Reviews of companies which release Hong Kong films on video

This page lists general information about all of the companies I am aware of which manufacture or distribute Hong Kong films on video (VHS tapes, Laserdiscs, DVDs, or VCDs). I have tried to be as complete as possible in this list so that you can make an informed decision about wether or not to buy or rent a particular version of a Hong Kong film on video.

If you have any information about any of these or other companies, please email me at the address at the bottom of this page.

General Notes:
Most Hong Kong and Taiwanese films are licensed by only one legitimate manufacturer in each country in Southeast Asia. In 1997, or thereabouts, Media Asia bought up the rights to the bulk of the films produced in Hong Kong, but other than this, the rights to films do not transfer between companies frequently.

There are also many large and small scale bootlegging operations in Asia, which usually make unauthorized versions of Hong Kong films, usually as either Laserdiscs or VCDs.

In the rest of the world, there are licensed Asian language video distributors of Hong Kong and Taiwanese films, which either import videos from the original Asian companies, or make authorized duplicates of them.

There are also video companies which license Hong Kong films for sale to the mainstream audience. These companies always make their own videos, and often dub them really poorly into English or another language.

Asian versions of videos are usually made from theatrical prints of films, and therefore often include theater subtitles in Chinese and English at the same time, and sometimes a third language as well. Thse subtitles look fine in a theater, but on video they can be very difficult to read since they are very small on a TV, and they have no borders to separate them from the picture, and video has a terrible range of contrast compared to film.

Remastered electronic subtitles are usually much better than the original theater subtitles since they are large and have borders or are even placed in the black band below the picture to increase their readability. Some laserdiscs and videos and many DVDs have remastered subtitles.

Format Notes:

• LD:
  Laserdiscs started being manufactured for rental in Hong Kong in 1988/ Laserdiscs are a very durable and high quality format for distributing films, and partially due to the popularity of laserdisc Karaoke in Asia, they became the ideal film rental format there, as well as being exported for rental in other countries. Since they are meant for rental, Laserdiscs are expensive - the equivalent of US$80 per LD, plus more popular movies are split onto 2 LDs to double the cost. (this tactic is also used with tapes). Rental LDs are produced in small quantities, and go out of print quickly, although there have been some re-releases of popular LDs for home use at sell-through prices of more like US$40 per LD. A small number of Hong Kong films were released in remastered editions on laserdisc with new subtitles by companies in the US, England, and maybe elsewhere. The sound on LDs is CD quality, and they usually include both Cantonese and Mandarin soundtracks! Bootleggers used to make lots of bootleg LDs due to their high sale price, but now they have turned to VCDs since they are so easy to duplicate, and they can sell larger numbers of them.
• DVD:
  DVDs are the newest format that Hong Kong films have been made available in. After nearly flopping in 1997, Hong Kong DVDs have improved in quality and features and decreased in price to become a popular format to buy films on in Hong Kong. DVDs now cost anywhere between US$6 and US$30 each in Hong Kong, depending on the popularity of the movie. DVDs are very convenient, can have a sharper picture than LDs, and often have readable removable subtitles. Unfortunately they also have disadvantages such as being easily damaged, country lockout codes, copy protection, and digital artifacting. DVD also supports Dolby Digital sound, but since most Hong Kong films were only made in mono, they have to be redone for Dolby Digital. Unfortunately, the companies doing the remixing are very sloppy, so many of these remixed soundtracks sound worse than the original mono versions, or are even completely changed :(
• VCD:
  VCDs are very popular in Asia, although the never gained popularity in the rest of the world. VCDs are very cheap - US$6 or less for a movie, and lots of Hong Kong movies are readily available on VCD. However, VCDs have lots of disadvantages - they have very low resolution (worse than VHS), it takes 2 VCDs to hold a movie, and they have TERRIBLE digital artifacting! Bootleggers in Asia primarily use VCD, and make VCDs of camcorder bootlegs of films in theaters. Needless to say, these are even worse than legitimate VCDs.
• VHS:
  VHS tapes wear out with repeated use, and have low resolution compared to LD and DVD, but there are many good Hong Kong films which are only available on VHS and LD, but the LD is out of print, so VHS is your only choice. Although all Hong Kong Laserdiscs and DVDs are made in the USA / Japanese / Taiwanese NTSC video standard, tapes from Hong Kong and most of the rest of the world are in PAL (or SECAM) format, which can not be played on a USA VCR. Sound-wise, VHS tapes can include hifi stereo sound, but most tapes of HK movies do not, or if they do, it is really poorly recorded and distorted.

