Posted in: 4K/Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray, Movies | Tagged: A Better Tomorrow, A Bullet in the Head, A Chinese Ghost Story, Hardboiled, hong kong cinema, john woo, Peking Opera Blues, ringo lam, Shout! Factory, streaming, the killer, tsui hark

Shout! Studios Gets Worldwide Rights to 156 Classic Hong Kong Films

Shout! Studios has secured the rights to 156 Hong Kong movies that defined the 1980s and 1990s and have been out of circulation for 20 years.

Shout! Studios has secured worldwide rights (excluding select Asian territories) to the coveted Golden Princess movie library, a treasure trove of 156 Hong Kong cinema classics that's been out of circulation from Western markets for most of this century. Many of these films are considered classics and defined not only Hong Kong Cinema in the 1980s and 1990s but have also had an incalculable influence on Hollywood action films ever since. The landmark acquisition deal was made by Shout! Studios' David McIntosh, Jordan Fields and Taylor Devorsky, with Golden Princess Amusement Co., Ltd.'s Dickson Lai and Ronald Chu representing the seller's interests. This is big news for the movie world and movie lovers.

Shout! Studios Will Restore An Entire Missing Era of Historical – and FUN! – Hong Kong Movies

The Golden Princess library's crown jewels include the key movies that put John Woo on the map and defined action movies ever since: the A Better Tomorrow trilogy, The Killer, the lesser-known epic A Bullet in the Head, Hard Boiled, and his heist comedy thriller Once a Thief, which also cemented Chow Yun Fat as a global superstar. The library also includes Ringo Lam's original noir trilogy City on Fire (whose plot Quentin Tarantino directly lifted for Reservoir Dogs), School of Fire, and Prison on Fire and its sequel. Other titles include Eric Tsang's Aces Go Places comedy caper series and Tsui Hark's era-defining movies Peking Opera Blues, Tony Ching Siu Tung's A Chinese Ghost Story trilogy, which Tsui Hark produced, and the Swordsman trilogy, which featured Brigitte Lin as the trans martial arts villainess-turned-antiheroine that turned her into an LGBTQ icon. Shout! Studios will hopefully not only be digitally restoring the 156 titles but also commission new English subtitles, which will be the first time nearly all of them have good subtitles for English-speaking audiences. Shout! Studios might also be re-releasing key titles to US theatres before putting them on their streaming service and releasing them on physical media.

A New Theatrical, Streaming, and Physical Media Future for Hong Kong Movies

"This is a big one," said Shout's Fields, who is senior VP of acquisitions and originals. "Golden Princess sits alongside Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest in the pantheon of Hong Kong cinema, but unlike the other two, the Golden Princess library has been dormant for decades outside of Asia. Its fingerprints are all over modern action and crime genres, though, so we have big plans to reintroduce these fabled titles to the rest of the world, complementing Shout!'s growing catalog of revered Asian films."

Lai, executive director of Kowloon Development Company Ltd., the parent company of Golden Princess, added: "The films in the Golden Princess Library are akin to the sword in the stone. Shout! is the entity capable of unlocking its potential."

Beyond physical media, these Hong Kong gems will find a new streaming home on Shout! TV, the company's digital entertainment platform, where they'll receive special programming treatment, including marathons and viewing events. This is the complete list of the 156 Hong Kong movies that Shout! Studios have been liberated from the Golden Princess rights holders' vaults.

Fields added, "We have big plans for home video. We know that audience and will super-serve them."

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