Great news for Hong Kong cinema fans! Shout! has acquired worldwide rights (excluding select Asian territories) to the Golden Princess movie library, which consists of 156 Hong Kong cinema classics, many of which have been MIA from the market for years.
Titles included with the deal include Hard Boiled, The Killer, the complete A Better Tomorrow trilogy, Bullet in the Head and Once a Thief. The library also boasts Ringo Lam’s City on Fire, Prison on Fire and its sequel; Eric Tsang’s Aces Go Places; Tsui’s Peking Opera Blues; Tony Ching’s Chinese Ghost Story trilogy; and additional hits like Wai Ka-fai’s Peace Hotel, Andrew Kam and Johnnie To’s The Big Heat and Alex Law’s Now You See It, Now You Don’t (via Variety).
We’ll keep you updated as detailed emerge. Until then, here’s some selected Trailers for you to feast on:
Now we just need Shaolin Soccer and the uncut Rumble in the Bronx, Hero, and Grandmaster back, and we can party like it’s 1986.
Golden princess got bought by an Indian society, then…ain’t it now linked to Di$ney’s evil empire?
Whatever, no Region B, no care.
This is extremely exciting. Thats quite a collection of films they’ve got and it will be great to finally have legit releases with properly translated subtitles and great picture and sound.
The Big Heat is a great one. It’s one of the few times Waise Lee was a good guy, and it had that gritty flavor going for it.
This is massive news for collectors. Hopefully Shout has access to brand new 4k scans of the original negatives and produce the definitive releases of all these classics. They all need to be to the same level of quality as the official Fortune Star 4k release of A Better Tomorrow and not the AI upscale German bootleg blurays of The Killer, Bullet in the Head and Prison on Fire or the crappy Fortune Star HK Blurays of the Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy. I’m cautiously optimistic but would much prefer Eureka or Arrow get their hands on these movies.
Unfortunately, they’re also hiring a well-known Bey Logan defender to work on these releases as well: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=22788454&postcount=119
Dude went on a meltdown over people criticizing 88 Films for originally hiring him and even tried to throw another boutique label under the bus to make him look good, to where they had to debunk him: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=20542612&postcount=21968 https://web.archive.org/web/20221015015029/https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=20543317&postcount=21978 https://x.com/VinegarSyndrome/status/1580642256150667264
Strange post. If your links are intended as proof this Irongod guy is a “Bey Logan defender” then you failed miserably. He just state facts (Bey was never convicted, the Hollywood and HK film industries are a dirty business etc.). At no point does he express an opinion that defends him against the allegations that were made. The initial Vinegar Syndrome releases that contained Logan material also didn’t specify if it was new or archival, so it was a fair assumption to say the label was working with him considering how close it came to the 88 announcement.
We live in an odd world. All this fuss about boycotting labels if they work with Logan, yet 108 million people tuned in just 2 months ago (not counting the audience in attendance at the event) to support a convicted rapist take part in a boxing match. Where do you draw the line?
Who is that “Irongod” guy on the message board? If he’s hired for a big project like this, he shouldn’t be acting immature online and making dumbass statements.
Unfortunately, Logan hasn’t been arrested or charged since it seems like the authorities don’t give a shit about the accusations. He’s even listed in the credits for The Prosecutor as a translator, so who knows what will happen next?
In truth, if we wanted to protest against any person, company, or business for being terrible, we would have to get rid of all our possessions and homes, and it’s hard to draw a line.
If “Irongod” wants to work for Shout Factory though, he better behave himself.
I don’t know irongod personally (to the point I don’t even know his actual name!), but I can say he’s one of key contributors behind the scenes for a lot of the Hong Kong cinema physical releases we’ve had over the last 5 years from the like of Eureka!, 88 Films, Arrow, and Criterion.
I’ve interacted with him when he brought me onboard to do the Korean translations on the ‘Spiritual Kung Fu’ and ‘To Kill With Intrigue’ releases for 88, and I know he does plenty of the legwork at finding the best sources when it comes to picture and sound quality, uncut versions, archival interviews etc. I feel that as fans we’re all better off thanks to his contributions (a lot of what’s done though love of the genre vs. monetary), and definitely doesn’t deserve the attacks on his character that TheBigG has implied.
Bey Logan has done questionable things but his commentaries are more informative than Mike Leeder and bestie’s and more entertaining than Frank Djeng’s which can across as an audiobook version of a wikipedia entry. Its a shame he wasn’t a better person cos all the aforementioned releases would have benefited from his commentary (even his old legacy ones ported over). I’m not defending the guy but neither am I throwing away my HK Legend DVDS cos of a Bey Logan commentary.
As for Big G….Mike Leeder burner account?
One doesn’t have to be smart to know that show business and any business is full of lying sleaze bags, but it’s frustrating when they don’t get their comeuppance and when people cry “But we like their work! Don’t cancel them!”
I suppose we should be grateful that “Irongod” has put a lot of work into the recent Blu Rays of these films even if we don’t agree with everything he says. Once upon a time, lots of us didn’t think it would get better than HKL or even Universe for that matter!
My blu-ray contributor is better than you’re blu-ray contributor. Weird