List of companies:

• Golden Cinema City
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Good LD manufacturer, probably defunct since the mid '90s. Film prints were always letterboxed and theater subtitled, sometimes grainy / fuzzy. They seem to have been the primary company to release Film Workshop / Tsui Hark / John Woo / Chow Yun Fat films before they went defunct. They did the Chinese Ghost Story, Swordsman, and Better Tomorrow series and more...
  LD: Good to very good quality, usually no trailers.
  
• Universe Laser and Video
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Great LD manufacturer, and after a poor start, an even better DVD manufacturer! In the LD days, all of their stuff was letterboxed and theater subtitled, and had good print quality. Media Asia bought the rights to most of their stuff, but they've licensed a lot of it back (and stuff they didn't own before) to make good DVDs with removable subtitles!
  LD: Excellent quality, but no trailers
  DVD: Early DVDs were made from LD masters minus the trailers, but they quickly realized their error, and started doing really nice releases with removable subtitles, trailers, menus, etc. They've even started remastering their older titles, but unfortunately the catalog numbers are the same, although the cover art changes. Unfortunately, A few of their early (and good) films released as bad DVDs are out of print and have not been remastered yet such as Tai Chi Master, Moon Warriors, and Fong Sai Yuk 2.
  VCD: The only Universe VCD I've seen looks great for a VCD!
  
• Mei Ah Laser Disc
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: One of the top makers of LDs in Hong Kong since 1988, but unfortunately their DVD releases have mostly been pretty bad. Their films are LBX and have theater subtitles most of the time, and always have excellent picture quality. They owned a lot of the later films from Tsui Hark's Film Workshop, and lots of other good films, but a lot of it has been bought by Media Asia now.
  LD: Great quality, usually include trailers before the film
  DVD: Most of their DVDs are badly artifacted, taken from the LD master minus the trailers, but just recently they've seen the light and started producing very nice DVDs with remastered subtitles. Some of their early DVDs are even pan&scanned when the original LDs were not :( Many early releases came in jewel cases inside a cardboard sleeve, they use 2 types of blue keepcases - the more common one with the rounder corners is terrible.
  VCD: Makes lots of VCDs, they look like low-rez versions ov their early DVDs (often artifacted)
  
• Cameron Entertainment
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Subsidiary of Mei Ah for LD releases only, I'm not sure why they exist as a separate entity, for notes, see Mei Ah above.
  LD: see Mei Ah above.
  
• Winson Entertainment
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Seems to have merged with / renamed as Star Entertainment after 1-2 years in operation in the late '80s - see below
  LD: see Star Entertainment below
  
• Star Entertainment
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: By far the best picture quality of all Hong Kong LD companies. Unfortunately, this quality comes from them using high quality but unsubtitled interpositive prints of their films, so at least half of their LDs have no subtitles, or remastered Chinese only subtitles. Also, Star Entertainment tends to "letter-scan" or "zoom-box" really 2.35:1 scope films down to 1.85:1, cropping off the sides, and they occasionally P&S films, but they at least do a good job of it, unlike Ocean Shores. Unfortunately they own most of the Golden Harvest films (Jackie Chan, some Jet Li, etc.), and made incredibly sharp but unsubtitled LDs of them.
  LD: Beautiful picture quality, but often unsubtitled as noted above. Often include trailers for other Star movies or Karaoke.
  
• China Star
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: May be defunct. Made at least 40 DVDs which usually exactly duplicated Star Entertainment LD releases, except they didn't include trailers
  DVD: Sometimes artifacted, identical prints to Star Entertainment LDs, but no trailers (or any DVD extras). Packaged in jewel cases inside a generic cardboard box.
  
• Ocean Shores
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Basicly the most annoying video company in Hong Kong. Many of the films they own are low grade junk, although they do own several good films, which makes their treatment of them all the more apalling. Probably 80% of the newer HK films they own have theater subtitles, but nearly all of the older kung-fu ones are either poorly English dubbed or untranslated. Unlike most other Hong Kong video companies, Ocean Shores nearly always pan&scans everything, or actually, they just point the camera at the middle of the picture, cutting off both sides, including the subtitles. Plus sometimes they zoom in so much that the lower line of English subtitles is completely cut off! They also super-impose their logo over the corner of the picture (including subtitles) at least twice during the film. And to top it off, their LDs usually have the Mandarin soundtrack on the digital channels and the Cantonese on the analog, which is the opposite of every other manufacturer in HK. Notable films that they unfortunately released include a lot of old Shaw Brothers films, some Wong Kar Wai movies, and Fire Dragon (whuch is surprisingly letterboxed!). They do a lot of films by the D&B film company, and cheezy Cat III Horror.
  LD: Technically well manufactured copies of the badly done film transfers described above :( They all include one trailer after a "next release" screen which follows the film
  DVD: Same as the LDs, but no trailers (and no DVD extras). Early releases were packaged in jewel cases in cardboard boxes, but newer ones are in thick keepcases which are often fluorescent green.
  VCD: The only one I've seen looks pretty bad, but not badly artifacted
  VHS: I think they make both NTSC and PAL tapes. Same crappy P&S work as the LDs and DVDs, but most of the Ocean Shores tapes I've seen are old no-name kung-fu movies, although a few are great.
  
