Return of Golden Age HK CINEMA

[@PLUGO]

Excerpts:

Under a HK$ 600 million (about US$84 million) deal, Hong Kong-based Celestial Pictures has purchased the Shaw collection along with all video, remake, sequel and theatrical production rights.

"We've been working hard to restore the films," said William Pfeiffer, chief executive officer of Celestial Pictures. "They've been kept in their original negative cans in the Shaw's storage facilities for all of these years."

Officials at Shaw Brothers said the decision to sell the library came after a long period in which the company was weighing whether or not to make the financial and technological push to exploit the collection itself.

"We want to show 20 films in L.A. highlighting the genre's development from its silent roots in Shanghai through the early '80s," Lim said, adding that the exhibition would then tour nonprofit film museums and festivals in the United States and Canada.

"The doors are now open for remakes as well as sequels where today's technologies can improve upon the film," Celestial's Pfeiffer said.

More here

[dezhen2001]

Hopefully they digitally remaster those movies and create a very competitive package for them Good news indeed!

david

[Chang Style Novice]

Yeah, that's the best chopsockey movie news I've heard in ages. I'm especially hoping we can get wide screen letterbox versions of all those hacked up pan'n'scan classics.

[Crimson Phoenix]

They already remastered it, in Cannes they showed "Raining in the moutain" and "Spring Inn" and all the critics said the master was incredibly good.
The DVDs are supposed to start on the market in july
I can't believe it :-)

[shaolinboxer]

That's great news.

I still vote Shaolin Soccer as the film that gave life to the dying kung fu film industry (as in death of originality).

[Chang Style Novice]

Yes. Shaolin Soccer is darn tootin'.

[RENEGADE_MONK]

Don't look for any of these releases any time soon Celestial is still in negotiation with the distibutors, and working out the licensing issues, plus given the fact that there are well over 700 movies in the Shaw library and different markets/regions to cater to means none of these will be released until sometime in 2003.

[Chang Style Novice]

DANGIT! I want my DVD of "Five Shaolin Masters" right now!

[RENEGADE_MONK]

The reason for the we won't be getting any of these releases for some time is, most if not all of the movies will be digitally restored with the cost estimated for high definition digital restoration running around $500,000 HK per film and taking up to 3yrs to restore the entire library.

Celestial plans to release movies in the popular market in VCD, DVD and VHS formats in the third quarter of this year in Southeast Asia, third quarter puts it in the Sept-Dec time frame of this year, which means we "US" won't get them until month's later in 2003 sometime.

Celestial is estimating that it will take five years to launch the entire library globally with their tarkets being theatres 1st, video 2nd, and VHS, and they plan to tarket different matkets depending on the acceptance or sales #'s of the tarket markets.

Also whatever movies goes to video will be sold or marketed to Pay Televison first then free television.

Basically don't look to see any of the rare or hard to find Shaw movies for sometime , looks like we'll still be dealing with bootlegs and bad quality VHS recordings until Celestial puts them out.

[David Jamieson]

Quenton Tarantino will save us all with his great remakes ala Iron Monkey

Man I can't wait fo the next few HK KF flicks he takes on, he did a real good job with that one.

peace

[@PLUGO]

Tarantino's next film KILL BILL will unite two giants of Asian cinema, Hong Kong's Yuen Woo Ping and Japan's Sonny Chiba.<BR>

"It's not official, and money hasn't changed any hands," he hinted, "but I've been writing this thing for over a year and finished it last August, a female revenge film. Yuen Woo Ping will choreograph the Chinese kung-fu action and Sonny Chiba will choreograph the samurai action." KILL BILL is about a female assassin who when she tries to leave the organization, they show up at her wedding and kill everyone in the church leaving her and her unborn child for dead. As it turns out, the bullet in her brain leaves her in a coma for 5 years. When she awakes she travels around the world tracking down the hit team leaving the leader, Bill, for last.

"I've written this character for Uma (Thurman) and they (Yuen and Chiba) are going to put her through training where she will have to learn the kung-fu animal styles," Tarantino said. "And I'll also have Yuen and Sonny play parts in it. . .

But I'm sure you all read the Article

[jun_erh]

What did Quentin Tarantino have to do with Iron Monkey???

[RENEGADE_MONK]

Originally posted by jun_erh
What did Quentin Tarantino have to do with Iron Monkey???

He bought the rights to Iron Monkey

[David Jamieson]

Quenton Tarentino produced the remake of the original which was released in the west as a whole new flick just a couple of years back.

He has not only bought the rights to a few of the HK action KF flicks but is wholly reproducing them.

The original Iron Monkey was a terrific film and the new one is just as good.

peace