Question about sequels and liberal usage of titles..

[Asmo]

This isn't about specific films per se, but I've noticed a lot of films have had sequels that are seemingly unrelated (at least production wise). Examples being Snake in The Eagle's Shadow II and Fearless Hyena III (there are a lot more I'm sure). Is this a case of nobody having copyrights to anything, exploitation or just free reign?

[shukocarl]

I suppose the smaller companies couldn't be bothered to argue/sue over the rights to titles/characters/plots. Some unnoficial sequels are good while others are totally rubbish and not deserving of the titles!

[Endsang]

In some cases they have to buy the rights from the original creators, who probably never have thought twice about doing a sequel, but still keep it for some quick dollars. Probably a lot stricter in Hollywood and larger scale productions, as mentioned.

[One Armed Boxer]

I think it's even worse when it's actually a US or UK company that messes around with a film's title.

For example the now defunct Eastern Heroes label in the UK changed the title of the Wong Jing actioner 'The Last Blood' to 'Hard Boiled 2'! Despite the fact it came out a whole year before!

Not to mention the US release of another Wong Jing movie starring Jet Li, 'High Risk', which was re-named 'Meltdown'...and then they marketed a completely unrelated film, 'The Black Sheep Affair', as it's sequel by calling it 'Another Meltdown'!

It's one thing for the small local companies to try and cash in on a films success, but for these companies to do the same thing is just trying to mis-lead people to make a quick buck.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Yeah, it's usually the foreign distributors who are the culprits!

The chinese titles rarely have much to do with the english titles anyway!

[Asmo]

It's still done recently (by foreign companies) as was there not a thread asking if Tiger over Wall was known as SITES 2?

[The Dragon]

How about your boys over at Dragon Dynasty renaming The Banquet, The Legend of The Black Scorpion? I never saw any references to that title in the film...

[thekfc]

It's still done recently (by foreign companies) as was there not a thread asking if Tiger over Wall was known as SITES 2?

After emailing Voom & calling them I found out that concerning the 2 movies I iquire about - they wasn't aware that the movie they advestised wasn't actually the movie they were playing & that there were retitling involved..

They advertised & intended to play SITES2 but the SITES22 that they showed was actualy Tiger Over Wall retitled as SITES2.

The same goes for "the Snakefist vs The Dragon" which is actually "Kung Fu Master Named Drunk Cat" retitle as The snakefist vs....

They didn't know that until I bought it to their attention.

For The Snakefist vs the Dragon you can tell that there is retitling involved as the title & rest of opening credits are different (color, size, shape....etc) but for SITES2 is wasn't that obvious - whomever did the retitling/opening credits did a good job.

[Asmo]

Ahh I see.. boggles the mind.