4K UHD, Blu-ray Release: Le samouraï

By
Laurence
– July 9, 2024Find Others: Blu-ray, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , ,

4K UHD/Blu-ray Release Date: July 9, 2024
Price: 4K UHD/Blu-ray $34.99
Studio: Criterion Collection

In a career-defining performance in 1967’s Le samouraï, Alain Delon (Purple Noon) plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him.

An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville (Léon Morin, Priest), Le samouraï is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology.

Criterion’s 4K UHD + Blu-ray special edition features the following:

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Interviews with Rui Nogueira, editor of Melville on Melville, and Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris
  • Interviews with Melville and actors Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier
  • Melville-Delon: D’honneur et de nuit (2011), a short documentary exploring the friendship between the director and the actor and their iconic collaboration on Lesamouraï
  • Trailer
  • An essay by film scholar David Thomson, an appreciation by filmmaker John Woo, and excerpts from Melville on Melville
Buy or Rent Le samouraï

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.