The Buyers Guide to Kung Fu Companies

[gfanikf]

The goal of this thread will be to spread information about the various compaines that make and sell MA DVDs. Where looking for general comments about the company not nessacrily indivual dvd reviews (although to to prove a point or view they are of course more then welcome). I will incoproate all views in to this thread I think it will be a nice sticky. So just use my list and fill it out :) . Try and be as detailed as possible

I'm trying to only use labels that have put out more then one title (ie Media Blasters) Feel free to repost it in other forums to help out consumers just be sure to give credit.

TIA

Compaines:
Crash Cinema
Ground Zero
Xenon
Brentwood
Mei Ah
HKL
Fox
Vengence Video
Celestial
Pathfinder
Eastern Heros
Video Asia (the scourge of basic quality)
Pan Media
Red Sun
Columbia
Misc Compaines (feel free to add any I forgot)

[irons]

Always been impressed with:

HKL. (except for their Warriors 2 release!!).
Fox. Great looking prints.
Celestial. (some soundtracks are dodgy)
Vengeance Video. Prints poor at times, but great catalogue.
Eastern Heroes. Ditto. (but beware of old censored VHS transfers.)

[gfanikf]

My own comments off the top of my head

Crash Cinema- Can be very good when they try to. They often actually use real film reels for some of there prints. They always attempt to use a Widescreen uncut print if at all possible (though on some occasions they have apparently done fake WS). Audio is usually English dubbed but some release are original language with English and Chinese subs (Taoism Drunakrd, Enter the Fat Dragon)

Ground Zero- Varies massively usually its your average tv print with so so colors and fullscreen and dubbed. One of the more notable things was the release of several Shaw Brothers movies.

Xenon- Worse then Ground Zero. Think of GZ and then go down a notch

Brentwood- Xenon 2 Electirc Boogaloo

Video Asia (the scourge of basic quality)- Crap of the worst quality bad VHS soruced DVD's. Poor Authoring that leads to it not being able to be played on my most non computer dvd players. STAY AWAY FROM.

[Chia Ling AKA Judy Lee]

Beverly Wilshire, how could you forget gfanikf?

Im sure there is a very simple way to add colour to a faded print, these guys clearly either know or care about as much as they know or care about the real titles of the films. Not the most faithful releases about, that said they have released some decent films, and I wont complain for a dime each.

:hat

[venomsfreak]

I don't like the Ground Zero releases of the Venoms films, they are always cut up and missing important scenes. Also the quality is average at best.

Video Asia just plain sucks.

The Celestials are great, I just wish they came with english dub.

[Chen Zhen]

Beverly Wilshire

they release some good movies, but crap quality dvds. no menu, often weak picture and usually imbedded subs.....but for the asking price, i guess u get what u pay for.

the beverly wilshire dvd for return to the 36th chamber is the worst dvd ive ever watched.......but such a great film.

[Yakuza954]

Good thread. I know this thread will be a great help to myself and others who don't know much about the companies outside of the large ones like HKL, Fortune Star, and Celestial.

[johnnydragon]

some of video asias stuff isnt that bad but a lot is

Xenon -gz same people

BEST VIDEO
any vhs that comes from best video or best film are almost
always great prints

Red Sun ive seen chinese,japanese and korean titles by them
ive gotten wrost then v.a from Red sun aka pan media
all the shaws; invincible one,grandmaster of death there
better now with shaws remastering, but they took the celestail swordsman trilogy and took out return of the one arm swordsman and replaced it with zatoichi vs one arm swordsman and say a lot of people think it's ok cause your getting them in english, but they just put out buddha's plam subtitled! this can't be helping celes-shaws, if they stop remastering, were all screwed!!!

tai sheng ok with me! some people don't like them,BUT cheeky chap,baby venoms, ironbrige k.f, phantom killer, fate of lee khan and many more still available on vhs from them and a lot of new stuff aswell on dvd sword in the moon ect. and a lot of ocean shores are on dvd from them under martial arts theater

i wish the USA had as many companys as the UK does

[Johnnie freeze]

Beverly Wilshire...
they release some good movies, but crap quality dvds. no menu, often weak picture and usually imbedded subs.....but for the asking price, i guess u get what u pay for.

Yeah, they usually have VERY poor quality, but their print of "Martial Monks Of Shaolin Temple" is decent. MUCH better than Saturn Video's print. [of course thats not saying very much]:x

[killer meteor]

Eastern Heroes has some good stuff but the prices are a little high considering what you actually get. Most of there stuff is going cheap at Play.com

[Saint360]

You guys are great,this is the stuff the makes this forum awesome.

[Chia Ling AKA Judy Lee]

Something I want to add:

For a long time Ive been biased against various films based only on their distribution. I felt that the films were of a lower quality just because they were sold cheaply, had terrible artwork, and were marketed by apes. This is not really logical. It can indicate the quality of the print or disc may be lower because of lack of care, but it doesnt bare relation to the actual quality of the film.

Thats the really important thing here guys! Get the good films! Ive watched some great films from bad distributors, some are in good quality too, especially Hong Kong Connection (IVL). Id much rather watch a good film in bad quality than a bad film in good quality. Its part of the experience to have the faded, scratched up, and cropped prints. I dont mind it so long as the film is good, nothing can save a bad film. The distributors came after the making of the films, some of these films are great and arent available from others, so I recommend getting some!