• Fitto Mobile
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Owns a small number of recent HK films, many of which are notable. Prints are always letterboxed with theater subtitles.
  LD: Good quality
  DVD: Same prints as LD releases, no trailers or menus or extras
  VCD: ?
  
• Far East Music
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Defunct. Great quality rental LD manufacturer - always letterboxed, subtitled, and bilingual! Their most notable releases are Drunken Master, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, and Dance of the Drunk Mantis.
  LD: Excellent quality, but hard to find.
  
• Media Asia
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Bought up the rights to something like 80% of all HK movies around the same time as the 1997 takeover of HK. Manufactured some LDs for import by Tai Seng. DVDs of stuff they own are made by Mega Star, although some are licensed back to Universe
  LD: Good quality, subtitled, lbx, but didn't release many
  
• Mega Star
  Location: Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Makes DVDs from Media Asia's prints of lots of famous HK movies. Unfortunately, although their stuff is always letterboxed, most of their prints are PAL transfers which have been converted to NTSC, time compressing them by 4% and adding a tracer / ghosting effect. They also do absolutely terrible 5.1 channel sound remixes for DVD, often using completely different music and sound effects than were originally in the film :( The translations they use for their removable subtitles are variable in quality - sometimes they are the original translation with minor spelling fixes, other times they are inferior translations based on the Mandarin soundtrack, often with words badly transliterated from Mandarin instead of translated :(
  DVD: Usually region free, always copy protected, menus, trailers, "star files", removable subtitles in up to 10 different languages
  VCD: Unknown quality
  
• Mercury
  Location: Malaysia
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Mercury seems to have collaborated with Media Asia early on - There were a few DVDs which each company released in a different case, but both contained the same DVD. Mercury always uses decent, but not great letterboxed prints of films and adds removable subtitles, but unfortunately, Malaysian censorship laws are really odd, and many of their DVDs are censored for dialogue and kissing! (Someone from Malaysia told me that kissing is offensive, and indeed, a major kiss is censored from the Mercury DVD of Flying Dagger!). Fortunately, not all of their DVDs are censored, and they have released letterboxed versions of movies which Ocean Shores only released in P&S! Unfortunately, their translations are often based on the Mandarin soundtrack, and are missing dialogue and annoyingly lag by a few seconds compared to the HK LD or DVD of the same film.
  DVD: Some of their DVDs are *Censored*. They all have some minor blocky artifacting, cheezy menus (w/ 2 options - "Start Movie" and "Chapters"), removable subtitles, usually not region coded, except for Swordsman. Their DVDs (and the Media Asia ones which were collaborateve releases) come in white keep cases.
  
• Ritek
  Location: Taiwan
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Released DVDs of a few films not on DVD anywhere else
  DVD: Theater subs, lbx, Mandarin soundtrack only, ?
  
• Long Shong Video
  Location: Taiwan
  Type: Asian Manufacturer
  Summary: Major manufacturer of Taiwanese videos. All are letterboxed at approx 1.85:1 regardless of original ratio, and include theater subtitles and mandarin only dialogue. Relationship with Long Shong film company is unknown (if any)...
  VHS: SP mode, good quality, as above.
  
• [LDs with no company name]
  Location: Taiwan or Hong Kong
  Type: Asian Bootlegger
  Summary: One of the main laserdisc bootleggers uses a common numbering scheme for their LDs, so I am classifying them as a manufacturer here. They always have these features: no company name listed on the disc or jacket (unless an importer reprints the jacket and or disc labels), the LD(s) contain just the movie - no warnings or trailers, the Mandarin version is usually on the digital soundtrack (like Ocean Shores), Picture quality is at best almost as good as the original LD, but at worst, it's a completely different transfer of the film such as the P&S bootleg single LD of Green Snake distributed by Tai Seng which is terrible compared to the widescreen 2 LD set from Mei Ah (or the later 1LD sell-through release by Mei-Ah). Often these bootleg LDs are single LD versions of 2 LD sets, but there are 2 LD bootlegs such as Treasure Hunt. Often the label has a checkerboard pattern on it, along with the product number which takes the form of YY-NNN where YY is the 2-digit year in which the LD was released, and NNN is the order in which the LD was released - the first bootleg LD in 1993 is 93-001
  LD: As described above - originals are always better, sometimes significantly
  
