Return of the Five Deadly Venoms????

[shaolinkng7]

When I first saw Crippled Avengers, it was on Black Belt Theater and was called Mortal Combat. The opening credits were different for the American version. It had the same brief opening music cue, but instead of the HK title, it had a black screen with the American title.

Another difference was that the American version immediately went into a montage of scenes from later in the film that introduced each character along with the credit for the actor who played them, and then finally the producer and director credit.

When this movie was released by Dragon Dynasty, it had what I thought was the original HK credits. Just the title, the producer and the director, with a few more credits a little later in the film, and the bulk of the credits shown at the end, including the cast credits. What was strange was that the title on the Dragon Dynasty release had the title RETURN OF THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS.

Back in the 90s, when the cult following for The 5 Deadly Venoms was at it's peak, a number of video companies that illegally released Shaw Brothers films claimed to have a sequel. The mail order site Iron Palm Video had Five Deadly Venoms II in their catalog. A friend ordered it, and what he got was Masked Avengers with it's credit sequence edited. A couple of years later, one of the video companies released something called "The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms" which, I was told, was random Venom Mob movies. Depending when you bought the video, it would have a different Venom Mob film with the "Return..." title super imposed over the original title. If you bought Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms, you may have ended up with Masked Avengers, Magnificent Ruffians, Crippled Avengers, Five Element Ninjas or even Ninja in the Deadly Trap, and independent film Chang Cheh made after leaving Shaw Brothers. I am not sure why they kept shuffling the films. Perhaps they were dodging the copyright holders. Or maybe it was a simple case of replacing one movie with another movie of better picture quality. At one point they settled on using Crippled Avengers, which was canonized by iMDB as the video release title.

So how the hell did it end up as the title for the Dragon Dynasty release? It did not appear that Dragon Dynasty added their own title credit, so for a while I assumed that maybe Celstial had restored this movie with the new credit, or perhaps the original HK title was Return of the Five Deadly Venoms all along. But then I saw Crippled Avengers on the El Rey network, and it had this title:

....which means that Crippled Avengers was the original title, and that the RETURN OF THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS credit was specially made for Dragon Dynasty. ( Also note that the El Rey network has been cropping their Shaw Brothers films to fit the HD screens. Not as bad as the pan-and-scan from the Black Belt Theater days, but still, you have some picture missing. )

This means that Dragon Dynasty had Celestial go back to the original film elements to create a title sequence with the replacement title. And I assume this would have cost Dragon Dynasty more money. The question is, why?

[KenHashibe]

The question is, why?

Probably because of marketing. Five Deadly Venoms is a popular kung fu film so when some people see the title, they might buy it and I can't really blame them. I'm more concerned why Dragon Dynasty changed the title of Millionaire's Express to Shanghai Express (which is already the name of another movie). How about when Columbia retitled Miracles to Black Dragon?

[reason108]

Crippled Avengers was the English title. It had nothing to do with Five Deadly Venoms at all. It was marketed in some places as either Mortal Combat or Return of the Five Deadly Venoms. It called that to cash in on the fame. DD went with the ROTFDV name cause that is probably how most remember it, at least here in the US anyways. The title had been released prior on the bootlegs from Crash Cinema under the ROTFDV title.

And, as far as Millionaire's Express being re-named Shanghai Express, well, it actually did go by either name depending on where you lived, pretty much. I`ve always known it as either title. There is the HK cut and international versions.

But, there are so many of these movies that are known by different names in different areas.

[shaolin swords]

yes they definitely changed the name because of money I remembering seeing that at a store in the mall back in the mid to late 90s and started cracking up thinking there is no such thing as return of the five deadly venoms lol once saw 8 diagram pole fighter part 2 in new York LOL:wink:

[shaolinkng7]

Crippled Avengers was the English title. It had nothing to do with Five Deadly Venoms at all. It was marketed in some places as either Mortal Combat or Return of the Five Deadly Venoms.

That I doubt. World Northal became the distrtibutor for Shaw Brothers, and they were the ones that changed the name from Crippled Avengers ( the original HK title ) to Mortal Combat. As far as I can tell, World Northal was the final distributor of Shaw Brothers in America. According to iMDB, World Northal was the distributor in 1981. The next distributor listed was Crash Cinema. I doubt this was legal. 2000 was the same year that Celestial bought the Shaw Brothers film library, and from that date on held the exclusive world distribution rights to all Shaw Brothers films. The English dub should have exclusively been called Mortal Combat.

