The Film (3.5/5)

    Though technically not Sergio Leone's first film, that would be the Colossus of Rhodes from 1961, 1964's A Fistful of Dollars would be the film that put him and star Clint Eastwood on the proverbial map, and make the Spaghetti Western a trend in Italy going into the next decade. It would also set into motion a series of 3 films that paired the actor and director known as either "The Dollars Trilogy" named after the title of the first 2 installments, or "The Man with No Name Trilogy" for the Eastwood based character who seemingly has no name (though he is referred to as Joe in this film, and Blondie in TGTBTU).

    In the 60's it seemed to be a minor trend to take the plot of a Japanese samurai film, and re-tweak it for the western genre, or at the very least a Kurosawa samurai film. This happened with the Seven Samurai becoming the Magnificent Seven, and with A Fistful of Dollars being a spun out version of Kurosawa's own 1961 Yojimbo. The plot of this film is deceptively simple, Eastwood plays a nameless man who enters the border town of San Miguel which has been run into the group by 2 rival factions, one run by the Rojo Brothers, and the other run by the Sheriff John Baxter. "The Man" starts by killing a bunch of guys who work for Baxter and declaring his allegiances for the Rojo's but then works his way to selling information about the Rojo's to Baxter. Every move he makes, makes each rival faction closer to killing the other.

    A Fistful of Dollars works really well as a blueprint for what Leone would do the rest of his western films.  His close-up work isn't what it could become in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West, and the direction isn't as assured, but it's still a solid, more straight forward attempt at the western genre. Eastwood seems to come fully formed as one of the ultimate badasses of 60's cinema (Alain Delon exist, so I can't totally give it to him).  We also get what is now a legendary score by composer Ennio Morricone, that complements the film perfectly.

Audio/Video (4/5)

       Kino Lorber presents A Fistful of Dollars in a very solid 2:35:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer the preserves the OAR of the original. A lot of the complaints in regards of the color of the original Blu-ray transfer will still remain as the reds appear to remain boosted, but detail is improved, and and everything down to the grain structure appears to be more natural.

   Audio is presented with a DTS-HD MA 2.0 sound mix in English. Everything here really pops with dialogue and Morricone score coming through loud and clear. No issues present.

Extras (5/5)

    Extras include an archival commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling followed up by a new, informative, and outstanding commentary by Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas who sounds like he was made to record commentaries for these Leone films.  We get a 32 minute interview with Marianne Koch, a 19 minute featurette with Christopher Frayling, quite a few featurettes, documentaries, outtakes, trailers, radio spots, and MORE.

Overall

    Kino Lorber has put together a definitive edition of A Fistful of Dollars for the time. Those who griped about the abundance of red in the last transfer will still have issues, but things do look a lot more natural here. The Blu-ray is loaded up with extras, however, and comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.