Tell me about: Cathay Films!

[Mike Thomason]

Here's the list of what's available on (recently discounted) Hong Kong DVD:

Mambo Girl (1957)
Our Sister Hedy (1957)
Splendour Of Youth, The (1957)
Air Hostess (1959)
Cinderella And Her Little Angels (1959)
For Better, For Worse (1959)
Her Tender Heart (1959)
Our Dream Car (1959)
Spring Song (1959)
Bachelors Beware (1960)
Bedside Story, The (1960)
Between Tears And Laughter (1960)
Death Traps (1960)
Devotion (1960)
Dreams Come True (1960)
Forever Yours (1960)
Happily Ever After (1960)
June Bride, The (1960)
Sister Long Legs (1960)
Wild, Wild Rose, The (1960)
Education Of Love (1961)
Greatest Civil War On Earth, The (1961)
Beauty Parade (1961)
Sun, Moon And Star (Part 1) (1961)
Sun, Moon And Star (Part 2) (1961)
Greatest Wedding On Earth, The (1962)
It's Always Spring (1962)
Ladies First (1962)
Because Of Her (1963)
Father Takes A Bride (1963)
Magic Lamp, The (1964)
Story Of Three Loves (Part 1), A (1964)
Story Of Three Loves (Part 2), A (1964)
Fairy, Ghost, Vixen (1965)
Darling, Stay At Home (1968)
Spring-Time Affair (1968)

You all know the drill -- weigh in with your thoughts about the titles that you have seen, and I'll take it from there.

Suddenly, out of the blue, and having regularly watched the weekly Malay movie classics while I stay in Sarawak, I got a hankering to start exploring the old Cathay films (since, unlike their [greedy] counterpart IVL, Panorama have discounted the whole range to a price-point that's much more reasonable for back catalogue titles).

I do actually have an otherwise unnannounced soft-spot for old movies, so I reckon now is as good a time as any to start looking into Hong Kong's cinema history and getting a feel for its contemporary genesis.

Cheers!

NB: I dumped the two Cathay wuxia titles released from the list as I have zero interest in seeing them

[dleedlee]

Generally, you can't go wrong with any of the Cathay titles, imo.

The standard recommendations and still quite good:
Start with Mambo Girl, The Wild Wild Rose - for Grace Chang

Personal favorites: Splendour of Youth and Our Dream Car - one a drama the other a comedy, both explore the dark side of getting what you wish for , My Sister Hedy - for Jeanette Lin, The Greatest Civl War on Earth - for Liu Enjia AND Leung Sing Bo, Sister Long Legs - for Julie Yeh (yeah!), Death Traps - a variation on Strangers on a Train?, and on and on....

The only one I would go out of my way to dis-recommend is Spring Time Affairs which isn't on your list. Besides being cropped, it's just dull.

Looks like dddhouse is clearing them out at a nice price. Too bad I've got almost all of the titles I want. Well, I still need to get Magic Lamp.

[Mike Thomason]

Generally, you can't go wrong with any of the Cathay titles, imo.

That's really promising news!

The only one I would go out of my way to dis-recommend is Spring Time Affairs which isn't on your list. Besides being cropped, it's just dull.

Whoops! Knew I'd miss one (I was working off the originally announced list of sixty titles that Panorama had licenced for release); amended accordingly! Oh, and I resorted them chronologically...

Btw, it's not just DDDHouse that have dropped the price on these titles -- it's pretty much all of the online HK retailers (whilst overseas importers have kept the prices high per their original list prices).

Looks like it's Cathay country for me!!!:D

[dleedlee]

Yeah, layoyo had them discounted a few months back, but I think the price is back up...not sure though.

In related new, from todays news links:

CANNES -- Malaysian distribber Variety View has picked up worldwide distribution rights to a package of 230 Singaporean library films from the Cathay Keris Films group. Deal, valued at just shy of $1 million, gives Variety Vision rights for five years across multiple formats including theatrical, DVD and pay-TV.