DD went with the ROTFDV name cause that is probably how most remember it, at least here in the US anyways.

Far more people remember the film by the title on the bootleg Shaw Brothers Video box, and that was "Mortal Combat / Crippled Avengers". Everyone agrees that the title was changed for the DVD release, both to cash in on 5 Deadly Venoms by promoting it as a sequel, and to throw off the Shaw Brothers lawyers. Basically, if Shaw Brothers hears that Crash Cinema has released Mortal Combat or Crippled Avengers, they can immediately send a cease and desist order. But since they do not hold the copyright for any film called "The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" they would legally need to acquier and watch a copy of the film, and confirm it is their movie, before any cease and desist order could be sent. This is probably why the same year Master Killer was retitled "Shaolin Master Killer" for the DVD.

But lets assume that "The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" became the title that most people associated with that movie. There is no reason why Dragon Dynasty could not have released the movie with the original title, and had the alternative title on the outside box. Case in point. M.G.M released March of the Wooden Soldiers on DVD, but used the original print of the film titled "Babes in Toyland". Not only didn't anyone complain, but L&H fans were happy that they had a copy of the film with the original opening credit animation. Dragon Dynasty went through all the trouble of having the actual title on film changed.

[Skeleton Claw]

Same reason Dragon Dynasty titled "Five Venoms" as "Five DEADLY Venoms". Yes, the Crash disc were bootlegs. I believe it was a forum member here who advised Crash as to the title change to "ROTFDV". Mortal Combat wouldn't have been an issue legally speaking - at least not for World Northal which was long defunct by the time of the Crash release, not to mention their rights had expired years prior. As to whether or not it would have been an issue with whoever owned the movie rights to the video game adaptation - who knows. Bottom line, it was a smart move on Crash's part to retitle the film like that. Keeping it as Mortal Combat would've simply confused people not familiar with the World Northal title. In the end, while those of us who grew up on the Black Belt Theater packages remember "Mortal Combat" with fondness, many, many more in US now know it as ROTFDV. I was told years ago from someone close to the project that they moved over 100,000 units of that thing.

EDIT: And yes, I agree that DD should have restricted any retitle as a subtitle on the DVD jacket and disc and not have messed with the actual titles on the film. Looks cheesy as hell.

Re: the original tv opening that you describe, I remember it well. Someone posted it on youtube actually. Brought back great memories seeing it again. I believe what World Northal did was simply take bits from the international trailer and splice it together for the opening credits. If you look at the trailer it's basically the same footage with the same Reg Tilsley music.

[shaolinkng7]

Dragon Dynasty may have had 5 "Deadly" Venoms on the box, but they did not have the title on the film changed.

As to the issue of copyrights...

World Northal may be long gone, and their rights to the Shaw Brothers films long expired, but the title "Mortal Combat" was still copyrighted in 2000. If it was World Northal who came up with that title then whoever ended up owning their assets would have owned the copyright of the title. If the assets were still in limbo, the copyright still would exist, but with no one who could file a cease and desist order should someone else use it. If the title came from Shaw Brothers then they would own it. If a previous film had the title "Mortal Combat" and their copyright to that title had not expired, then World Northal would have been using it with their permission. Whenever a film is given a title, the studio and distributor always check to see if it is regestered, so no lawsuits crop up after it is in the theaters. This was the case with "Lee Daniel's The Butler" which was originally to be called "The Butler" until the studio found out another studio held the copyright to a film made in the 1920s called "The Butler" and refused to give Oprah Winfrey permission to use it without paying them a fortune.

The video game company who put out Mortal Kombat only owns a copyright on the title using a "K". I believe they were forced to misspell Combat because they did not want to violate the copyright of the film "Mortal Combat".

Someone would own the copyright to "The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms", even if it was on the box of a bootleg. If the first company to use it was Crash Cinema then they own the copyright to that title. If a mail order company, or some kid sitting in a garage and making his own bootlegs on a bank of VCRs, use the titke first, then they would own the copyright. Although proving it would be a problem. But the law states that the copyright goes to whoever published and distributed the title first. Most likely Dragon Dynasty had to pay someone a lot of money to use the title.

