Mannaja: A Man Called Blade

Once again, Blue Underground rescues a lesser-known European genre title from obscurity on their DVD of Mannaja. The video benefits from an impressive remastering job that restores the film to its full 2.35:1 theatrical ratio: the result captures the film's earthy color scheme and beautiful widescreen compositions in a truly vivid style. The audio offers English and Italian mono options: both serve up a solid, crisp soundtrack and removable English subtitles are also include for the Italian option. In terms of extras, Mannaja includes a trailer, a still and poster gallery and (best of all) a short interview segment with director Sergio Martino. The interview is guaranteed to delight fans of Italian genre films because Martino provides plenty of insight what it was like to be a journeyman director in the Italy of the 1960's and 1970's as well as plenty of fun tidbits about the making of Mannaja (like how fog and rain were used to cover the fact that the sets were in disrepair). Overall, Blue Underground has created a slick, bonus-packed DVD of an obscure cult favorite with Mannaja and it is well worth a look for spaghetti western fans.