[bgart13]

Originally Posted by the blob

Of all places, there is actually a Mexican BD of Cook, haha. No idea what it's like though.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

...However, the real shocker here is The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover debuting on Blu-Ray from none other than Mexico from Zima, with an MGM logo on the book offering some clue about the original source. It is indeed a new 1080p transfer, and it should go without saying that this is substantially better than anything standard def could offer. Colors are vibrant, detail is significantly increased (you can now read even the tiniest words on the menu interstitials used as act markings), and it's completely uncut. The color schemes are very close to the Anchor Bay version though with more intensity in the reds during the larger mobile tableaux shots, and the framing is nearly identical with just a tiny sliver of additional information on all four sides of the Blu-Ray; it's so minor though you'd have to stare to really notice. The good news and bad news is that there hasn't been any sort of digital manipulation or clean-up done here; the darker scenes have some inherent softness at times (especially the intentionally murky and oppressive opening credits) and this film never exactly dazzlingly crisp, but the grain levels look about the same as it did theatrically. On the other hand, there's a significant amount of debris visible (as there was on the DVD version, but it was much softer so you could barely tell); the first two reels in particular have a large number of black flecks at times that will drive some digital purists crazy. It's not a huge problem except in the first scene in the ladies' bathroom, where the austere white color schemes show off every little flaw in glaring detail. Luckily the debris dissipates to almost nothing after the first reel and a half or so at least. This is still by far the best viewing option for the film in any format to date, obviously, but people watching their budgets may also want to hope and pray that a worthy American or British edition comes along someday from a company that really does want to mount a full scale restoration.