BD 349 Danger: Diabolik

[Finch]

n 1962, Italian comic book writers Angela and Luciana Giussani invented fumetti neri (“black comics”) with Diabolik, a wildly popular crime series starring an elusive master thief. Within just a few years, the comic was adapted into a psychedelic feature film – released internationally as Danger: Diabolik – directed by a true maestro of Italian genre cinema in Mario Bava (Blood and Black Lace) and starring John Phillip Law (Death Rides a Horse) in the title role.

Somewhere in Europe, Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli) is the police officer charged with overseeing the transportation of $10 million from a bank, determined to stop it from falling into the hands of the infamous thief known as Diabolik (Law) and his accomplice Eva Kant (Marisa Mell). But, despite his best efforts, Ginko fails – Diabolik nabs the cash before setting his sights on stealing a priceless emerald and twenty tons of gold, embarking on a crimewave that will see him make a mockery of both the police and the government officials they answer to.

Designed to capitalise on the success of CCC Film’s Dr Mabuse sequels, André Hunebelle’s Fantomas trilogy and Harry Alan Towers’ Fu Manchu series, Danger: Diabolik is Italy’s contribution to the popular cycle of supervillain movies that swept Europe in the 1960s and a key entry in Mario Bava’s filmography. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this landmark of Italian genre cinema on 4K UHD and Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Limited Edition Hardbound Set [2000 copies]
Dual format edition including both UHD (Region Free) and Blu-ray (Region B)
Limited Edition hardcase with package design by Nick Wrigley
Limited Edition 60-page book featuring new essays on Danger: Diabolik by Italian film historian Roberto Curti and comic book scholar Jochen Ecke, a new introduction to fumetti neri by crime genre expert Sergio Angelini and new writing on the film’s director by Troy Howarth, author of The Haunted World of Mario Bava
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation presented in Dolby Vision HDR (HDR10 compatible)
1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray
English and Italian audio options
Alternative English audio track, recorded in tandem with the original Italian in 1968, available on home-video for the first time since Laserdisc
Optional English subtitles, including newly translated subtitles for the Italian audio
Audio commentary with film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson
Audio commentary with film historian Tim Lucas
Audio commentary with actor John Phillip Law, moderated by film historian Tim Lucas
Criminal Intent – new discussion of the origins and evolution of Diabolik from page to screen with Leon Hunt, author of the Cultographies volume on Danger: Diabolik
Radical Behaviour – new video essay on Danger: Diabolik as anti-establishment pop culture by Italian genre cinema expert Rachael Nisbet
From Fumetti to Film – archival featurette
Body Movin’ – music video by Beastie Boys, with optional commentary by Adam “MCA” Yauch
Teaser trailer
Theatrical trailer

[domino harvey]

I guess not much of a surprise after Hunt devoted so much time to this in his ostensibly Fantomas-related extra!

[Stefan Andersson]

Podcast on the Kino Lorber edition, two dubs, "how some of the original opticals were updated, how a long-missing outro was rediscovered" etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHxr3Om6bBA

[rapta]

Very happy about this as I was hoping Radiance would get this if they could secure some Paramount titles, but fair enough that Eureka got it instead and are doing exactly what I hoped (big la-di-da set, dual format, nice artwork, lots of extras). Can't complain! Will definitely be pre-ordering it to upgrade from the Imprint disc.

I caught this film on late night telly some years back and loved it. Stuff like this and Fantomas makes me wish Bond would go in a more camp direction again...

[Lowry_Sam]

Stuff like this and Fantomas makes me wish Bond would go in a more camp direction again...

Like Casino Royale (1967)?

[rapta]

Stuff like this and Fantomas makes me wish Bond would go in a more camp direction again...

Like Casino Royale (1967)?

Haha yeah I suppose, but no I meant modern Bond. Certainly won't be anything like that with Denis Villeneuve at the helm.

[Orlac]

I certainly would appreciate BDs of titles like ARGOMAN and KRIMINAL.

[TMDaines]

2000 units at £35.99: we all know how this goes…

[ChunkyLover]

The other forum is reporting that there might be a possible color space issue on the included BD.

[nicolas]

The other forum is reporting that there might be a possible color space issue on the included BD.

That’s not really what people (including myself) are reporting. If any disc has a color space issue, it’s the 4K as the BD has a slightly more saturated appearance but that’s to be expected as it’s in SDR. With a color space error, the difference is usually more noticeable. Also with the personnel being involved in the encoding (Fidelity in Motion), a color space error is unlikely to have occurred.

Eureka used the Kino master as most of the print damage is still present but screenshots of Kino’s Blu-ray are noticeably different, which suggests that Eureka or Paramount re-graded the master after it was delivered to Kino. A similar thing happened with The Italian Job a few years back, but Paramount released that one themselves internationally.

So far, there haven’t been impressions from people who have both 4K releases and 4K screenshots aren’t yet up either.

[nicolas]

Eureka’s statement:

During the disc authoring process, we discovered a metadata inconsistency with the original 4K master supplied to us by Paramount. If we had used this master, it would have resulted in HDR grading either too saturated or too dull. After consulting with Fidelity in Motion we went back to Paramount who agreed there was a mistake and sent over corrected metadata which is what we used for the final authoring process and are confident is the intended look of the film.