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Arrow Video 4K UHD Blu-ray Limited Edition 
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Comparison between the British 4K UHD Blu-ray from Arrow Video and the German Blu-ray from Universum Film, as well as some comments the US 4K UHD Blu-ray from Kino Lorber and a look at the international opening sequences in the bonus material from Arrow Video.
 In a special report on A Fistful of Dollars, we have already summarized in detail the highlights of Arrow Video's British 4K Blu-ray release of Sergio Leone's first film in his Dollars trilogy. The second installment, For A Few Dollars More, has been available since May 26, 2025. Again, this is not a classic report, as the main film is uncut. However, this is worth emphasizing again, as part 2 was problematic in that the uncut version was previously only available on Blu-ray in Germany. The 4K premiere in the US by Kino Lorber in 2022 was longer than the MGM version (which was also released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber in 2018 with identical cuts), but still slightly cut. Two scenes (Monco holding up the boy + climbing the stairs at the end) were a little shorter in Kino's 4K release than they should have been. Arrow Video has now corrected this faux pas. There are still the minimal and rather insignificant differences in the frame area and black screens described below, but the film is now finally available uncut in UHD. At this point, we would like to quickly mention an extensive image comparison by Blu-ray.com user depp91, although with the clear caveat that it is only available in 1080p instead of 2160p. However, even here you can see that the new version from Arrow Video simply looks a little better overall. Some significant differences in coloration are certainly worth discussing, although many will probably prefer the new version from Arrow Video. In a later post, the same user shared comparison screenshots of the opening credits sequence, including the German Blu-ray. Why we are specifically mention this: Both posts address aspects that were woth digging into from our end. On the one hand, the first post highlighted that differences in the frame area can be found in both versions. This was also clarified in the thread by Geoff D, as it is probably just a side effect of the underlying Techniscope process or the handling of the splices between shots. In any case, according to our complete comparison, it is important to note that over the whole runtime this remains well within the range of less than a second, and nothing relevant is lost at all in either version. Such minor differences are common in countless restored releases of older films, so you shouldn't let them bother you. Not mentioned in the post, but more noticeable, at least in terms of causing an actual difference in running time, are a few longer black screens in the Arrow release, which we mention in the report, but which are self-explanatory and not really exciting.  On the other hand, as already mentioned in our report on Part 1, the various credits are really another special feature that was not bundled to this extent on any release prior to the Arrow edition. The Italian credits are available individually in 4K with HDR. Here, and in further comparison with all the other languages, it is curious where the producer gets his credit as well. The Italian featurette also shows the intermission, which did not appear in releases in English-speaking countries or in Germany. Spanish and German credits are also included as a bonus with Arrow Video. The German credits are a little confusing again, because Universum Film included such localized credits in the film itself on the German Blu-ray for Part 1, but in Part 2 they were only in English. At the time, however, a German title sequence was also offered as a bonus, and in this one, the quote after the credits was reproduced in German. In the actual German version from back then, however, this was missing, and Arrow is now showing the correct version again. The sentence was also missing from the Italian version. As is so often the case, it's quite chaotic in detail, but now every single variation is bundled together and archived for eternity. What else is there to say? Here, too, you get the original mono audio instead of the distorted soundtrack from Kino Lorber. This time, there are even two versions, because in addition to the unfiltered original track, there is also the alternative “Academy Curve” version – and, of course, a 5.1 remix. The bonus material shines once again with a book section of over 50 pages and many newly produced featurettes. We'll briefly mention one special feature at the end. There are no Easter eggs this time, and unlike Part 1, the Italian soundtrack is unfortunately not included for licensing reasons (as is also the case with Part 3). 00:00 / 00:00-00:30
The German Blu-ray still had credits from Tobis and MGM at the beginning. 30.3 sec
01:07 / 01:37 Right before the title appears, the German Blu-ray and the American 4K remastered Blu-ray from Kino Lorber (which also looks similar in color) have a reference to producer Alberto Grimaldi. This is missing from Arrow, as well as from the German and Spanish credits in the bonus material.
The short bonus featurette accompanying the English credits explains the background to this: in Italy, the producer has always been named, but in the English credits this was only added when MGM re-edited the film in 2000. The version shown in the image above is then shown in the featurette.
The Italian credits mentioned in this text panel are also included on the disc, unfortunately only individually and, unlike in Part 1, without the option of combining them with the film stream. They are even available in 4K with HDR and therefore look better than the English version in the main film. Here are a few pictures of them.
Here are the actual credits for each main film. Note: The image source for the opening credits on Arrow is significantly worse than the rest of the film, for which an image comparison was already linked in the intro. In addition, we have tone-mapped it to SDR (as we did with the Italian credits directly before it), so the original colors in HDR are not reproduced 1:1.
