Review for Ladyhawke

Introduction

The more I watch on Blu-ray, the more I think that those DVDs that I thought were just about good enough to upscale are going to have to go. Native hi-def video is just so fine, the clarity of lossless (and non-PAL sped-up) audio so revelatory, that even the good DVDs look worse than second best. When I first got my Blu-ray player, I was adamant that other than the most special of my collection, my most favourite films, that everything else would stay decidedly low def. If you’d asked me then whether I would be getting Ladyhawke on Blu-ray, I would have rolled my eyes derisively. But now, it seems like that double dip frenzy that alighted on me when VHS gave way to DVD is about to manifest once more, and I’ll have to be physically restrained from my wallet for my own good. Then again, the Ladyhawke DVD had that annoying audio dropout in the middle of the movie, during a quiet bit, and it had an incomprehensible DD 4.1 surround audio track. I mean 4.1? That’s (self) justification enough to upgrade.


Simply by escaping from the dungeons of Aquila, Phillipe Gaston wandered into a tragic tale. For one thing, no-one escapes from Aquila, governed by a tyrannical and un-pious Bishop. The bishop sees nothing wrong in unleashing his soldiers just to re-capture an annoying cutpurse. But as he says, the slightest breeze can herald the storm of rebellion. The wind picks up when Phillipe is rescued from the soldiers by Aquila’s former captain of the guard, Navarre. Navarre wants to break back into Aquila so that he can kill the bishop in revenge, and if Phillipe broke out, he can guide Navarre back in.


That thirst for vengeance has its roots in the curse that the jealous Bishop brought down on Navarre and his lover Isabeau. Navarre travels with a hawk, and as their journey towards Aquila continues, Phillipe learns of the nature of the curse. For by day, Navarre is man, but at night he becomes a wolf, and the hawk transforms into Isabeau. And so the two are together, but are fated never to touch. All Navarre can think of is revenge, but there may be a way to break the curse.

Picture

Ladyhawke gets a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p resolution. It’s my kind of transfer, with little apparently done to the film other than a little cleaning and restoration, and making sure that the image is stable. The film comes across without flaw, and with a nice consistent level of grain. The image is clear and sharp throughout, although the anamorphic lensing does mean that the edges of frames can be a little blurry. Detail levels are high, textures offer depth and a tangibility that is missing on the DVD, colours are rich and vibrant, and black levels are deep and dimensioned. From the moment I saw the detail in the Bishop’s brocaded robes, I knew that this was worth the HD upgrade.


Ladyhawke certainly shows its age in the way that it was filmed, and while this is an effects light film, those few effects do show a few extra seams in HD. This is also a heavily filtered film, with the cinematography such to maximise the colour palette in certain scenes, and there are moments of lens flare too. It looks very agreeable and stylised. There is one issue, a frame freeze at 41:25 where a frame is repeated twice. The film seems to jerk at that point. I had a look at the DVD, and that plays smoothly through, but the DVD does have a slightly damaged frame at that point as well. Oddly enough, the opening credits appear to be windowboxed, not full screen, and I wonder if the theatrical print was like that.

Sound

There are so many audio (including Japanese from a Japanese menu screen) and subtitle options that I just cut and pasted them from Blu-ray.com rather than verify for myself, and it’s probably that extensive choice that warranted a bare-bones disc be dual layer. I had no problem with the DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English track, certainly no glitches and drop-outs. It’s a predominantly front focussed affair as you would expect from a film originally released in stereo, but the up-mix does offer a little depth and ambience when it comes atmosphere and music. The dialogue is clear throughout, and a prog rock soundtrack that shouldn’t be anywhere near a mediaeval fantasy sounds unexpectedly appropriate. English SDH subtitles are one of the many on this disc, although it’s probably these that most UK viewers will search for.

Extras

For a barebones disc, this has seen some nifty bit of authoring on a disc that loads pretty much effortlessly. It’s one of those few Blu-rays that will hold its position in the player after it’s ejected. It also annoyingly sticks a non-removable progress bar up when you’re skipping forwards or back, and it will stay up for a few seconds when you pause the film. If you change the audio or subtitles during playback, a message in a nice font appears to remind you of your selection, and that too lingers on screen for a few seconds.

The disc presents its contents with a static menu, and the sole extra is the letterboxed theatrical trailer, presented in 480i SD.

Conclusion

Ladyhawke is still one of my guilty pleasure movies. Take the premise to a studio exec and you’ll be laughed out onto the street, although take any premise with imagination and originality to a Hollywood studio exec these days and you’ll get a similar reaction. Throw in the soundtrack, and the look of the film, and the occasionally anachronistic dialogue from Phillipe Gaston, “I have prospects, Lord”, and you have a film that is wholly of it is time period, a film that can be instantly dated to the mid-eighties, and those of a less forgiving bent might opine that it’s better off staying there.


For me however, Ladyhawke still works. It all hinges on the central romance, the tragedy of two lovers kept eternally apart by circumstance, and Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer sell it perfectly. You invest in Navarre’s journey for vengeance, and Isabeau’s lingering hopes. Throw in the thief Phillipe Gaston as the audience’s eyes into this fantasy, a cynical and wily character whose heart is slowly opened by the tragic story, as well as the old winesoak monk Imperious, and you have a quartet of engaging characters. Against them there is John Wood as the sly, despicable and villainous Bishop, and you have characters that light up the screen, and hold the attention, as well as a story that hits all the right emotional notes. The film is perfectly paced, without an ounce of fat on it, the comedy still sparkles, the action still thrills, and the romance still enchants. The film’s visual aesthetic is such that it also stays in the mind long after the end credits have rolled, and long after more recent films would have vanished from the memory.


Ladyhawke is inventive entertainment, a small scale fantasy tale that still feels large and grand in scope. I didn’t really expect it, but it really does come alive on Blu-ray in a way that it never did on DVD. If you haven’t already, it’s well worth double dipping, although if you haven’t seen Ladyhawke before, this Blu-ray would make the perfect first time.