The beloved action cinema hailing from Hong Kong in the 1980s and ’90s is now being honored by distributor Shout! Studios.
IndieWire exclusively announces that the films of John Woo, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark, and Tony Ching will screen as part of the “Hong Kong Cinema Classics” series, taking place at Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque and New York City’s IFC Center in August 2025. The retrospective will then tour select markets across the U.S. throughout the fall, with Shout! Studios releasing physical and digital versions, courtesy of the Golden Princess library.
Woo will also be in attendance at select American Cinematheque screenings. The auteur recently made his return to Hollywood filmmaking with 2023’s “Silent Night” and his 2024 remake of “The Killer” (Woo previously helmed the original 1989 version, too.) Woo’s “Hard Boiled,” “Bullet in the Head,” “A Better Tomorrow,” and its sequel, “A Better Tomorrow II,” are all among the “Hong Kong Cinema Classics” program. “A Better Tomorrow III,” directed by Tsui Hark, will also be shown, along with Hark’s “Peking Opera Blues,” Ringo Lam’s “City on Fire,” Tony Ching’s “A Chinese Ghost Story,” and more.
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“Hong Kong Cinema Classics” is presented by Shout! Studios with support from GKIDS. The inaugural film series will debut August 2 at American Cinematheque (tickets here) and August 15 at IFC Center (tickets here).
Shout! Studios also announced home entertainment releases honoring Hong Kong-based films. The Jet Li collection will be released July 29 in 4K UHD and Blu-ray, along with the 4K editions of “City on Fire” on August 26 and “Peking Opera Blues” on September 23. Shout! Studios collaborated with the Hong Kong Film Archives to digitally restore and remaster these films, which were scanned in 4K from their original camera negatives. Subtitles have been newly translated from the original Cantonese, with the video and audio also being restored.
Shout! Studios recently acquired Gravitas Ventures earlier this year. The acquisition marked Shout! Studios now owning more than 3,300 properties across film and TV from Gravitas Ventures. The GKIDS and Golden Princess libraries were part of the partnerships that will continue throughout the Gravitas Ventures deal.
Additional distribution collaborations include Aardman Animations, “The Carol Burnett Show,” Studio Ghibli, LAIKA Studios, “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” and more. Gravitas Ventures will remain a separate brand within the Shout! Studios company.