I recommend Hong Kong Connection DVDs, these can be picked up very cheaply on ebay and other places in the UK. They are the best source for zany Korean films, although Vengeance is increasingly promoting this area. I do want to see some of these films without the impressionist artwork and cheap fonts on the covers but thanks HKC!

[ShaofuSage]

I'm definitely not a fan of Ground Zero. In general, they are not horrible, but I've seen a couple monstrosities from them (ex: Shaolin vs. Ninja, Dance of Death,) that pretty much put me off. The most I would pay for a Ground Zero release is $5.

Not too fond of Brentwood or Eastern Heroes either because they release crappy films for the most part. Would not put out top notch cash for their released either.

Companies whose releases I would recommend are Crash, Tai Seng, Fox, and obviously Celestial.

[vengeanceofhumanlanterns]

I've appreciated the selection of Poker Industries.com- They have most of the english dubbed bootlegs like Outlaw Of The Forest (Delightful Forest w/ Ti Lung 72'), which I thought was somewhat a rare find. Then they have most of the legitimate releases of Celestial re-masters and so on, but they tend to be out of stock. Sensasian.com is a pretty good source as well. They have dates of release for all the Celestial re-masters, including posting the latest releases around the 6th of every month. My favorite place to purchase Celestial re-masters though would be, Five Star Laser.com, they almost always have their titles in stock and their shipping rates are fair. HKflix.com is also a good source. I found a good print on DVD of, Showdown At The Cotton Mill, at Video Asia .com, released by a company called, Rarescope. Although Beijing Video.com's operater is a self satisfied ass, who will rip you off, I have to say his website is an invaluable guide to unearthing rare old school kung fu titles, by the actors you are interested in finding more of, even if some of the information he posts is'nt always so accurate.

[johnnydragon]

YESASIA PLACED ORDER BEFORE CHRISTMAS WITH REG SHIPPING OCEAN SHORES VCD'S 2.99 AND 3.99 EA
THEY UPGRADED MY SHIPPING TO PRIORITY FREE! SO IT WAS IN TIME TO GO UNDER THE TREE!

SENSASIAN placed order 12-05 a 3 kingdoms movie (not the set, have that coming finally) and im still waiting! first it was because of chinese new year OK! now it's march 23, and it's still in progress in my account screen #@%$#

Theres a thai site that
takes money orders from the U.S AND CANADA they have office in NY. 7.50 shaws vcd shipped and dvd 10.50 shipped

update april 13 06 still waiting there trying to get it from a 3rd party
update 7/3/07 they say I was never charged because it was never shipped but, I sent it pay pal first and last order!SENSASIAN
DVD pacific Crash masters new sword plays $8.53 + 1.50 ship
I get my preorders weeks early and they have fusain swordplays for $5.33 and for Shaws (if I have a coupon cdwow) if not buyoyo & DDD house

[Ivy Ling Po]

Sensasian is bad & rude service personified. Chase them for your dvds/vcds at your own risk. You won't believe the rude emails that they send out.

[tino]

I ordered 5 get one free from fivestarlaser.com and I'm still waiting on my supposedly free movie. I ordered in march and recieved the first 4 quick and then the 5th about 2 wks later. I have sent emails and the last reply I got about 3 weeks ago said they would ship it soon. Three weeks later still nothing. I think they really dont like giving away a free dvd, why else would it be almost 3 months and I havent recieved it yet? Weird!

[Ze Prof]

Play-asia are good to order from, I've bought loads of stuff from them, although they may not do markdowns if anyone is looking for that on the postage and shipping.

I'll say in advance, this is my affiliate link (to the martial arts DVDs and VCDs) - in case that isn't allowed here; I got banned from an ezboard some time ago for linking to their DVDs (even though it was in a thread called 'where to get Asian DVDs'....).

www.play-asia.com (http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-p0l-71-sb-49-en-84-k.html)


edit - in case anyone doesn't know, the imdb.com movie database is good for getting original Chinese movie titles, just type in the western title and it takes you right there, or you get a list to pick from.

[Brown Mang]

Theres a thai site that
takes money orders from the U.S AND CANADA they have office in NY. 7.50 shaws vcd shipped and dvd 10.50 shipped

What site?

[Ab858]

Any word on Yin Yang Films?

[Linn1]

Any word on Yin Yang Films?

just another bootleg front for Pan Media/Red Sun. If you want inferior product that's coming out now to help run legit companies out of the US marketplace, that's what you'll get from them.

[Ab858]

just another bootleg front for Pan Media/Red Sun. If you want inferior product that's coming out now to help run legit companies out of the US marketplace, that's what you'll get from them.

Thanks, I'm new to the scene. Just trying to hunt down legit DVDs with quality.

[Righteous Master]

In my opinion the best of the best has to go to Dragon Dynasties/Celestial Pictures.
I picked up a 2 disc DVD release the other day from Video Asia entitled "The Martial Arts Essentials" the films of Yuen Wo Ping. This set has Invincible Armour,Dance of the Drunk Mantis and 4 other lesser known films by YWP. Quality films with good video. Not too bad for $14.99