Recently, if you've visited a FYE or Suncoast, you may have noticed a lot of Kung Fu movies popping up in store shelves. DVDs such as classic Shaw Brothers films and other Hong Kong films claiming to be remastered and offering English dubs.
The truth is that these DVDs are actually from known bootleg outfit Red Sun DVD (aka Bonzai Media, HK Video (not the French company), and Panmedia), who are infamous for using stolen video masters from Celestial (the owners of the Shaw Brothers library) and other legitimate companies, and the fact their bootlegs are factory pressed (meaning, not DVD-Rs). They simply remove the Chinese audio track and replace it with an English dub. After years of shoddy tv sourced copies fans have been used too, not surprisingly these titles have sold quite well. This can be seen by simply looking at the best seller list at www.hkflix.com. Who despite knowing of the illegal nature of these products, still sell them.
Red Sun DVDs have been responsible for the cancellation of many planned Region 1 US DVD releases including an Angela Mao boxset, a Joseph Kuo boxset,etc. This is due to the fact that Red Sun's "owner", Jack Stiller, often floods marketplaces online and many American malls with inferior bootlegs by his company of titles that were in planning stages. This in turn caused companies to abort their planned releases and ensures market control for himself.
While this is intolerable enough, it seems that Red Sun DVD has reached a new level of audacity: Being stocked at large US retail shops. Dragon Dynasty is a label from The Weinstein Company set to release many Shaw Brothers, Fortune Star (Golden Harvest, Cinema City, etc), and other greats of Hong Kong and Asian cinema. The rights owned by the company have been reported on several film sites, but may also be seen by simply watching a trailer found at the Dragon Dynasty website (
www.dragondynasty.com). This highlight reel shows, Shaw Brothers films Crippled Avengers aka Mortal Combat among others.
The problem is, FYE and Suncoast are now stocking Red Sun versions of these films, as can be seen in this photo taken at the FYE in the King of Prussia Mall (one of the largest commercial malls in the country). These pictures show that not only have these bootlegs been entering the mainstream retail market, but they are being sold as regular product by these stores (as evidenced by a barcode indicating that these titles are a part of store inventory and not a used dvd). Another picture shows Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (once again showing a regular barcode). Though not pictured,in less than five minutes bootleg Red Sun DVDs of One-Armed Boxer and Invincible Shaolin were also found, often near legitimate Dragon Dynasty and other releases.
The sad truth is that not only will these Red Sun DVDs harm the legitimate market for upcoming releases of Shaw Brothers DVDs by flooding the market. They will also cut out shelf space for legitimate Kung Fu releases, as independent dvd labels are having trouble getting their products into major stores. A fact recently talked about in this New York Times article:
http://tinyurl.com/2wtdwsThese bootlegs are only going to help exacerbate theproblem. The main question is, what will happen? When I talked to an FYE employee, he got very nervous when I told him these were bootlegs of films owned by TWC. He quickly put the ones I showed him behind the register, but this is just one step. The best thing we can do is pass this information along, both to fans telling them to avoid these bootlegs, and to the companies. This is to ensure that TWC and others take appropriate action to remove these bootlegs from the market. If TWC allows these to remain in FYE and Suncoast, it would seem to indicate Harvey Weinstein is impotent in stopping the bootlegging of his own products, Even worse, the selling of them side by side with his own releases. However, given the power and the infuence of TWC, I don't think we as fans will have to fear this. If we as fans support Red Sun, we are only dooming ourselves to the disappointments of the past and a bleak future. The only question is, what will happen next?
When Bootlegs Attack! Red Sun DVDs in FYE and Suncoast (with pictures) and why we all lose in the long run.