ABOUT THE BUSINESS
The business Oriental Film Distribution was started in late 1997. The main rational behind it was that I, the owner was tired of being ripped off paying £25 a time for imported videos of Hong Kong films. I decided to start the business in an effort to find contacts I could get films from at more reasonable prices and help to expand my collection. The business part came by helping other people find the films they wanted but couldn't get. It began as a film finding service and it wasn't long until a catalogue of available titles was produced. With the explosion of the internet, it wasn't long until this here internet site came into being to help spread the word that these films are good, and they're available at a reasonable price.
Over the years, there have been many magazines that cover 'Hong Kong Action Films', but most of them have ceased production. When Eastern Heroes magazine folded, there was Hong Kong Superstars which was good, but that soon stopped as well. I decided that there wasn't a magazine that filled my need for information, so I took up the challenge of producing my own. In early 2001 the ground work was laid for Oriental Film Review magazine, which doesn't just cover Hong Kong action, but films of any genre from all over Asia, though the main emphasis is Hong Kong action as that's my forte.
In September 2002, I was getting fed up with all the omissions and mistakes in information on Oriental films both on the internet and in print, so I decided again that someone should try and do something about it and started the Oriental Film Archive. I've been watching and collecting films since late 1994 and I have a pretty big collection now, so I decided I'd start the archive in an effort to create the best all round place on the net for Oriental films.
I freely admit that I'm not the font of all knowledge. There are a hell of a lot of things that I don't know, but I'm trying to work it all out - I'm trying my best.
HOW TO USE THE SITE
The site is split into 3 sections - Oriental Film Distribution, Oriental Film Review magazine and Oriental Film Archive. You can easily access any of these sections by clicking the name of the section you want on the banner above ( if you don't see the banner, please go to the home page ).If you are just interested in buying films, then look in the distribution section to see what's available. If you're interested in more information on any films whether they be available or not, please take a look at the archive to see if there's a page there about the film you're interested in. I am adding to the archive when I can find time to do so, but it takes a lot of time. I am including thousands of films that aren't seemingly available to buy anywhere in the world today. If they are available for sale, there will be a link at the bottom of the archive page to a page in the distribution section which will give all the relevant details of the versions available. If they aren't available now but have been in the past, there will be a link to a page about the version that was available and it'll state that it's not available for sale and the page is there or reference purposes. If I don't know of any version that's ever been available, there won't be any links on the page.
NOTES ON NAMES
All Oriental names have various different ways of being written. They are often poorly translated making for many variations.
Chinese names have many different ways of being written due to poor translations. There's also the fact that each person has both a Cantonese and a Mandarin version of their name. Many people also adopt an English name. There are also some instances of 2 or more people who have the exact same name which really confuses matters. Where there's more than one person with the same name, numbers have been added to the end to indicate which it is. There's also the problem that in China, the family name is first followed by given names. Many dumb Westerner's turn the name the other way round so the surname is last like in Western culture which only serves to confuse matters. People's names have been listed alphabetically in order of family name. Where they have adopted a western name, I have combined it with their Chinese name, so Kwan Ji Lam for instance is listed under the K's as Rosamund Kwan Ji Lam. There are a lot of names that are very similar and some people may be listed more than once under a different name for which I apologise. For instance there is Ng Man Fei and Ng Man Fai - it stands to reason they are probably the same person, but one of the most important lessons I have learnt over the years is 'Never assume anything'. A lot of names seem to be interchangable like Chan and Chen, Fai and Fei etc.
Names from other countries get a little more difficult. I don't know enough about Thai culture to know whether the family name is first or last, so Thai names have been put in alphabetical order by the first name listed. Korean names and Japanese names are often switched around due to the family name coming first. I will put them the way I feel they should be e.g. Tetsuro Tamba - I've seen him listed as Tamba Tetsuro, but I will list him as Tetsuro Tamba as I believe that's the way it should be....?
ABOUT THE ARCHIVE
( DECEMBER 2002 )
I have been a fan of Oriental films since 1994, and since 1997 ( when I started Oriental Film Distribution ) I have been compiling a list of film credits which I have updated whenever possible. Over the last year, I have been trying to update this list as much as possible, but I have a collection of only about 1500+ films and I know there are tens of thousands out there somewhere I have yet to track down, and while I have become more and more absorbed and obsessed with trying to get people's filmographies up together and trying to get all the film credits on my list as accurate as possible, in my quest for ever more information I turned to the internet for help. The net has its uses, but the more I look, the more distressed I've become by the inaccuracies in the information and how little there is on many films and people. I don't mean to sound big headed or arrogant by saying this, but frankly there are some extremely stupid mistakes.
The best known and seemingly most used place on the net for film credits ( which shall remain unnamed here but is run by one of the biggest online retailers in the world ) has some real stinkers. It's full of gaps, mistakes and inaccuracies, and many of the mistakes are completely ridiculous. To make things worse, lots of other sites link to pages on their site. Everyone on the net seems to copy everyone else, and people don't bother to check the information, so the same mistakes spread through other sites…it's like a damn virus !
