Paprika 4K SteelBook review
Feb 21, 2024- Permalink
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released Paprika (パプリカ) as a limited-edition 4K SteelBook. Directed by the late Satoshi Kon, the animated science fiction thriller details a device that allows people to share their dreams. It’s stolen and a dream terrorist is using it to affect people’s lives with nightmares. One of the researchers, Dr. Chiba, uses the device to enter the dream world as her dream detective alter-ego, Paprika, in an effort to solve the case. Paprika was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival.
The 2160p HEVC / H.265 encoded upscaled 4K digital transfer with Dolby Vision and HDR10 is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The line art looks great but the film has always had a general softness that’s part of its cinematic style. As coders would say, it’s a feature not a bug. The colour palette is amazing with colours that pop of the screen. The black levels are deep and there’s no loss of detail in the darker scenes.
On the audio side of things, you have the choice of a Japanese Dolby Atmos soundtrack that folds back to Dolby TrueHD 7.1. There are also Japanese, English, French and German DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks, and Cantonese, Italian, Spanish and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Thai, and Turkish. The Japanese Atmos track engulfs you in the dream world, with effects and other ambient sounds swirling through the surrounds. Dialogue is clear and the score dynamic. It sounds amazing.
The Paprika 4K SteelBook (which has gorgeous art on the case) also comes with a Blu-ray copy and a digital code. Except for a new look at the 4K restoration, the Blu-ray disc contains legacy extras from the previous release. They include commentary from director Satoshi Kon, composer Susumu Hirasawa and associate producer Morishima, a discussion between Kon and the book’s author Yasutaka Tsutsui, a panel with Kon, Tsutsui, and voice actors Megumi Hayashibara and Tôru Furuya, DOP Michiya Kato discussing the use of CG elements alongside traditional animation, a piece on imagery and symbolism with art director Nobutaka Ike, a collection of storyboards, and two trailers.
The Paprika 4K SteelBook takes an amazing trip of a movie and combines it with amazing audio and video, a nice collection of extras and a beautiful SteelBook case. Highly recommended.