Films in Chinese and Malay languages were made in the 'golden age of Singapore cinema' between 1953 and 1974, and were produced by CKF and its Hong Kong offshoot Motion Picture & General Investments.
Titles covered by the deal include "Mambo Girl," "Wild Wild Rose," "Dang Anom" and "Hang Jebat." Many have been remastered over the last couple of years.

[Brian Thibodeau]

Btw, it's not just DDDHouse that have dropped the price on these titles -- it's pretty much all of the online HK retailers (whilst overseas importers have kept the prices high per their original list prices).

Looks like it's Cathay country for me!!!

EDIT: Wrote the following before Dennis posted that information in the previous post, but I still think it contributes to the discussion.


Anybody here know if there's an official reason behind this price drop? (EDIT: according to the previous post, it looks like someone else has the catalogue now?). I've got about five of these from when they first came out as I'm a sucker for contemporary-set "old" Hong Kong movies (as mentioned in various threads here), and I can finally grab a couple more at these prices, but I have to wonder if this is now the full list of Cathay films we're ever gonna see! While I agree IVL should have had deeper price drops by now (although their catalogue seems to be going out of print, sadly), I far prefer their treatment of the films in their catalogue (audio sweetening aside! ). Some of the Cathays I have are, from what I've read, cropped to full-screen, a move I could never understand in this day and age. Regardless, I'd always held out hope that we'd see more titles forthcoming from Cathay, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. I can only imagine what we're not seeing on that list!

I did give AIR HOSTESS a quick flip-through when I first picked it up, since at the time it was the oldest Hong Kong movie I'd purchased, and I was completely entranced by what I saw. In fact, that and the unfortunately small and slow-growing Cathay catalogue at the time encouraged me to seek out nearly every contemporary-set Shaw DVD I could get my hands on, and they now outnumber the swordplay/martial arts stuff by a strong margin (and I actually don't mind the martial stuff!).

[dleedlee]

On the cropping, the martial arts titles are from what I've read. (Those I didn't pick up...no interest.) Magic Lamp is from what I've read and I think it was Cinderella and Her Little Angels, can't remember but it wasn't painfully noticeable. The early color releases might be suspect but it's been so long since I watched them and, as I said, I didn't notice it at the time.

The news items refers to a Malaysian distributer, Panorama still has the HK rights, I assume. Magic Lamp and Darling Stay at Home were issued earlier this year (as I recall) so hopefully, the pipeline is not dry yet. I'd be curious to see the Malay titles if they are English subbed.

Yeah, I liked Air Hostess a lot too (Dolly So - swooon) but I didn't want to list all of the titles.

[Mike Thomason]

Ah, so you good gents want the full list of sixty titles as originally announced? Here it is:

Affection (1969)
Air Hostess (1959)
Apartment, The (1970)
Bachelors Beware (1960)
Beauty Parade (1961)
Because Of Her (1963)
Bedside Story, The (1960)
Beggar's Daughter, A (1965)
Between Tears And Laughter (1960)
Cinderella And Her Little Angels (1959)
Darling, Stay At Home (1968)
Death Traps (1960)
Devotion (1960)
Dial For Murder (1970)
Dreams Come True (1960)
Education Of Love (1961)
Escorts Over Tiger Hill (1969)
Fairy, Ghost, Vixen (1965)
Father Takes A Bride (1963)
First Sword, The (1967)
For Better, For Worse (1959)
Forever Yours (1960)
Forget Me Not (1966)
From The Highway (1970)
Greatest Civil War On Earth, The (1961)
Greatest Love Affair On Earth, The (1964)
Greatest Wedding On Earth, The (1962)
Happily Ever After (1960)
Her Pearly Tears (1962)
Her Tender Heart (1959)
Her Tragic Death (1957)
Homemaker, The (1970)
It's Always Spring (1962)
June Bride, The (1960)
Ladies First (1962)
Lily Of The Valley (1962)
Longest Night, The (1965)
Lost Spring, The (1970)
Lovely Girl's Lovely Dreams, A (1958)
Magic Lamp, The (1964)
Mambo Girl (1957)
Mission To Die (1970)
Our Dream Car (1959)
Our Sister Hedy (1957)
Pipa's Lament, The (1957)
Romance Of Jade Hall (Part 1) (1957)
Romance Of The Forbidden City (1964)
Search For Monita, The (1968)
Sister Long Legs (1960)
Song Without Words (1961)
Splendour Of Youth, The (1957)
Spring Song (1959)
Story Of Three Loves (Part 1), A (1964)
Story Of Three Loves (Part 2), A (1964)
Summer Love (1968)
Sun, Moon And Star (Part 1) (1961)
Sun, Moon And Star (Part 2) (1961)
Violet Mansion, The (1969)
Wild, Wild Rose, The (1960)
You Were Meant For Me (1961)