Now let's take a look at the German credits, as they appear in the bonus material on both the Arrow and Universum releases.
After the Tobis logo, the Universum version still had the (modern) MGM logo. On the Arrow release, the long shot from above directly begins instead. After the identical opening credits, it is noticeable that Universum has reproduced the quote from the English version in German. This was not present in the correct German theatrical version and is therefore missing from the Arrow version. It is also not present in the Italian opening credits.
Here is a comparison of the US Blu-ray and the new Arrow version, both of which show the English quote.
And this is what the opening credits looked like according to Arrow's bonus material in Spain. The quote was also missing here.
Two final comments on the opening credits: 1. Some trailers feature an alternative take of this famous first shot of the film. In both the old German trailer (1:38) and the international trailer (1:42, both on Arrow's Disc 2), the horse runs forward instead of to the left of the screen after the rider falls off.
2. These two old trailers (German/international) are very similar in structure, but the international one is a little longer. This is particularly interesting if you remember part 1: Only the international version includes Sergio Leone's English pseudonym Bob Robertson at the beginning. This was omitted from the German version, which also accounts for the different timecode mentioned above for the horse shot. On the international trailer, Sergio's credit at 0:23 is transformed into the English name with a glass effect, and the English trailer narrator says: “Under the inspired direction of Sergio Leone, better known as Bob Robertson.”
03:58 / 04:28 The Universum Blu-ray fades out the last shot of the opening credits a moment earlier. + 0.5 sec An interesting scene is Indio's escape from 22:50-23:41 / 23:20-24:11, because here both old Blu-rays had a blue day-for-night filter, which is now not present on Arrow.
For the sake of completeness: At 42:33 / 43:03, Arrow now shows the entire scene where Monco holds the boy, while the last 1.4 sec of this scene were missing from the Kino Lorber release (and also in the MGM version). The framing is slightly larger than on the Universum Blu-ray.
68:13-68:14 / 69:43 After the scene ending that is missing from Kino Lorber but included in both the Arrow release as well as the German Blu-ray (= Monco walks to the stairs in the back of the picture), the black screen is a few frames longer and fades in slightly earlier. + 0.9 sec
Here, too, the bonus featurette adds another piece to the puzzle to the Italian credits. There you can see that only the Italian version of the film had a short intermission between the fade-out and fade-in at this point. Obviously, this was omitted in international releases, and so, depending on the copy, a little more than necessary was probably cut unintentionally.
In the following shots, the Arrow version is a handful of additional, insignificant frames longer. 96:01-96:03 / 96:29 Again, a black screen is longer on Arrow + 1.4 sec For orientation, here is the shot directly after, where a different color scheme or a day-for-night filter was visible on the old Blu-rays.
At 101:51 / 102:17, there is a moment that was highlighted in the Blu-ray.com forum post and in the corresponding comparison screenshot because the Arrow version is missing exactly one frame at the beginning of the shot.
Here is the frame immediately following it from Arrow Video, which is where the shot begins there. This is completely irrelevant when watching normally, and the torture scene is otherwise uncut. Since the shot of Monco shown here marks the beginning of a part that was shortened in the MGM version, the small frame differences are more likely to be explained by these circumstances.
Same scene, previously missing from the MGM version: At 101:56 / 102:22, a mini difference of 0.2 sec accumulates during the switch between the laughing henchmen, or rather, the Arrow version is insignificantly shorter. There are also a few frames missing in the next shots of Indio shortly afterwards.
119:26-120:30 / 119:53-120:57 Indio's flashback is colored red throughout in Arrow's version. Only when switching to a shot of Indio lying down and later when jumping back to the present is the old image master from Universum (very similar to Kino Lorber) briefly completely red.
Partly due to HDR->SDR conversion, or rather not a 1:1 representation of the colors visible on a correctly calibrated TV, but it is still quite noticeable that the bright blue sky in the finale has been adjusted by Arrow. Here, it tends more towards yellow.
See the 4K remastered Blu-ray from Kino Lorber for comparison, where the blue has already been reduced somewhat compared to the Universum version.
Last but not least, the final shot of the film deserves a mention in that the end credits in the main film are identical in English throughout, while the featurette on the Italian credits offers the Italian version in 4K.
Only the German Blu-ray had the MGM logo again at the very end.
Finally, a quick comment on a special feature in the bonus material: there is over an hour of raw footage from an Italian interview with Sergio Leone from the 1980s that has never been released before. He talks about his entire career, providing some interesting insights for fans.
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