Eastern Heroes

Background

Eastern Heroes is a British distribution company, founded in 1988 by Rich Baker as a fanzine focused on Chinese/Hong Kong martial arts films. They later opened up a video store in London selling their own imported VHS tapes with new covers. Eventually, Eastern Heroes made a fully established video label around the mid 1990s with Eastern Heroes Video, which lasted until the 2000s. The company still exists and can be found online, selling their books and other stuff.

1st Logo (Mid 1990s-Early 2000s)

Visuals: On a cloudy grey/white background, the Eastern Heroes logo, consisting of the scratchy, "Asian" drawn text "EASTERN HEROES" with a thick black border around it, comes spinning in from the top left corner, while a white box with a black outline and the text "V I D E O" spins in from the bottom right. The 2 eventually meet in the center, with the Eastern Heroes logo snapping into it correct position, and then remain still for the rest of logo. At the end, the logo slides off-screen, with the logo to the right and the box to the left, leaving the background.

Technique: Low-budget computer animation.

Audio: The same synth fanfare as the 3rd Lo Wei Motion Picture Co., Ltd. logo (which is possibly a stock fanfare), or none.

Availability: Can be seen on several Hong Kong martial arts films distributed by the company, like Midnight Angels, Pantyhose Killer, Shadow Boxin', and possibly their short-lived Eastern Heroes The Video Magazine series. Some releases in the US can be found from Arena Home Video.

2nd Logo (2000s-)

Visuals: A sun rises in the distance, lighting up the sky with orange rays as a lens flare sweeps by, and a shadowed Chinese swordfighter dances with his swords in hand off to the right hand side of the screen. As the sun fully rises up, it fades to white as a white background zooms out and encompasses the scene into a vertical rectangular frame, and the Chinese character "水" draws inside of the box. Below, "EASTERN" is written in a different Asian-esque font, while "HEROES" in a plainer font appears below it.

Technique: 2D computer animation, with some chroma-keyed live action.

Audio: A stock Asian-styled tune with flutes and strings.

Availability: Can be seen on The Jackie Chan Collection.