Another one that makes me laugh is on almost every site about Jackie Chan that lists his filmography ( including some 'official' sites ), for the film 'Golden Lotus', it always says something like 'Very little is known about this film'. Well, you can say it was produced in 1974 by Shaw Brothers and Jackie had a small role as a street seller, and there is a clip from the film on the documentary 'Top Fighter' - I have the film on video from Taiwan…another one is 'Two In A Black Belt' where it either has the same 'little is known' line, or it'll say something like 'Jackie had a cameo appearance'. Again, I have the film, it was released on video in Britain in the early 1980's by Cinema Features. Jackie isn't in the film at all ! It was a lie by the distributors to help sell the film.
On an American newspapers internet site I recently read 'Gorgeous, which he made in Hong Kong a year later ( released here on video last month as 'The Accidental Spy' )'. They are 2 extremely different films, how anyone can confuse them is quite beyond me ! How does someone make such a mistake ? In my writing, there are often typo's admittedly, but I would never allow such a ridiculous factual error such as that slip through…
So due to this, although I am not exactly the most qualified man for the job, I certainly know a lot more than a lot of people on the subject. I know it sounds very arrogant to say so, but those who have spoken to me at length about Oriental films tend to agree I generally know what I'm talking about, I have to to write Oriental Film Review magazine and run Oriental Film Distribution. So, I started the Oriental Film Archive in an effort to share with people the information I have managed to correlate. I shall list details for every Oriental film I can find information on. I will also have pictures from my archive. I have a computer archive of about 20,000 images which is growing all the time as well as a large archive of films and related material. So I am going to combine all these things with whatever small bit of knowledge is contained within my head and make the best possible database of information on the subject. I'm not going to bother listing things like tea ladies and lighting engineers, I am going to keep it down to the main credits, and I will throw in anything else which is interesting such as director Andrew Lau Wai Keung being assistant director on the Alan Tam concert sequence in 'Armour Of God'. For each film, I will as far as possible list :
TITLE : The name
A.K.A. : Any aliases including
foreign titles
CINEMA RELEASE IN
PLAYED IN HONG KONG CINEMAS :
It's even better if I know when the film stopped screening
BOX OFFICE TAKE : If I can find
out
YEAR MADE : I go by the year
listed on the film credits or publicity materials
PRODUCTION COMPANY :
DIRECTOR : And assistant
directors
STARRING :
ACTION CHOREOGRAPHER :
Including assistants
PRODUCER : Including all types
of producer - line, associate, assistant, executive etc.
CINEMATOGRAPHER : Or Director
Of Photography
AWARDS : If I find out about
any
OTHER INFO : Anything else of
interest
REFERENCES : Where you can read
about the film
CATEGORY / CERTIFICATE :
AVAILABLE FROM : If it is
available or ever has been
From the very start of my list making I have had a system whereby I make bold whatever I know is 100 % true, and everything else that I have yet to verify is in normal type. Unlike other sites which are full of mistakes, I am continuing my system from my list where what is definitely true is shown in bold. One of the aims of the archive will be to make as much of it bold as possible. A lot of things that aren't in bold are probably true, but they won't be made bold unless they are known to be true. I shall mark them bold as and when I can verify them either by watching a film, or seeing posters, lobby cards etc. that have credits on. I do have a small problem in the respect that the only language I know is English and I can't translate things in other languages, but if I already have unverified credits, I can check the Chinese names of the people and compare it to the materials...
The site is currently in the early stages and it is, to say the least, an ambitious project, but I will add to the archive whenever I have some spare time ( although it doesn't happen all that often ). It is taking a particularly long time as for ease of use I am cross referencing and cross linking everything. I invite everyone to have a look and let me know what you think. Any suggestions and criticisms are greatfully accepted.……
Unlike other internet sites where you have to put words into a search engine, on my site there are alphabetical listings of everything. A search engine would be useful, but A ) I don't know how to go about that kind of thing and B ) My hosts won't allow search engines for some reason...? But it is actually better this way as there are lots of people I have never heard of and lots of films I have never heard of. With a search engine you have to know what to search for, and if you've never heard of a film you don't know to search for it - do you see what I'm trying to say ? By searching the alphabetical listings, you can find films you've never heard of and find out about them. It is a lot more interesting to go and explore.
This gives you some idea of what I plan to do. I want as many credits listed as possible, as many details as possible for each film and as many related pictures as possible. It will eventually become the most accurate listings of Oriental film information making it an indespensible source for anyone who wants to find out anything about the films. It is going to be a hell of a lot of work, but I am willing to give it a go.
I include pictures of covers of pirate copies purely so you know to avoid that version. I don't own, buy, sell or trade pirate copies, although admittedly it is the only way to get some films that aren't officially available, but I do not encourage the trade in pirate copies in any way especially of new films that are easy to find on video, VCD and DVD.
All pictures of pirate versions and many of the other pictures have come off of the internet.Most are used without copyright permission, but this database is for the purposes of information and research. If anyone objects to me using their pictures then please tell me and I shall remove the offending images as quickly as possible. I apologise if having my internet site address across each image is annoying, but people in the past have taken pictures from my site and used them illustratively to try and sell their pirate copies, and since there is no way to stop people from downloading the pictures to their computer, this is the only thing I can do to stop the piraters using the material. I also apologise for the low resolution on the pictures, but it costs me money to be connected to the site, and when dealing with so many pictures, the lower resolution saves a lot of time and money....
If you have any questions then please do get in touch. If you have anything to add to the information contained on this site then please email it to me at : dirtytiger@blueyonder.co.uk