Titles in bold text are the ones from this list that have so far been released.

Buyoyo still have the entire released range of titles at HK$39 a piece; as for the reason behind the price drop? Though Panorama have been a company that have moved ahead in leaps and bounds in both the quality of their home video formats and acquisitions (as well as branching out into actual film production -- btw, they're not just limited to HK: they have outlets in China, Singapore and a couple of other SE Asian territories...so they're not exactly a small operation), they're not adverse to dropping the retail price on their back catalogue items. If you have any doubts, check out some of the big titles they've released in the last twelve to eighteen months -- you'll see that most are priced between HK$40 and $60 now, whereas the majority of those releases were priced in the HK$80 to $105 range on original release. Thus, there's nothing mysterious or odd about the re-pricing; just natural attrition like the company always does.

And, as mentioned, Variety View is a Malaysian company (as was Celestial before it); I would be very surprised if their licence extended much beyond Malaysia, Singapore and surrounding regions. Though, of course, I could always be wrong...

[Brian Thibodeau]

On the cropping, the martial arts titles are from what I've read. (Those I didn't pick up...no interest.) Magic Lamp is from what I've read and I think it was Cinderella and Her Little Angels, can't remember but it wasn't painfully noticeable. The early color releases might be suspect but it's been so long since I watched them and, as I said, I didn't notice it at the time.

The news items refers to a Malaysian distributer, Panorama still has the HK rights, I assume. Magic Lamp and Darling Stay at Home were issued earlier this year (as I recall) so hopefully, the pipeline is not dry yet. I'd be curious to see the Malay titles if they are English subbed.

Yeah, I liked Air Hostess a lot too (Dolly So - swooon) but I didn't want to list all of the titles.

Thanks for that. CINDERELLA is one of the ones I've got where I seem to recall reading about the cropping. Nice to know it's not too bad, but really, it shouldn't have been done at all. If the only surviving elements were TV prints or something, then perhaps they had no choice, but overall, the Panorama treatment of these paled in comparison to the work being done by IVL, but I assume they had a bigger budget to play with. AIR HOSTESS didn't seem to be cropped, but as I'm not familiar with these particular titles and the use of widescreen in that era, I still had some doubts from the bits and pieces I did see.

It should be interesting to see how many of those 230 Malaysian films will see the light of day under the new deal, especially with the on-going issues of piracy killing sales, etc. Perhaps Mike will be the only one enjoying them on his jaunts back to his in-laws if they only end up being shown on TV!

If I'd known the rights to 230 films could have been had for the bargain price of a million bucks (man that seems cheap!), I'd have taken out a loan myself!

[Mike Thomason]

Some of the Cathays I have are, from what I've read, cropped to full-screen, a move I could never understand in this day and age.

In the case of the Cathay titles, you might be able to credit that back to whatever source materials were available for the manufacture of master tapes. Since film archiving wasn't actively undertaken in HK until around 1994/1995 when Shu Kei (the film critic/historian, not the alternate spelling for Shu Qi) set up the Hong Kong Film Archive, I'd hazard a guess that some of the titles may have only been available in low-grade masters originally intended for video cassette release -- I'd be VERY surprised if all of the company's library still existed in negative form! Believe it or not, you research back into HK film history and you discover that (like their Thai counterparts) films were treated as a disposable commodity, with negatives and prints being junked after theatrical/open-air play-runs...being that there was no home video market before the eighties arrived and some films were considered to have no viable future life beyond their original screenings! It's true, sadly...

