Member Iron_Leopard Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 Before Celestrial started releasing remastered versions on dvd in 2002 how could you get your hands on and watch Shaw Martial Arts movies? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ShawAngela Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 In France, I got some French dubbed VHS, but I'm not even sure if they were legit or bootlegs. I guess that there was also vcds releases, such as the Malaysian one I found for I'll finally knock down, Dad. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member TibetanWhiteCrane Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 Here in Denmark, a lot of them played in theaters throughout the 70's but that was before my time. In '86 Warner Bros Video put some out on VHS, including King Boxer, Chinatown Kid, Five Super Fighters and others. In the late 80's a series of retail tapes came out, including the Warner titles plus a few new ones. On the German TV channels they would sometimes show Shaw flicks on Friday nights. Then there were the Made in Hong Kong UK VHS Shaw series in the mid 90's. So that's how I personally got to see a bunch before the Celestial restoration venture. Danish VHS covers for Chinatown Kid and King Boxer (notice how on the latter, they have mistaken all the character names for the actor names, fucking morons). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Killer Meteor Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 I had the 1999 UK Warner tapes of Chinese Boxer, New One-Armed Swordsman, Boxer from Shantung and 36th Chamber of Shaolin. I think Warners had them from French company Studio Canal, who possibly got them when they acquired Thorn-EMI. Convoluted! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member TibetanWhiteCrane Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 38 minutes ago, Killer Meteor said: I had the 1999 UK Warner tapes of Chinese Boxer, New One-Armed Swordsman, Boxer from Shantung and 36th Chamber of Shaolin. I think Warners had them from French company Studio Canal, who possibly got them when they acquired Thorn-EMI. Convoluted! Were those the ones with the orange spine and back or the black ones with the one little round cover pic? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member TibetanWhiteCrane Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 Some of the Danish theatrical Shaw posters from the 70's. And yes, 99% of the titles has the word "Karate" in them because the people in charge at the time were ignorant and didn't know any better. Still annoys me, always did. All credit for these pics goes to https://plakatsiden.blogspot.com/ The New One Armed Swordsman re-titled as The One Armed Karate Avenger The Flying Guillotine kept its name The Killer confusingly re-titled Five Fingers of Death The Delinquent re-titled East Side Story... get it? Also proclaiming to be about "the wild angels of Shanghai"... WRONG! 7 Man Army re-titled... uuurgh.... Karate Kommando Shaolin Martial Arts re-titled..... here we go again... Karate Tam-Tam.... whatever the fuck that means The Casino re-titled The Karate Queen.... starting to sense a pattern here? King Boxer re-titled..... you guessed it, The Karate King. Bamboo House of Dolls re-titled The Women's Prison in Bamboo Hell... not too bad Boxer from Shantung re-titled.... The Bloodiest Showdown of the Orient, well... not really lying, but horrendous poster art. Heroes Two re-titled The Tigerclaw Kills..... ok, I'll take it. And at least they get the Kung Fu part right 14 Amazons re-titled Amazons of the East... close enough Would have been great to see these at the cinema, but I was born a little late for that. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ShawAngela Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 Your Amazons are at least with more or less accurate clothes, while in the Italian poster, they look like the amazons in Supermen against the amazons !! The poster for Hereos Two is nice, as well as the one for The casino. Karate tam tam ! What a joke !! I would have never guessed that it was Shaolin Martial Arts ! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member TibetanWhiteCrane Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 16 minutes ago, ShawAngela said: Your Amazons are at least with more or less accurate clothes, while in the Italian poster, they look like the amazons in Supermen against the amazons !! The poster for Hereos Two is nice, as well as the one for The casino. Karate tam tam ! What a joke !! I would have never guessed that it was Shaolin Martial Arts ! Yeah, Tam-Tam is the worst title, but I kinda like the artwork. That goes for several of them. But the conflation of Kung Fu and Karate which continued up through the 80's and 90's too, it always pissed me off. I get why it was done, but still annoying. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ShawAngela Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 In France, that was the same : all martial arts movies of any genre (even the wuxia ones!) were called "Films de karaté" ! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member TibetanWhiteCrane Posted July 30, 2021 Member Share Posted July 30, 2021 9 minutes ago, ShawAngela said: In France, that was the same : all martial arts movies of any genre (even the wuxia ones!) were called "Films de karaté" ! Yes, an unfortunate mix of western ignorance and marketing strategies. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Killer Meteor Posted July 31, 2021 Member Share Posted July 31, 2021 2 hours ago, TibetanWhiteCrane said: Were those the ones with the orange spine and back or the black ones with the one little round cover pic? The latter. I once saw a UK poster for Shaolin Martial Arts from WB that had been retitled...Five Fingers of Death! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Killer Meteor Posted July 31, 2021 Member Share Posted July 31, 2021 And here it is! (with images from Heroes Two!) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member TibetanWhiteCrane Posted July 31, 2021 Member Share Posted July 31, 2021 That title sure has been bandied about quite a bit. Just some generic shit to slap on whatever movie they were running that week. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Iron_Leopard Posted July 31, 2021 Author Member Share Posted July 31, 2021 Slightly off topic but were Shaw movies Mandarin or Cantonese? Probably a stupid question. I would assume Cantonese but I'm not positive. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member TibetanWhiteCrane Posted July 31, 2021 Member Share Posted July 31, 2021 2 hours ago, Iron_Leopard said: Slightly off topic but were Shaw movies Mandarin or Cantonese? Probably a stupid question. I would assume Cantonese but I'm not positive. Primarily Mando. Then stuff like House of 72 Tenants became a big Canto speaking hit and through the 70's and into the 80's some titles were Canto or both. But since they were shooting without sound, the films were really whatever dub they were given afterwards. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Killer Meteor Posted July 31, 2021 Member Share Posted July 31, 2021 Shaws kept making Mandarin-only titles into the 80s - most of their non-comedy period martial arts films, such as those from Chang Cheh, Chor Yuen and Sun Chung, were Mandarin with no Cantonese alternative. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member DragonClaws Posted August 24, 2021 Member Share Posted August 24, 2021 On 7/30/2021 at 10:37 AM, Iron_Leopard said: Before Celestrial started releasing remastered versions on dvd in 2002 how could you get your hands on and watch Shaw Martial Arts movies? Living in the U.K, it wasn't easy getting hold of Shaw Brothers titles. Even post 2002, we never had the same choice that other markets got. Cool to see 88-Films releasing some more Shaws titles in the U.K on Blu-Ray. It was far easier to find a cheap low budget Basher or Taiwanese indie films, than it was a Shaw Brothers title. Most of the Martial Arts sections in the video stores where I lived, where overflowing with these lesser known titles. Finding Golden Harvest titles was always less of an issue. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member shaolin swords Posted August 25, 2021 Member Share Posted August 25, 2021 am from new jersey used to go to new york and buy the vhs bootlegs those where the only way from what i know to collect shaw brothers movies i still remember it was 3 movies for $25 still remember the first 3 movies i got from there SHAOLIN VS WU TANG MASKED AVENGERS AND MASTER OF DIASTER AKA THE TREASURE HUNTERS 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member reason108 Posted August 28, 2021 Member Share Posted August 28, 2021 US was pretty much boots and legal boots (from the likes of Ground Zero, etc). Pan & Scan VHS quality. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member FightingFool Posted August 28, 2021 Member Share Posted August 28, 2021 (edited) From what can remember, holland Warner had 8 Diagram pole fighter(tho prefer title it was released, as "invincible pole fighters) and Shaolin temple. Likely heroes of the east(titled shaolin challenges ninja). And Four Rideres. Actually hated it "back then", but started later to love when saw from dvd and eventually br. Some other legit label had "heroic ones". Then there was lots chang cheh movies released on "shaolin collection", not sure were they bootlegs. But maybe yes. Greece had some shaws including 5 shaolin masters but they were even more likely boots than Shaolin collection. Denmark had "executioners from shaolin" also and UK "sacred knives of vengeance"(think it was cut). Sometimes see nonsense on forums some people miss vhs times. Fullscreens, dubs, sometimes bad quality, hard to find and overexpensive. Not miss one bit, things so easy now. Which is great. Edited August 28, 2021 by FightingFool 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member OpiumKungFuCracker Posted August 28, 2021 Member Share Posted August 28, 2021 Mom and pop video stores. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member kuenfist Posted August 29, 2021 Member Share Posted August 29, 2021 (edited) In germany a lot of Shaw titels came out on VHS. But most of them where cut as hell but in widescreen. Not full ( 1.85:1 was usually) but widescreen. And there are one or 2 titels they are still not on DVD or Blu Ray. Payment in Blood (Xie Zheng 1973) is one of them. Spoiler Edited August 29, 2021 by kuenfist 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member goldenarm Posted August 30, 2021 Member Share Posted August 30, 2021 (edited) I got my Shaws through bootlegs from Ralph at Beijingvideo and Grandmastervideo online and also through martial arts supply stores that sold the SB video bootlegs with the clamshell/photocopied cases. The only official Shaw Brothers releases that I remember from back in 90's and 80's was the Southgate and Warner Brothers "Bells of Death" and "Seven Blows of the Dragon: releases on vhs which I found in rental shops like Blockbuster. Media Play in Enfield CT used to sell a bunch of the Ground Zero boots on VHS/DVD of the Shaws and I purchased a bunch of those. The moment that Celestial starting releasing Shaws, I used to skip school every once in a while and make trips to Chinatown in Boston to purchase the VCDs in the shops here. Edited August 30, 2021 by goldenarm 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Cloud Hands Posted November 22, 2021 Member Share Posted November 22, 2021 Aside from a few official releases, it was all bootlegs. In London I got mine from various places, but probably the majority were from the Flash Legs shop. Generally the more popular films could be had in slightly better quality, but if you wanted to watch a more rare film then often you had to accept very poor quality. We are very lucky seeing these films remastered these days on dvd and even blu rays. Because I sat through countless films that in truth were barely watchable, with subs that were almost unreadable & didn't fit on the screen. Many looked like they must have been recorded on a handheld cam set up in the cinema and were 4th or 5th generation VHS copy of a copy. But it was the only way we got to see these films. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member khuu_2000 Posted November 23, 2021 Member Share Posted November 23, 2021 between 80-90 in FRANCE, I bought some VHS edited by editors like "Réné chateau" or "Fil à film" titles like, New one armed swordsman, King boxer, Heroic ones, flag of iron, Shaolin handlock, Bamboo house of dolls, The eagles vengeance, Monkey kung fu ... but they are all dubbed in French, frankly I prefer them in the original versions. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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