[reason108]

That I doubt. World Northal became the distrtibutor for Shaw Brothers, and they were the ones that changed the name from Crippled Avengers ( the original HK title ) to Mortal Combat. As far as I can tell, World Northal was the final distributor of Shaw Brothers in America. According to iMDB, World Northal was the distributor in 1981. The next distributor listed was Crash Cinema. I doubt this was legal. 2000 was the same year that Celestial bought the Shaw Brothers film library, and from that date on held the exclusive world distribution rights to all Shaw Brothers films. The English dub should have exclusively been called Mortal Combat.

Far more people remember the film by the title on the bootleg Shaw Brothers Video box, and that was "Mortal Combat / Crippled Avengers". Everyone agrees that the title was changed for the DVD release, both to cash in on 5 Deadly Venoms by promoting it as a sequel, and to throw off the Shaw Brothers lawyers. Basically, if Shaw Brothers hears that Crash Cinema has released Mortal Combat or Crippled Avengers, they can immediately send a cease and desist order. But since they do not hold the copyright for any film called "The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" they would legally need to acquier and watch a copy of the film, and confirm it is their movie, before any cease and desist order could be sent. This is probably why the same year Master Killer was retitled "Shaolin Master Killer" for the DVD.

But lets assume that "The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" became the title that most people associated with that movie. There is no reason why Dragon Dynasty could not have released the movie with the original title, and had the alternative title on the outside box. Case in point. M.G.M released March of the Wooden Soldiers on DVD, but used the original print of the film titled "Babes in Toyland". Not only didn't anyone complain, but L&H fans were happy that they had a copy of the film with the original opening credit animation. Dragon Dynasty went through all the trouble of having the actual title on film changed.

DD could have called it Crippled Avengers, Mortal Combat, or TROTFDV. Or, they could have called it "Mortal Combat aka Crippled Avengers", "TROTFDV aka Mortal Combat" or any combination of those titles. But, I think that they chose what they did because of the history of that Crash Cinema title. It was that boot that made it into the malls all across America and people associated that film with that name. Where is Bey Logan when you need him? Maybe he would know for certain why DD called it what they did.

But here is an example of the title card from the beginning of The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms Crash Cinema dvd release. The title card is before the beginning of the film. However, there is no title sequence over the film image like in the other releases.

[Cold Bishop]

The gatekeepers of a studio's catalogue should not be taking their cues from the rube-suckering tactics of bootleggers. It's that simple.

And no, I'm not sure I believe that Return... is a more famous title than Crippled Avengers or Mortal Combat. While I'm aware of the Crash disc, before this I've never seen anyone seriously refer to this as that title. And if we're talking brand recognition, certainly playing up it's influence on the video game would catch more suckers.

The fact they didn't pull the same ploy on something like King Boxer, where it would be much more profitable and justified – even Cheng Chang-Ho prefers the American title – underlines the absurdity of this.

Fuss with the packaging all you want, but absolutely never touch the movie.

[VenomsFan]

The other thing is Dragon Dynasty retains all the copy rights to the film by changing the title on the cue card. These creditless cue cards were handed out to each market for the titles to be changed to fit the language of that country. The opening of the film with the chinese spelling would clearly be from the Shaw Brothers release. If they did that then they would be legally obligated to give percentage of the profits to Shaw Brothers Studios and everyone that worked in that film.

Ground Zero and Crash cinema which kept the fandom for Shaw films alive in the 90s were labelled bootlegs because they were just selling copies of the original TV broadcasts which had the predetermined cue cards already set. You can see in this thread how DD is really no different from Ground Zero / Crash Cinema. They just had better access to the original source material. Did we need DD to remaster the Shawfilms when Shaw Studios was already doing that? That was the source they were using anyways - The Shaw Studios remasters. DD got $$ for distributing the titles with different cue cards so they could continue their other projects - like the awesome Police Story Trilogy Remastered, among others.

[shaolinkng7]

DD could have called it Crippled Avengers, Mortal Combat, or TROTFDV. Or, they could have called it "Mortal Combat aka Crippled Avengers", "TROTFDV aka Mortal Combat" or any combination of those titles. But, I think that they chose what they did because of the history of that Crash Cinema title. It was that boot that made it into the malls all across America and people associated that film with that name.

Would it have made more sense to do the opposite? The Crash Cinema DVDs may be out of print, but who knows how many of the overstock of that DVD is still being passed around from outlet to outlet. Or how many stores ( who did not think of selling online through Amazon ) still have a bunch of those DVDs in stock. Or how many stores already had "Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" in stock at one time, and do not feel like selling the same film again. A big part of selling the Dragon Dynasty DVDs is getting those mall stores to put them on their shelves, and giving the DVD a fresh title would convince many stores to have that DVD in stock.