Of course, even old video masters can be polished and cleaned up to a degree, and I'd hazard a guess that that's why some of the Cathay titles have been released in compromised versions (being that some of those titles have been released on home video in the deep, dark past of HK home video prior). In a perfect (film buff's) world a lot of those materials would have kept and preserved, but the fact is that some of the Asian territories just didn't see their film industries as anything more than a disposable medium (heck, they estimate 75% of Thailand's film productions prior to the eighties have been lost forever) and thus...much history has been lost, and what survives only survives because of the advent of home video in the eighties. Some companies even recycle those same old video masters to this very day, because that's all that's left.

[Brian Thibodeau]

they're not adverse to dropping the retail price on their back catalogue items. If you have any doubts, check out some of the big titles they've released in the last twelve to eighteen months -- you'll see that most are priced between HK$40 and $60 now, whereas the majority of those releases were priced in the HK$80 to $105 range on original release. Thus, there's nothing mysterious or odd about the re-pricing; just natural attrition like the company always does.

Good to know—and if it weren't for the price drops, I wouldn't have half the HK titles I do, so I'm definitely a price-watcher (which, of course, puts me down in the lower ranks when if comes to "staying fresh" as per recent chats)—but do you know if Panorama plans to release any Cathay titles beyond what they've done so far? The pickings, while wonderful, have been rather slim as of late. And what's the track record like for Malaysian DVDs of any kind having English subtitles? Good? Bad?

In a perfect (film buff's) world a lot of those materials would have kept and preserved, but the fact is that some of the Asian territories just didn't see their film industries as anything more than a disposable medium

It is indeed a shame. And it's been a worldwide malady, unfortunately. Pick your country and the further you go back, the higher the percentage of films that are irretrievably lost to the ages. So sad when all that sometimes survives are tattered old posters and lobby cards, or mentions in old film magazines, but at least we've got those. Thank heavens for wonderful box-sets like Treasures of the American Film Archives and the The Movies Begin, the latter of which isn't just limited to North American product.

[Mike Thomason]

It should be interesting to see how many of those 230 Malaysian films will see the light of day under the new deal, especially with the on-going issues of piracy killing sales, etc. Perhaps Mike will be the only one enjoying them on his jaunts back to his in-laws if they only end up being shown on TV!

Dude, I think I've already seen a lot of them! During those aforementioned Malay Classic Movie evenings that aired on Malaysian television (heh, I've even seen some of the greats twice!), no less.

You'd probably be fairly safe with most titles made prior to the mid-sixties, when it comes to the cropping of widescreen formats, as I believe it was really the Shaw studios that took to the usage of the widescreen Cinemascope format (Shaw's used an appropriation of the cheaper "Techniscope" format, by and large -- the only time you'll have seen them using a higher garde widescreen format is the instances in which you see the notation of "Panavision lenses" being used). I'd hazard a guess that a lot of the early Cathay titles were shot in the Academy ratio (1.33:1), which is what we refer to as 4:3 these days -- which is why you'll have a hard time "seeing" cropping, as there won't be any.

In fact, it's a common misconception that all HK movies were (or are) largely lensed in the Cinemascope format; smaller companies shot Academy -- when the Shaw's came along they utilised the Techniscope format (redubbing it "Shaw Scope") from around the mid-sixties -- other companies reserved 'scope formats for their big "event" titles. In it's day, shooting in Academy (1.33:1) was known as shooting "flat"...and that's what a lot of them were. Which is why I feel safe buying a lot of the fifties Cathay titles -- by and large they're going to be presented in the same screen ratio that they were projected in back in the day.

[Brian Thibodeau]

I'd hazard a guess that a lot of the early Cathay titles were shot in the Academy ratio (1.33:1), which is what we refer to as 4:3 these days -- which is why you'll have a hard time "seeing" cropping, as there won't be any.

