Catherine Deneuve earned an Oscar(r) nomination for this Academy Award(r)-winning (Best Foreign Language Film, 1992) tale of passion and revolution in colonial Vietnam. Deneuve stars as Elaine Devries, the seemingly repressed owner of a prosperous rubber plantation in French Indochina. Her steely exterior, however, is only a mask intended to hide her torrid love affairs from upperclass society. But when her adopted Indochinese daughter innocently falls in love with Eliane’s secret lover, the scandalous lovers’ triangle threatens to destroy their entire family. A sensual story of unbridled passion set against the violence of the bloody Communist uprising, INDOCHINE is a historically accurate, emotionally wrenching epic of love and war.

For thoughts on Indochine, please check out our discussion on The Video Attic:

[youtube https://youtu.be/c93nHMgCOAU?si=YJtzkL5wDI5_rqwZ&t=2413]

Video Quality

Indochine arrives on Blu-Ray in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio from a 2016 4K restoration conducted by the Studicanal that looks pretty good with some avoidable drawbacks. The natural film grain remains intact and resolves in an impressive manner while bringing sumptuous detail to the forefront. Every element of the locale stands out with notable clarity, especially in elements of the background and costumes. The makeup work is textured and brings a lot of character to the proceedings.

Colors are deep and nuanced as they bring out the complexity of each hue. Highlights are firm without any bit of blooming. Black levels could be a bit deeper, but there are no worrisome signs of black crush. Where the disc shows some weakness is in the subpar encode. Sony does not use the space of the BD-50 to its full potential, occasionally allowing for banding and other digital anomalies such as compression artifacts to make themselves known. Things could be much worse, but it is disappointing when the company lets any catalog title suffer from poor attention to care. Nevertheless, this Blu-Ray still holds up fairly well.

Audio Quality

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment brings us this Blu-Ray with both a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio surround sound remix and the original DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio stereo track, each in the original mixture of French and Vietnamese. Dialogue comes through crisp and clear without being overpowered by any of the music or environmental effects. The score from Patrick Doyle establishes a great mood for the narrative with a strong presence in the mix. This is actually the element that is best enhanced in the surround sound track, as it saturates the room with beautiful notes. The environmental sounds of the outdoor locations are persistently defined and given a prominent presence in the speakers. The audio side of things is even more impressive than the visuals. There are English subtitles provided.

Special Features

There are no special features provided on the disc.

Final Thoughts

Indochine is a sprawling tale that evolves quite deftly from a somewhat personal tale of passion and secrecy to something much more grand in scope, while never dulling the interpersonal conflict. Catherine Deneuve is as good as she has ever been in the lead role, and the supporting ensemble complements her more than capably. Even with a rather robust runtime, the narrative never feels stagnant or bloated, and everything builds to a very effective payoff. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray with a passable A/V presentation and nothing in the way of special features. If you like epic period dramas, this is worth adding to your watchlist. Recommended

Indochine can be purchased directly through MovieZyng or various other online retailers.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.