From the forum over at cinehound.com; a very generous member named "spannick" uploaded scans of some Hong Kong LaserDisc catalogs to RapidShare.

Star Entertainment catalog (243MB):
http://www.rapidshare.com/files/451419558/Star_Katalog.rar

Ocean Shores catalog (80MB):
http://rapidshare.com/files/447203993/OSLD.rar

Mei Ah catalog (46MB):
http://www.rapidshare.com/files/370809032/MeiAhLD.zip

Thanks for sharing, finally some HK catalogues ....

Thanks for sharing the Star Cat, some nice discs in there! Are these titles hard to get hold of these days?

awsome, send my thanks to him!

Does anyone have the Ocean Shores catalog that they can repost somewhere? Thanks in advance!

Reposted here:
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/b9lb7c44pdzb1/LD_catalogs

They are ready for viewing using a comic book reader (which is a free and extremely convenient way to view archives filled with sequential images). If you don't want to use one, then simply re-name the file extension from .cbr to .rar, and .cbz to .zip

Not sure how I forgot about these catalogs!

(archived at https://catalogs.lddb.com/)

Used the Mei Ah one to complete the CL*, EL* and start on the ML*.

https://www.lddb.com/search.php?reference=CL+0*&sort=ref
https://www.lddb.com/search.php?reference=EL+*&sort=ref,asc&max=250
https://www.lddb.com/search.php?reference=ML+*&sort=ref,asc&max=250

Julien

So far, perusing the Mei Ah catalog added 202 new entries -- and I have yet to cover ML 515 to ML 901.

I have a problem with some Part I/Part II releases though.

Some were listed as independent titles (you pay HKD xxx for each), some were listed as bundle with a single price for both.




Should we merge some Part 1+2 into CATREF 1~2 or keep them as separate titles, with one entry having no price?

Julien

Hi, the Hong Kong / Macau laserdisc market was a rental only market basically. Hardly anyone would spend that amount of
money on a single disc ( 780 HK$ = exactly 100 US$ , since 1983 until today ). So that would mean that one would actually
have to spend 200 US $ just to own one film!
I think this way rental shops could earn more money as they people would have to rent 2 titles to watch 1 film.

Ten Brothers as I can see is already merged into one title.

That was done in the blind as I had no idea of the price structure for HK LDs, getting inspiration from the Japanese system.

I can try to "merge" the split release into single double entries but the existing collections/wishlists will need to be cleaned up manually

Julien

I see that as a problem to be honest. Hong Kong on Fire is such a title.

I have been to a couple of markets in Hong Kong and sometimes I could only find one part of a
title so it is possible that a collector only has half of a film.

Yes, I agree. That has been bugging me as well.

I started doing the opposite: if a title was sold with 2 individual prices for Part 1 and 2, I will split the 1~2 into to entries instead.

But even then, some like Day That Doesn't Exist, The (Er yue san shi) (1995) [ML 592~3] seem to come in a single cover for both discs?

Julien

I think some split titles were sold with a single cover and some titles were sold with two separate covers.

If I remember correctly Hong Kong on Fire has two separate covers.

See here:

https://picclick.com/1941-Hong-Kong-On- ... 26471.html

All Mei Ah catalog merged => 310 new entries!

Julien

Hi Julien,

Yes, you are correct. The Day That Doesn't Exist definitely comes with two discs in a single cover. I own that one and can confirm that is the case. In my opinion, the ones with two separate jackets for the two discs should probably be left as two separate entries in the database. I have seen several of these sold on eBay as only one of the halves of the movie. One example I remember seeing was called Iron Monkey. I can't recall if the seller was offering only Part 1 or only Part 2. Needless to say, I avoided it completely, as I'm not interested in owning only half of the film. I'm not sure if that was common practice in Hong Kong, to sell the two discs individually. Most of the titles I'm aware of packaged in this way have different artwork on the two jackets. It's obvious that they could have been sold separately, although I'm not sure if that was normally done there. The different artwork on the two jackets is the main reason I believe these should remain as separate entries in the database. Well, that's my opinion, for what it's worth.

Best Regards,
David

Hi David,

it is always so good to hear / read from you!

I agree 100 % ! I do not know if you can open the link that I posted earlier this week in this thread but you can see
in the small pictures on that link that Hong Kong on Fire has two separate covers for each part and the artwork is very different ! in both cases even though it is part I and II of the exact same film.

Yours truly,
Marcin Wilk

That is actually the usual case for Hong Kong releases, not the issue here.
Ten Brothers is listed as 2 separate prices HK$780 for ML 588/ML589.

What is less usual is a dual title with separate prices (also 2x HK$780) in a single cover like ML 592/ML 593.

And Mei Ah catalog sometimes list prices separately or as a bundle, but it doesn't seem to be related to the single/double cover presentation.

Julien

Hi Marcin,

Yes, it's always great to read from you as well! Yes, I was able to open the link you posted about Hong Kong on Fire and see the two individual covers. I don't own that one, but I do own several similar ones. A few examples are Black Panther Warriors (ML 883 & ML 884), The Final Option (ML 479 & ML 480), and Fist of Legend (EL 059 & EL 060). The latter is one of the Cameron Entertainment titles, which seems to be a subsidiary of Mei Ah, hence the different reference number type. That one was a title I stumbled upon many years ago quite by accident. It was listed, along with three other Hong Kong titles by a seller on eBay. That seller turned out to be located right here in my own hometown of Lexington, Kentucky! It was some type of consignment/resale shop which was about 3 miles from my house! Someone had brought those discs in and sold them to that shop, and they were re-selling them. I contacted them and arranged to pick them up instead of having them shipped to me. I had no idea that there was anyone else in my city who owned any Hong Kong laserdiscs, but obviously someone did. I don't know who they were, but I was the one who benefitted from their decision to sell the discs! That's the only time such a thing has ever happened to me. This area of the U.S. is basically a wasteland as far as laserdisc is concerned, and has been for many years now. From time to time, I find something interesting at one of the local Half Price Books stores, but certainly nothing that exciting. Finding Fist of Legend and three other HK titles was surely a rare occurrence indeed in this area! I have been quite careful over the years, and have never gotten stuck with only half of one of the HK titles which are the topic of discussion here. I have always been sure to steer away from any such pieces that appeared to be only half of a 2-disc set. None of those for me, thank you!

Best Regards,
David

That was a very interesting read, my friend. Thank you for sharing that story with me/us. Two years ago I found by chance a few dts laserdiscs in a small recordstore here in Berlin just 1 to 2 km away from my home. If I didn't live in that part of town I would have never found them. The seller only wanted 3 € per disc as he had no use for them so I got a couple of titles for very little money (Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Frighteners, etc.). I also found Apollo 13 dts but I could immediately feel that the disc was missing. I went through all the boxes in the shop and it wasn't there.

There are some small shops selling Indonesian laserdiscs in Jakarta. Some titles are really interesting ( Indonesian horror movies from the 80s, etc. ) and a few discs I bought were in such a bad shape that they have a small crack on one side and it is not even possible to play the whole thing But at least I have an interesting cover and maybe one day I will find a different copy where the crack is on the other side of the disc.