American fans of the Shaw Brothers films wonder if they will never again see another of their movies released in the United States. Many wonder if they made a mistake not buying one of the foreign DVDs when they had the chance, many of which are now out of print. They think back to the 80s, the first time the movies were released on home video. How every time a company made a deal to release them they would soon after go out of business, leaving the few they released as expensive collectors items. How their only resort was to buy bootlegs off the street or from shady mail order companies. But things may not be that dark.

The one thing that the Shaw Brothers movies were missing today that they had back in the 80s was exposure. Being shown on Black Belt Theater allowed millions of Americans to watch their movies, many who would later want to own them. When Black Belt Theater went off the air more than 30 years ago, it marked the end of the Shaw Brothers films being shown on American television ( with exception to a brief airing on the USA network ). This year the El Ray network signed a deal with Celestial for the television broadcast rights to 255 films from the Shaw Brothers library. Once again, the Shaw Brothers are getting exposure via American television. Of course, this is not the same as the last time. When Black Belt Theater aired, cable television was only available to less than 10% of the country. There were only three networks, and they had no programming for late afternoon on Saturday. In other words, there was nothing else on against the local stations, and not much competition for Black Belt Theater. In it's day, it was the most exciting thing on television at it's time slot. In contrast, today almost every household has cable, and access to hundreds of channels. El Rey has only been around for a year, and most people assume it is another Spanish language network.

El Rey may be under the radar, but that does not mean no one will be watching. By airing the Shaw Brothers films, it gives fans of the movies the opportunity to tell their friends to watch, even suggesting the specific films they know their friends would like. Something that did not exist in the 80s was social networking. Word of mouth brought more viewers to Black Belt Theater, but word of mouth was still at a snails pace. Today if someone sees a movie they like, they can spread the word to hundreds of their online friends and have a lot of them watching the repeat airing a few hours later. Or at the least, adding the program to their DVR for a later viewing. El Rey does have the potential to do for the Shaw Brothers movies what Black Belt Theater did for them back in the 80s. And once there is a renewed fan base for Shaw Brothers, there will also be a new demand for them on DVD.

But aside from that, we must not forget about Dragon Dynasty. As already mentioned, the Weinstein's are notorious for warehousing the movies they have rights to for years. It is possible they could still release the films at a later date. And then there is the possibility that another video company will be interested in releasing the films, buying the unused rights from Dragon Dynasty and Tokyo Shock. The Shaw Brothers films failed to be best sellers because there was no thought put into their release. That does not mean that some enterprising home video company can't figure the proper way to promote and sell the films.

And another possibility is MOD ( Manufactured On Demand ) DVDs. Warner Brothers had a vast catalog of movies which they added to when they obtained the rights to the entire MGM/UA archive. But there are only so many DVDs one company can release a year, not to mention needing to continue pressing the evergreens ( those movies that continue to sell even though they had been around for years. ). Warner had been beset with requests to release hundreds of movies in their archives to DVD. Their solution was the Warner Archive Collection, where those movies and television shows would be made available through burned DVD-R on demand. You order the film, they burn it. Warner Archives has been so successful that other studios have instituted their own MOD DVDs. So basically, Celestial could some day offer their own MOD service. Maybe burned DVDs are not as attractive as pressed DVDs, but will give the average Shaw Brother fan the opportunity to own any film they want.