Red Sonja - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Red Sonja



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
When people like to claim that movies of today are unabashedly worse than the movies from the 80s and 90s, I sometimes have to point them towards films like Red Sonja to sort of shake them back to reality. Yes, even though we had a lot more GOOD movies than we do nowadays, there was still lots of drek being pumped out back then. But for some reason, a lot of that drek was still strangely entertaining. Much like how a car wreck is a horrifying thing, yet we all stand around rubbernecking with popcorn in our hands just to see what sort of damage was done. The same can be said for 1985’s Red Sonja, a film that is so bad that it makes Conan: The Destroyer look amazing by comparison, even though it was set up to be the next big thing in the same universe.

I almost think that writing a plot synopsis for the film is an effort in futility. It can be summed up by “red-headed hottie in the Conan universe goes on a quest to destroy a magical green McGuffin held by a witchy evil Empress. And along the way, she gets help from Conan the Barbarian...I mean Kalidor. The End”. There’s a little backstory for Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) herself, but that’s about the gist of it.

The story starts with your classic sword and sorcery tale of evil, with a wicked queen named Gedren (the amazingly beautiful Sandahl Bergman) laying waste to a young girl’s village, murdering her family, and supposedly murdering her as well after her men have their way with the young woman. Rising from the ashes as Red Sonja, she dedicates her life to becoming a warrior in the hopes of finding Gedren someday and ending her. Her wish is granted when Gedren raids the temple that her sister is at, stealing a giant green talisman/McGuffin that Gedren wants to use to conquer the world. So Sonja’s sister runs across a mercenary named Kalidor (Arnie himself) and begs him to take her to Sonja so that Sonja can go kick Gedren’s butt and destroy the talisman before it destroys the world.

Along the way, Kalidor and Sonja rescue your Prince Tam (Ernie Reyes Jr.) and his protector Falkon (Paul L. Smith), who have become homeless after Queen Gedren destroyed his city, and team up with them to take on the evil queen.

As silly as it is, Red Sonja is one of those movies that is SOOOOO incredibly awful that you actually kind of like it. The dialogue is horrific, and 21-year-old Brigitte Nielsen can’t act her way out of a paper bag. This was obviously set to be the spiritual successor to the highly popular Conan movies from a couple of years back, but because of rights issues, MGM was forced to leave out the Conan connection and relabel Arnold’s character as Kalidor instead. But there’s a little more to it than that. The film plays out as more of a comedy than a straight-up sword and sorcery action movie, with Arnie quipping like he’s in Commando and the studio heads cramming in a fat sidekick and a kid to ruin things like they had a habit of in the 80s and 90s. So as a result, Red Sonja is more a wink and nod type of joke movie than it ever was a true action fantasy flick.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

According to the information I could dig up from Arrow, Red Sonja was remastered by scanning the original 35mm negative at Picture Shop LLC, then restored by Hiventy for Studio Canal. Additional color grading and fine-tuning were done via Arrow at Silver Salt Productions. I wasn’t expecting a whole ton, as this appears to be taken from the same scan that the Studio Canal version was taken from earlier, which netted less than positive reviews. But the fine-tuning and new encoding seem to have made a difference, as the image is actually quite nice. It’s not amazing, but definitely very enjoyable.

Color grading and Dolby Vision look much more precise, and like the old 35 mm print I saw 20 years ago (at least according to my failing memory) than the Studio Canal version did, and the detail levels look a tad more stable. Facial details look clean, but the old practical effects and optical shots can look a tad soft at times. Black levels range from good to great, with a lot of deep browns and blacks intermingling in the interior shots. Simply put, this was a rough-looking 1980s film that isn’t going to look stunning due to how the film was shot and some of the optical effects used at the time, but this restoration looks pretty good.









Audio:

Using the original 1.0 Mono LPCM track, and the additional 5.1 DTS-HD MA “home theater mix”, both purists and modernists will have more than enough choices to keep them happy. The Mono is naturally more authentic, but it’s a bit boxy and thin for the most part. Distinctly so to the point that I actually prefer the 5.1 mix despite it not being the original mix. The 5.1 track is not exactly a powerhouse, as it is more of a 3.1 track with some minor tweaks here and there. It’s not going to stand out as a legendary 5.1 surround mix, but it opens up the field a good bit and reduces that boxy feeling that I get with the mono mix. Dialogue is clean and clear, and there’s even some LFE in there with the battles near the end.












Extras:

• Brand new audio commentary by critics Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
• Brand new audio commentary with comic book expert Dave Baxter
• The Prince and Me, a newly filmed interview with actor Ernie Reyes Jr.
• Swords, Stunts and Sonja, a newly filmed interview with action unit supervisor Vic Armstrong
• The Last of the Invincibles, a newly filmed interview with Schwarzenegger's stunt double Pietro Torrisi
• The Danish Girl, a newly filmed interview with stuntman Ottaviano Dell'Acqua
• The 12 Labors of Red Sonja, a newly filmed interview with assistant production manager Stefano Spadoni
• The Marvel of Primitive Technology, a newly filmed interview with FX artist Domingo Lizcano discussing the work of Emilio Ruiz del Río
• Moulding Fantasies, a newly filmed interview with make-up FX assistant Adriano Carboni
• Bodybuilding the Imagery, an archival, unreleased interview with poster artist Renato Casaro
• The Man Who Raised Hollywood, an archive featurette on Schwarzenegger's career featuring filmmakers Peter Hyams and Arthur Allan Seidelman, producer Edward Pressman, and others
• Red Sonja vs. Kalidor: The Making of a Misunderstanding, an archive interview with assistant director Michel Ferry
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options by Renato Casaro
• Collectors' perfect-bound booklet featuring new writing on the film by John Walsh, Nanni Cobretti, and Barry Forshaw
• Double-sided foldout poster featuring two original artwork options by Renato Casaro
• Six postcard-sized reproduction artcards

Final Score: ​

Red Sonja is utter trash, but it is tasty trash that somehow manages to be fun with all of the camp and cheese thrown at the screen. It’s mercifully only 89 minutes long, so it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but any more than that and I think the enjoyment factor would be diminished by a good bit. Arrow’s new 4K restoration looks and sounds really good, and the extras are really impressive here. So while this should be a 1.5/5 or 2/5 rating objectively, I’m giving this a 3 simply due to how much silly fun this movie is if you allow yourself to get washed along with all the cheese.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brigitte Nielsen, Sandahl Bergman, Paul L. Smith, Ernie Reyes Jr.
Directed By: Richard Fleischer
Written By: Richard Fleischer
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English LPCM Mono
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Arrow
Rated: NR
Runtime: 89 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: March 24th, 2026

Recommendation: Awful, Awesome Watch