It would also do wonders selling the film to people who already bought the Crash Cinema disc, thinking they just bought a new film.

Also, when you use the Crash Cinema title, you run the risk of canceling sales. Many may have turned the DVD down because the title made them think it was a bootleg. And the purists would have opted for buying a foreign release that had the original title.

The other thing is Dragon Dynasty retains all the copy rights to the film by changing the title on the cue card.

That would be called watermarking. This is how companies that release public domain films back in the 80s prevented other companies from releasing the same film. They would add "watermarks" which ranged from the company logo showing up on the movie every now and then ( Ocean Shores did this a lot ), to having a permanent copyright on the bottom of the screen for the entire film. This allowed them to put a copyright on the released version since it was an alteration they owned. So if I wanted to release the public domain "Abbott & Costello's 'Jack & the Beanstalk'", I could not legally use the watermarked copy as my master. This did not last that long, because all you needed to do was blot out the watermark, and the previous company had no way to prove that big black box on your release of the film was covering their watermark. Adding a brand new title ( or using the same title but with a new title sequence ) does watermark that print. But it is just too easy to remove title credits. And in this case, the next company to release Crippled Avengers could simply use a release form another country for the master.

Ground Zero and Crash cinema which kept the fandom for Shaw films alive in the 90s were labelled bootlegs because they were just selling copies of the original TV broadcasts which had the predetermined cue cards already set. You can see in this thread how DD is really no different from Ground Zero / Crash Cinema. They just had better access to the original source material. Did we need DD to remaster the Shawfilms when Shaw Studios was already doing that? That was the source they were using anyways - The Shaw Studios remasters. DD got $$ for distributing the titles with different cue cards so they could continue their other projects - like the awesome Police Story Trilogy Remastered, among others.

There is a difference between bootlegs and companies like Crash Cinema. Bootleggers try to mimic legitimate releases and trick you into buying their product instead of the legal product. Companies like Crash Cinema rely on that age old loophole in the law where the old company that owned the U.S. release rights went bankrupt, and no new company had acquired them. They probably also rely on another loophole, where the previous distributor did not bother to renew the copyright on their release print. For example, if no one renewed the copyright for the World Northal television edits, then those would become public domain, even though Shaw Brothers still retained the copyright for the original film. In both cases, it was technically legal to release those movies up until you received a cease and desist order from the company that owned the original copyright. It's still cheating though. And it does make it harder for a legitimate release with remastered prints if the market was already flooded with the same film using edited for television prints.

[reason108]

Would it have made more sense to do the opposite? The Crash Cinema DVDs may be out of print, but who knows how many of the overstock of that DVD is still being passed around from outlet to outlet. Or how many stores ( who did not think of selling online through Amazon ) still have a bunch of those DVDs in stock. Or how many stores already had "Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" in stock at one time, and do not feel like selling the same film again. A big part of selling the Dragon Dynasty DVDs is getting those mall stores to put them on their shelves, and giving the DVD a fresh title would convince many stores to have that DVD in stock.

It would also do wonders selling the film to people who already bought the Crash Cinema disc, thinking they just bought a new film.

Also, when you use the Crash Cinema title, you run the risk of canceling sales. Many may have turned the DVD down because the title made them think it was a bootleg. And the purists would have opted for buying a foreign release that had the original title.

It`s a puzzler then. DD could either run the risk of saturating the market or what, get sued by World Northal (or whomever owned the rights at that time) or Crash Cinema? They must have factored in the risks either way. I doubt that the Weinsteins would be worried at all about getting sued. Someone would have to pony up some big money to go up against their lawyers. Of course I have no idea if they paid Crash Cinema money but I doubt it. Plus, if you add "aka" to the title then does that not change the title? "AKA" means: otherwise known as. So, I would think that by putting The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms aka Crippled Avengers on the cover would keep them safe anyways. I just wonder why they didn't use ROTFDV aka Mortal Combat? The old school fans certainly know the film by the MC name.

Also, during that time, Red Sun had their Shaw boots sitting along side of DD, Tokyo Shock, Image and whomever else was releasing their Shaw titles in pretty much all the major retailers that sold these types of movies. Did Red Sun ever get sued by these guys? Red Sun did not flinch on using some of the same titles as what the legit guys used. If you read this article it will show some nice examples.

http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2007/03/when-bootlegs-attack-red-sun-dvds-in_05.html