Yeah, I kinda figured that from at least some of the ones I've picked up that are from that period. I'm sure "widescreen" was still in its infancy just about everywhere, and no doubt more expensive than necessary on such modest little character pictures.

[Mike Thomason]

—but do you know if Panorama plans to release any Cathay titles beyond what they've done so far? The pickings, while wonderful, have been rather slim as of late. And what's the track record like for Malaysian DVDs of any kind having English subtitles? Good? Bad?

I've written Panorama, but they just don't reply. You'll seldom find a HK DVD company that does reply these days, and we can thank certain forums and over-zealous fans for that. A couple of companies were flooded with negative emails and criticism (some of it in quite colourful language, I have on good authority) and, put simply, that's just NOT the way you do business with Chinese folk if you want to earn their respect or trust. Thus, the majority of HK DVD companies have shut off responding to "foreigners" in relation to their catalogues and/or releases. It's a shame, but it was always going to be a given considering how little respect some people have for differences in culture...

Malaysian DVDs? If you're lucky, you'll get English subtitles alongside the Chinese and Malay ones -- if you're not, then it's just Chinese and Malay subtitles...sometimes Malay only. Oh, and from experience, Malaysia produces some of the very worst quality original and licenced legit discs of any Asian region I know. I've snagged a handful of modestly decent quality discs over the last few years of travelling but, sad to say, the pirate market there outstrips the genuine article in both price AND quality hands down every time. I am baffled as to how the legit companies stay afloat there, since the pirates have it all over them.

[MrBooth]

Buyoyo still have the entire released range of titles at HK$39 a piece;

Still over-priced for the quality, from the little I've seen - looks like all Panorama were doing was slapping 20+ year old video masters on a disc with little to no effort, then trying to charge the same price as the IVL Shaw Brothers films being restored and remastered from film elements.

I imagine there'd be little difference between DVD and VCD for the Cathays, except the need to change discs...

[Mike Thomason]

Still over-priced for the quality, from the little I've seen

Bizarre...at $5US a disc I (personally) can't understand the necessity for "Criterion standard" DVD -- sure, if I was paying the $30US+ that I pay for Korean discs, I could understand, but five bucks? Could five bucks even be considered "chump change" these days, for that matter? Oh well, each to their own I guess...

Me? I just want to see the movies -- as the movies are all that matter to me.

[MrBooth]

Well, only a bit overpriced If it included shipping I'd be there

[dleedlee]

Because of Her and Darling Stay at Home are also cropped, the latter somewhat noticeably but still enjoyable nonetheless.



Because of Her logo vs film

[dbtb]

Off the list I highly recommend Mambo Girl and Air Hostess. I had only read or heard of the films for years and after finally getting a chance to see them was not disappointed. Quality acting and production values, which in fact. are pretty consistent throughout most of Cathay's output (the few I've seen so far). One interesting observation a friend in the field had was that versus Shaw productions, Cathay films and storylines were geared more to the common, working folks while Shaw's were more bigger extravaganzas and escapist.

[abbot]

I read in a book published by the Hong Kong Film Archive, that DEATH TRAPS was written by Chang Cheh under another name. Also, I noticed that the plot of this movie is very similar to the Cat III flick, RUN AND KILL, starring Kent Cheng & Simon Yam.



http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=3290&complete_credits=1&display_set=eng



http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=7712&display_set=eng

[dleedlee]

There's also a rare example of an available Cantonese Cathay film, The Seven Lucky Ones, (vcd, no subs). It's quite an enjoyable comedy directed by Wong Tin Lam and features Leung Sing Bo in dual roles...I should go back and rewatch this, it's been a few years.

http://us.yesasia.com/en/ImageGallery.a ... 1002919161

[dandan]

i'll just add my voice to those recommending 'the wild, wild rose' and 'air hostess'; both are well worth watching, but for very different reasons.

'mad, mad, mad swords' was okay and i still have 'mambo girl', 'beauty parade' and 'the greatest civil war on earth' on my shelves, waiting to be watched...