentation: The surround sound field was clean and had amazing separation. Objects, people, bullet, weapons, etc., will most certainly fly around from back to front and front to back — the surround channels did a fine job in processing that information.

Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue levels were fantastic and everyone could be heard clearly and without any problems. The English subtitles synced up nicely, as well.

 

Extras 

I am disappointed that this edition of Re:Born did not get a full blown special features package. It’s a good thing that the film, video, and audio quality more than made up for lack of special features. There is a short introduction to the film by the director and stars of the film, which is really cool, though.

• Short introduction from the filmmakers
• Eureka! Masters of Cinema Trailer
• Re:Born Trailer

Summary 

In what will most likely be an iconoclastic selection – Re: Born will most likely get a top spot on my favorite films list of 2018 at the end of the year. Re: Born ramps up the carnage to The Raid type of levels and beyond. I was in heaven and the Blu-ray presentation is no slouch either. The lack of extras does not mean that this isn’t a required purchase. It most definitely is. If you are not region free then Re: Born should be a reason why you go out and get yourself a region-free Blu-ray player as soon as you possibly can. Re: Born is highly recommended!

 

 

Re: Born is released on Blu-ray & DVD March 12, 2018!

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