• QVP
  Location: Canada
  Type: Importer / Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: They make good LDs and tapes for the Chinese market in Canada. Good film prints, theater subtitles, letterboxed.
  LD: Bilingual
  VHS: SP mode, good
  
• Pan Asia Video
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Defunct, merged with another company to form Tai Seng. Often P&S, mediochre prints of lots of '80s HK movies.
  VHS: Sometimes SP, sometimes LP or EP, incredibly variable quality ranging from terrible to good.
  
• Rainbow
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: I think they're defunct, and merged with Pan Asia to form Tai Seng
  VHS: variable quality, distributes many Golden Harvest titles
  
• Tai Seng Video Marketing
  Location: South San Francisco, CA
  Type: Importer / Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Largest and most overpriced importer of HK films in the USA. Doesn't put much care into most of their stuff, especially tapes. Print quality varies, for anything which isn't remastered, there are theatrical subtitles or none at all
  LD: Imports rental LDs from Hong Kong for US$110 per disc, but many of their "official" imports are actually bootlegs from Hong Kong, and not the original versions - a good example is their Pan&Scan bootleg Green Snake which looks like crap compated to the official Mei Ah widescreen release! They also imported some of the HK sell-through reissue LDs and sold them for "only" US$70-90 each. Tai Seng also made a series of remastered LDs of about 20 notable Hong Kong films - some of them are great, whereas others are awful.
  DVD: Has pressed a few decent copy protected region 1 DVDs that duplicate their previous series of remastered LDs and tapes, but mainly imports HK DVDs at ludicrous prices ($50 per DVD no matter what). A few of their recent imports have come out at "only" $30 list price, which is still outrageous. They have also started releasing their cheap dubbed VHS tapes as DVDs, which are no better quality than the VHS versions :(
  VCD: unknown
  VHS: Tai Seng VHS tapes are basicly legal bootlegs - they are usually copied from VHS masters made from laserdiscs using consumer VCRs. (you can usually see the word "play" appear at the beginning of a Tai Seng tape from the VCR which they copied the tape from!) Even so, they are often very good quality, but hardly worth the $40 per tape that they charge for them! They also have a sell-through $20 series of Pan&Scan dubbed versions of HK movies on VHS which are pretty bad.
  
• World Video
  Location: South San Francisco, CA, USA
  Type: Importer / Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Generally worse than Tai Seng, has license to most Hong Kong films which Tai Seng does not.
  LD: They usually press their own LDs of titles they have licensed from Hong Kong. These are usually of so-so quality, but usually include subtitles even when the original Hong Kong LD did not. For some titles, they carry the original HK version LD or a bootleg, but they usually print a new cover for these, and even slap their own label over the original label on the LD!
  DVD: The only DVDs they have released so far are TERRIBLE! They cropped off the lower portion of the picture to hode the original subtitles and then put new subtitles on top of the area :(
  VCD: unknown
  VHS: Similar variable and mediochre quality as Tai Seng
  
• South Gate Entertainment
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Unfortunately probably defunct. They made great rental priced tapes of many old kung fu movies inclusing Shaw Brothers classics! Prints are very good quality, dubbed, and often letterboxed!
  VHS: SP mode, great quality, but very hard to buy since they're meant for rental.
  
• Scimitar
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Mostly old Jackie Chan films, good print quality, always dubbed, usually pan&scan.
  DVD: Sometimes terrible artifacting, other times OK. Always P&S, sometimes includes original Cantonese soundtrack, but no subtitles :(
  VHS: A few tapes are lbx, all are SP, good quality
  
• Master Arts
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: May be defunct. Old kung fu movies, always P&S and dubbed, so so print quality
  VHS: Decent quality, SP mode.
  
• Saturn
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: P&S dubbed copies of less well known kung-fu movies
  VHS: OK quality
  
• Central Park
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Old kung-fu movies including many classics, often renamed, sometimes P&S, sometimes LBX, often dubbed, sometimes original theater subtitles. Print quality ranges from good to terrible.
  DVD: Same masters as VHS tapes, rather artifacted
  VHS: SP mode, good quality
  
• Best Film and Video Corp
  Location: NY, USA
  Type: Domestic manufacturer
  Summary: May be out of business, OK quality tapes of old kung fu movies, always dubbed and pan&scanned
  VHS: SP mode, OK quality
  
• Arena Home Video
  Location: USA
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: They always deceptively rename second rate movies very similarly to good films - ex: "Hard Boiled Killers". All of their stuff I've seen is dubbed and pan&scaned. They seem to distribute all of the worst stuff that Eastern Heroes distributes in the UK, but none of the good stuff :(
  VHS: Usually recorded in EP mode, but decent quality.
  
