RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital

First is the best!

The movie is good. The audio is in English, but it has Korean subtitles. The movie came out in 1982, that was 43 years ago.

First blood is one of the best movies ever made. This 4k delivers. If you love this movie, then buy it, you will not regret it.

4K restoration is just beautiful. I owned the DVD and the Blu-ray and if you are thinking about converting to 4K, I highly recommend it because there are discernible differences in the video quality (on LG OLED TV). Special Features from Blu-ray edition carry over; they are: Commentary from Sylvester Stallone, Commentary from David Morrell (the author of the book First Blood) First Blood is the perfect movie to epitomize the concept of “if you pick on the wrong guy, you get your ass kicked” and “the hunter becomes the hunted”. Sherriff Teasle is a small town sheriff who is a bully; he picks up Rambo for vagrancy just because he doesn’t like the way Rambo looks (unbeknownst to him, Rambo is a war hero, a Vietnam green beret with medal of honor). When Rambo finally gets enough of the harassment at the hands of the cops in the police station and breaks free, it turns into a personal war and vendetta for Sheriff Teasle who desperately tries to bring down Rambo but with no success. As Sheriff Teasle takes the fight up a notch in each step, Rambo manages to come back stronger and before you know it, Rambo takes on the entire police force, law enforcement and even the army in this tour de force action flick – a total classic! My only criticism is the subtitles. Some of the subtitles do not match the spoken words and in some instances they ruin the meaning of the scene. I am not sure if the subtitles in the DVD or the Blu-ray edition have the same problem or not. For instance, in the scene where Rambo says (while talking to Trautman in the tunnel), “They drew first blood, not me” which is an important line in the movie because it is first and the only time the title of the movie is spoken. The subtitle in that scene reads: “They shot first, not me”. One other example is when Rambo is riding in the car with Sheriff Teasle and asks if there is a law against him having something to eat in this town, Teasle responds: “Yeah, me”. In this scene, subtitles read: “Yeah, my law”. These are the examples I can think of now.

Aside from the wait time to get this, when I finally popped in it - my mind was NOT blown! The picture quality was pretty clean, had film grain but it did not have that true 4K very fine detail! It was good, but it did not make me think that this was mind blowing! The highlights of the picture quality are when there is plenty of lighting such as fire, explosives or artificial lighting. When you see those - THEN the picture shines, but those are few moments. I still recommend the 4K version, but there is a reason it is priced so low for a new catalog release - it does not shock the mind. It still looks as you recalled on cable all of those years ago, but cleaner, clearer and more expansive. To give you an idea of what I mean, the 4K version of Terminator 2 got low ratings for it's video quality, yet when I popped that in - I saw the immediate 4K difference! Yes, some 'waxiness' occurred due to their removing the film grain in order to not make it look as it is - an almost 30 year old movie! T2 HAS that 4K pop with very fine details and one that shows what 4K can do! Maybe they should not have tried to remove ALL grain, but T2 has a lower score but in reality it looks better than this First Blood, which has a higher score. I still say get this since this still has a great picture and the sound is pretty good for what they had to work with. It still looks better than the Blu-Ray version.

Contemporary mythology, as Joseph Campbell once said, is how mankind is remembered both culturally and anthropologically. It is what lasts... With that in mind, amongst the memorable archetypes of the last 50 years or so comes John Rambo. As easily misunderstood by critics as he is by everyone in his filmic universe, he is sometimes written off as a 'killing machine'. This misses the point. John Rambo is really every man who was called by his people to go to war for them. It's just played on a broad cinematic canvas. War is hell, as anyone who has ever experienced it can tell you. And the absolute impossibility of conveying those experiences with anyone outside the realm has created, particularly in our media savvy society, a number of disaffected and alienated young men. It is to this that Sylvester Stallone's nicely nuanced performance speaks. Beautifully shot in the Pacific Northwest, Stallone's Rambo is a drifter ostensibly in search of a Vietnam buddy whom he finds has died from toxic Agent Orange poisoning. What he is really searching for is is soul- and his humanity. The reception he is given by the town Sheriff (played beautifully by Brian Denehy) is an allegory for how we, as a society, have used and then turned our back on these young men. Ridiculed, humiliated, and jailed, Rambo takes war against the new enemy- those who are tormenting him. The plot thickens nicely when Colonel Sam Trautman (the hugely underrated Richard Crenna) shows to 'take charge' of the situation. Seems he trained Rambo in the Special Forces and commanded him in Vietnam. What he really is is the estranged father figure that Rambo desperately wants approval from. This works extremely well on a deeper psychological level than one might expect from a 'B' actioner. This is an important film. Important for it's cultural significance, for John Rambo is truly a great Ameican icon in the clasic sense. Important too, is it's impact on filmaking- his characterization has been copied endlessly by the likes of Bruce Willis and Chuck Norris, all of which lack the subtext that Stallone brought. I do suggest, however, that one skips the next two installments in the series (they're ok, but just really potboilers) and instead see his superb followup out in theaters now. Called simply 'Rambo', it serves well as a coda for the character. Forget the critics on this one, folks, and particularly the excellent Blu-Ray transfer will have you more involved than ever before. This movie satnds the test of time. Don Case

There are two classic Stallone films, and this is one of them—the other one rhymes with "jockey." This film tells a good story and adaptation of the David Morrell novel of the same name. It's beautifully photographed at great locations. Lastly, and probably most importantly, it's wonderfully cast. This film would not be what it is without the performance of Marine veteran and Goodman Theater veteran Brian Dennehy; in fact, it is just as much about Dennehy's character Sheriff Teasle as it is about Rambo's. Many films before and after use the device of "underestimation." The first John Wick film is structured in a very similar fashion, all the way up to the comparison between the Viggo Tarasov scene describing John Wick as "I once saw him kill three men in a bar... with a pencil" versus the First Blood scene where Colonel Trautman's warns Sheriff Teasle, "I don't think you understand. I didn't come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him." Stallone in First Blood was the early '80s "Baba Yaga," but I can't say I'm fond of the other films in the franchise; First Blood is the best.

Good 4k transfer especially all the outdoor scenes.