Movie Reviews

ANNA – 4K Ultra-HD, Blu-ray 2K, Digital Review

Specifications
Studio: EuropaCorp/TF1/BRON/Hercules (Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment)
Release Date: September 24, 2019, Color, Rated R, 1 Hr 59 min
Resolution: 2,160p (4K), 1080p (2K)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39.1
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48 kHz, 24-bit), Dolby Atmos
Starring: Sasha Luss, Cillian Murphy, Luke Evans, Helen Mirren, Alexander Petrov, Anna Krippa, Eric Godon, Ivan Franek, Adrian Can, Alison Wheeler, Andrew Howard
Directed by: Luc Besson

Rating

Entertainment:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:

Violence: Yes
Sex: Yes
Language: Bad
MSRP: $29.99 / Amazon – $19.99

Sasha Luss plays Anna, a Russian fashion model who is so cold in her reaction to stress, she is recruited and trained as an assassin for the Russian KGB.

She is very good at her job, killing about 20 Russian mobsters in a restaurant as her first assignment.

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Her contact at the KGB treats Anna like a piece of crap, even though Anna could kill her in two seconds if she were pissed. But she doesn’t get pissed. That is her strength.

The American CIA takes an interest in this one. Now she is assigned to kill not just Russian mobsters, but Russian KGB. To reiterate, she is very good at her job.

Opinion

This is a very strange film. Viewers are never sure who the enemy is. But Anna is sure.

I don’t know if employees at fashion agencies actually behave this way. I hope not.

Worth a view just to see Luss engaging in hand-to-hand combat at the maximum. But the story is convoluted with back flashes by several months and years over and over during the story.

Helen Mirren is the real star here. I didn’t even realize it was her.

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Apparently this film was shot at 3.4K with a 2K intermediate that was upsampled to 4K for the UHD release, so it is not as sharp as it would have been if it had been shot at 4K and maintained at that resolution all the way through production. It is sharp though, just not the maximum.

Dolby Atmos provides some occasional height information, especially during fighting.

Extras

Extras are OK.

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. John E. Johnson, Jr. founded Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity in 1994, shortly after publishing a hardcopy book of the same title. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity until 2022. John has been involved in audio and video for more than 50 years, having built radio transmitters, amplifiers, turntables, and speakers from scratch. He was also one of the founders of the Northern California Audio Video Association, now The Bay Area Audio Society. John holds four university degrees, including a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, and has published numerous scientific books, along with dozens of scientific articles on biomedical research topics as well as imaging technology. He was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of two medical/scientific journals for 20 years. John holds several patents, including one on high resolution image analysis and one on a surgical instrument. He has been affiliated with NASA, The National Institutes of Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Stanford Research Institute, and The University of California at Berkeley. He is President of the consulting firm Scientific Design and Information, Inc., which is based in Redwood City, California. John resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife and multiple kitties! His daughter, Cynthia, who was an integral part of SECRETS for many years, resides in San Francisco.

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