• Xenon Entertainment
  Location: Santa Monica, CA, USA
  Type: Domestic manufacturer
  Summary: US distributer fo Blaxploitation and '70s kung-fu movies. They often rename movies misleadingly, but most of the movies they distribute are pretty good. The transfers they use are always English dubbed, many are pan&scan, but some are letterboxed.
  DVD: The DVDs are badly artifacted, and are taken from the exact same masters that the tapes were made from.
  VHS: Usually recorded in EP mode, but decent quality.
  
• SB Video
  Location: USA
  Type: Bootlegger
  Summary: Variable quality bootlegs of most Shaw Brothers and some other kung fu movies. Most are bootlegged from TV broadcasts or Ocean Shores tapes, and therefore pan&scanned and dubbed in English.
  VHS: Variable quality, SP mode
  
• Video Search of Miami
  Location: Miami, FL, USA
  Type: Bootlegger
  Summary: You will be sorry if you buy anything from these bootleggers!
  VHS: Terrible bootleg copies for $20 or so each. I've accidentally rented some of these tapes - they look like they are a 6th generation copy made on a 20 year old VCR - the subtitles are REALLY unreadable, the picture is more jittery and fuzzy than you've ever seen before, the sound has a nasty hum! Aparently they got sued by Tai Seng and only carry the Tai Seng versions of movies licensed by Tai Seng now (at Tai Seng prices), but you should still aboid them!
  
• Made in Hong Kong
  Location: UK
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: DJ / kung-fu-movie-sampling Musician J. Saul Kane started this great company in the UK a few years ago. They've released fully letterboxed dubbed versions of several Shaw Brothers kung fu classics, and letterboxed uncut subtitled versions of lots of new Hong Kong classics such as God of Gamblers, Heroic Trio, John Woo stuff, and more! Print quality ranges from good to excellent, depending on the source - rarer films have theater subtitles, but many have remastered subtitles!
  LD: 1 or 2 of the MIHK titles were released on PAL LD by another company...
  VHS: SP mode PAL VHS tapes, very good quality, copy protected
  
• Eastern Heroes
  Location: UK
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Owns a lot of good stuff and a lot of lame stuff too. Older kung fu movies tend to be P&S and dubbed, newer films are sometimes treated better, sometimes not...
  LD: ?
  DVD: unknown quality
  VHS: Good quality SP mode PAL tapes, much better than the versions which Arena releases in the US!
  
• Pony Canyon
  Location: Japan
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer
  Summary: Most notable Hong Kong films were released in Japan on LD and VHS by Pony Canyon - all of the Jackie Chan and Golden Harvest stuff is handled by them. Most titles are Cantonese with Japanese subtitles, but some printings of the tapes and LDs of Armour of God and Wheels on Meals are dubbed in English with Japanese subtitles. Titles are usually fully letterboxed, exceptions are Police Story 2 and Crime Story. Print quality is amazing, and they are often the only company to release the full uncut versions of HK films - at least 10 Jackie Chan films from Pony Canyon have several extra scenes and extended outtakes whereas in Hong Kong versions are often cut down and missing outtakes altogether!
  The films I can confirm the Pony Canyon versions to be longer than the HK versions are:
  Police Story (several scenes)
  Police Story 2 (several scenes)
  Wheels on Meals (several scenes)
  Armour of God (some different outtakes, alternate footage)
  Miracles (several scenes)
  Dragons Forever (the 2 Yuen Biao scenes, but the tape was dubbed in Japanese - I think the LD is Cantonese)
  [All of the "Lucky Stars" series definitely have outtakes, and may have extra scenes]
  LD: Best available, but usually no English - the 4 Jackie Chan Masterpieces boxed sets (4 films each) are great reissue collections!
  DVD: I haven't watched any yet...
  VHS: usually the same versions as the LDs
  
• Pioneer (Japan)
  Location: Japan
  Type: Domestic Manufacturer / Distributer
  Summary: Major LD distributer also handles DVDs - no LDs that I know of came out on their label, and their DVDs are aparently mostly or all repackaged Mega Star versions (remember, they have several languages of subtitles including Japanese...) Aparently some of the repackaged DVDs were "limited editions" and are no longer available...
  LD: ?
  DVD: Actually just repackaged Mega Star DVDs...
  

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