By 1976, the relationship between Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards had deteriorated to the point where Edwards later compared Sellers’s mental state during production to that of an asylum’s first inmate. And yet, somehow, from that dysfunction came one of the most commercially successful comedies of the decade. The Pink Panther Strikes Again grossed $75 million worldwide, earned an Oscar nomination for its theme song, and gave the franchise its most purely absurd entry. Kino Lorber’s new 4K UHD delivers a restoration that represents a significant upgrade over every previous home video release.

The story picks up directly from The Return of the Pink Panther, making it the only sequel with direct narrative continuity. Former Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom, The Ladykillers) has spent three years in a psychiatric hospital and appears to have recovered his sanity. That lasts approximately five minutes. A visit from Clouseau (Sellers) sends Dreyfus spiraling back into homicidal obsession, and this time he escapes the asylum, kidnaps a scientist, and builds a doomsday device with one demand: the world must assassinate Inspector Clouseau. Edwards adapted the script from material originally written for a proposed Pink Panther television series, and the Bond-parody structure gives the whole thing a scale and energy the earlier films didn’t attempt.

The animated title sequence, supervised by Richard Williams of Who Framed Roger Rabbit fame, is a love letter to classic cinema, dropping the Pink Panther character into scenes from King Kong, The Sound of Music, Singin’ in the Rain, and Jaws, among others. It’s inventive and delightful, and it sets the tone for a film that never once takes itself seriously. Sellers delivers some of his most memorable physical comedy here, including the legendary dentist scene inspired by Bob Hope’s The Paleface. Lesley-Anne Down joins the cast as a Soviet assassin, replacing Maud Adams, who was fired during production and had her scenes reshot.

The original cut ran 126 minutes before being trimmed to 103 for theatrical release, with Edwards having originally envisioned a 180-minute epic chase in the vein of his earlier The Great Race. The excised footage later resurfaced in Trail of the Pink Panther. The film won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Comedy, and Roger Ebert, while noting the formula was showing some wear, acknowledged moments as good as anything Sellers and Edwards had ever produced together.

Kino Lorber’s 4K disc features a new HDR/Dolby Vision master from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. The native 4K image shows excellent delineation and depth, with strong color reproduction. The restoration can’t fix every part of the film, though, and there are several sequences that still present some concerning fading — perhaps there’s still a more definitive version of this sequel yet to come. Nighttime footage otherwise looks strong, and the expanded color gamut adds real punch to the nightclub sequences. Extras include a commentary from Jason Simos, new featurettes with Lesley-Anne Down and editor Alan Jones, a vintage 1976 featurette, four trailers, TV spots, and radio spots.

It’s the most purely ridiculous film in the franchise, and it knows it. As can often be the case, sometimes the best comedy comes from a set where everything is falling apart.