The Shaws Shown on TV's Black Belt Theater ( Drive-In Theater ) DVD List

[venomchamber]

re: "My first impression on reading your list is that you are not remembering correctly. That is the trouble with memory. It often mixes events up. My problem with your list...

#1 "The Kung Fu Instructor" on Kung Fu Theater

I am assuming this is the Shaw Brothers film and not a different martial arts movie with the same name? The only syndicate to have Shaw Brothers movies was Black Belt Theater, and in fact they had the movie "Kung Fu Instructor". There is no way it was on Kung Fu Theater. Possibly you are thinking about Kung Fu June. This show aired on USA after they stopped airing Kung Fu Theater. For some reason the rights to World Northal's Black Belt Theater were transferred to USA Network. And in one of those inexplicable programming decisions, USA only aired four movies, one each Saturday, during the month of June [ circa 1990 ] and never again. At least the four movies were Shaw Brothers, one of them being "Super Ninjas". I have since forgotten what the other three movies were, so it is possible one was "Kung Fu Instructor". But I have my doubts it was ever on Kung Fu Theater."

USA did in fact broadcast several Shaw Brothers movies from World Northal's Black Belt Theater in 1986, including The Kung Fu Instructor, Avenging Warriors Of Shaolin, and The Three Evil Masters, but NOT on Kung Fu Theater, they were on "Commander USA's Groovie Movie". I still have the TV Guide clipping which has a photo of the promotion.

The rights weren't "transferred", any local station could have aired BBT if they wanted to obtain it from WW Ent.

USA Network's "Kung Fu June" was in 1992 and also aired Fists Of The White Lotus, and The Invincible One in addition to Super Ninjas. (The fourth movie that month escapes my memory at the moment.) I still have a tape of it and have posted it on You Tube.

http://youtu.be/Kw7YpNzj1Vg

Lastly, all those World Northal bootleg theories are false - the fact is the Shaw Brothers bootleg tapes started with Johnnyray Gasca who made copies from pan & scan prints in Larry Bensky's editing facility at World Northal's New York office up on East 45 Street and started SB Video in 1986, and shortly afterwards Dragon Video with George Tan.

The blackout screen "COPYRIGHT 1983 SB VIDEO" was superimposed over "EDITED FOR TELEVISION BY LARRY BENSKY". The covers were made from the pressbooks, and some from the Warner UK releases of "5 Fingers Of Death", (WN's pan & scan version was used instead of the cropped, macrovision WB tape), "Return To The 36th Chamber" (WN's "Return Of The Master Killer" print was used), "Shaolin Challenges Ninja" (WN print of "Challenge Of The Ninja" was used) and "Five Superfighters". (The UK VHSpal tapes were not used, just the covers.)

[BaronK]

I never saw or heard of Kung Fu June and I always watched USA. Kung Fu Instructor and Avenging Warios Of Shaolin came on USA. 3 Evil Masters, FEN and FotWL came on Channel 57 in Philly when they got the package from channel 29, which had BBT first and KFT second. 3EM never aired on USA in the Philly area.

[ThunderScore]

Also what the hell is Kung Fu Gold?

Not sure if this has already been discussed,

but it's an IFD release from 1975 originally titled TWO DRAGONS AGAINST TIGER

that was retitled KUNG FU GOLD for release theatrically in the U.S.

(and later in TV syndication) by Cinema Shares:

Which was eventually distributed on VHS by Ocean Shores

and later on DVD by Tai Seng under its' original title.

The original poster can be seen here:

http://www.kungfucinema.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14258

[mpm74]

lol! KUNG FU GOLD is now on netflix. Pan & Scan, english dubbed, but looks like a pretty decent source copy.