For those who don't know, many HK films come on two discs with two separate sleeves for each one. Films are spread over 4 discs with each side lasts roughly 30mins CLV. The discs come in two separate sleeves with different barcodes/serial numbers on each. This is not the case for all HK films however and some HK films only come on one disc.

Does anyone know why this used to happen? The whole process of putting a film on two discs seems completely unnecessary and costly, so surely there must be a reason why?

Maybe there was a lot of rental business, so this was to encourage people to bring back their rentals quickly?

I noticed this was the case with Iron Monkey, one of my favourite HK Kung Fu flicks, it's only available on HK laserdisc. I too was confused about why it came in two sleeves, each seemingly released separately as parts one and two.

Indeed there was a lot of rental buisness and from what I can gather, most people didn't own many discs and prefered to rent them. Still, it seems like an awful lot of effort just to make people bring them back quicker. I wondered if perhaps rental outlets would charge people double for movies spread over 2 discs, but this seems rather exploitative even by HK standards! But that still doesn't explain why some films come on only 1 disc...

??? Iron Monkey is available on all formats. There are numerous hk dvds as well as the recently released hk bluray. there is also the horrible us dvd, but i wont go further into that. It is also one of my favorite films

Sorry, I meant the HK release was the only version on laserdisc. I've owned it many tmes on DVD, have heard mixed things about the Bluray but I'll probably pick it up at some point anyway.

I never got the practice of splitting the movies either. Definitely kept me from buying several titles like Fong Sai Yuk when I was in Hong Kong since I didn't want to pay the price of two movies for one.

Ah, so the split discs were actually sold separately for twice the price? Wow, that's unbelievable. There goes the theory of it being a practice just for rental discs...

I actually found 'Fong Sai Yuk' a few days ago and it was indeed on two discs.

i would see many of these in chinatown.

i feel it would be one of a few things.

you would have 2 discs and that takes up more space for sitting around your house?

you couldn't make money off of the disc by playing it in public due to almost all players only being able to play 1 disc at a time.
people would be able to wait for a side change but not a disc change if they were paying.

or the other option would be like when they sell shoes, they have 1 on display and when you buy you get the pair at checkout?
what could you do with half the film if you stole it

Have this disc for a while : From Beijing with Love (Gwok chaan Ling Ling Chat) (1994) [GD 024]



Movie on a single disc : 84 minutes

Was searching for HK music discs and found by accident this one : From Beijing with Love (Gwok chaan Ling Ling Chat): Part 1 (1994) [EL 034]




From Beijing with Love (Gwok chaan Ling Ling Chat): Part 2 [EL 035]



As you see this is part 1&2 of 2. This part 1 has a running time of 60 minutes, part 2 has less than 30 minutes, April 1995 release (HK$780 *2)
Was not aware there were "double releases" - I knew about a single movie spread over 2 separate releases, but not of both existence of a single / double disc release.

Digging in the catalog I see Cameron Entertainment Co LTD is part of Mei Ah Co LTD,