Brotherhood Of The Wolf (Director's Cut) (1 4K UHD + 3 Discs) [Region A & B & C]

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Effects range from punishing body blows and the crack of muskets to the satisfying whip-thud of a tomahawk, or the crash of the beast, tearing through wood or violently smashing its prey against rocks. On paper, this unusual blend of gothic horror, swashbuckler, martial-arts movie and bodice-ripping romance shouldn’t work. She has a background in publishing and copyediting and has served as Editor-in-Chief of FlickeringMyth. A stunning new restoration of the director's cut of the thrilling 2001 cult classic BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF by director Christophe Gans, starring Samuel Le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Jérémie Renier, Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci. Originally filmed in 35mm and scanned in a 2K 8-bit in the early 2000s, it quickly became apparent that the digital scans from 2000 wouldn’t be sufficient for remastering in 4K Dolby Vision .

The two outdoor fight sequences at the start proved to be some of the most challenging and exciting scenes to work on. Unseen, possessed of enormous strength and a seemingly near-human intelligence, the beast has eluded capture for years. Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to Brotherhood of the Wolf.Once again, Gans discusses his influences, including that of Chang Cheh’s The New One-Armed Swordsman and Michael Mann’s Last of the Mohicans. It’s a rollercoaster ride through some of the most colourful territories you could imagine – taking in not only the obvious sights of period France – complete with its extremes of lavish decadence and muddy squalor – but also the splendour of kinetic, well-choreographed, and, arguably, anachronistic martial arts (in several increasingly brutal extended sequences), via a detour of illicit sex (the director even traverses Monica Bellucci’s naked body in one of the most awesome – and ridiculous – scene changes in film history, that sees her curves fade into impossibly breast-like mountain peaks on a CG-crafted landscape) and of ostensibly supernatural horror.

There are a couple of instances where it's not quite perfect - like the first encounter between De Fronsac, investigating a dead body in the water, and the hunting group of soldiers out to catch the beast has the soldiers come down the hill with the colour timing slightly off; their uniforms blending into the hilltop colours in a way that seems alien - but this only really goes to further highlight what a masterful job has been done to the rest of the 150+ minutes of epic visual artistry. Even during the DVD era, there were several DVD releases with enormously impressive, reference-type of quality audio tracks. After a foreboding introductory sequence, set in the midst of the French Revolution, we flashback as the narrating character reflects on his fateful experiences from the preceding decades. There are several different versions of the film and the details of these are too complicated to get into here and I don’t know the previous versions well enough to attempt to do a comparison justice. The least problematic areas are the ones with indoor footage where browns and blacks are prominent and blues and grays are usually absent.Fronsac’s investigations lead him the local brothel, where h However, there have been some notable lycanthropic tales between then and now, such as Neil Jordan’s haunting The Company of Wolves, the fun Jack Nicholson romp Wolf and the sleazy genius of Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (honestly, go treat yourself), but putting 2014s excellent Late Phases to one side, the 21st century has been relatively void of anything approaching the quality of the previous two decades when it comes to werewolves and their like. The rain pouring down during that first fight fully utilizes the height channels with rumbling thunder rolling overhead and the drips, drops, punches, smacks, and groans working the front/center, sides, and rear channels. From the opening fight sequence through to the climactic battles, this 4K restoration laps up the real-world detail afforded, assisted no end by Gans' fabulous eye for slo-mo (sacrilege that it may be, he arguably has a better handle on it than even John Woo, knowing just when to implement it, and steering far away from it when unnecessary).