Magnum Films

Background
Magnum Films (萬能影業) was one of the important independent Hong Kong production companies in the blooming 1980's. Established by former Shaw Brothers actor Danny Lee (李修賢) in 1987 (with the backing of Golden Princess), Magnum focused on realistic police-themed action dramas, including Final Justice (霹靂先鋒, 1988), Thank You Sir (壯志雄心, 1989) and Road Warriors (鐵血騎警, 1990). Magnum also co-produced John Woo's The Killer (喋血雙雄, 1989) with Golden Princess.

(1987-1999)
Logo: On a blue-black gradient starfield, various stars come out of the screen and zoom out into the distance. Then clusters of orange stars zoom out, while leaving light trails. A flash occurs at the center, bringing the zooming word "MAGNUM", which then zooms out a bit. White stripes wipe in from both sides and slice the word. "A" and "PRESENTATION" flash in above and below it. Blue Chinese characters then flash below the logo letter-by-letter.

Variant: The starfield color could be a varying shades of blue depending on the film, or completely black, as seen on The Untold Story II.

Technique: It's all 2D animation.

Music/Sounds:
 * A dark synthesized fanfare, with a whoosh, a reverse crash cymbal and gunshots and bullet ricochets when the Chinese characters flash.
 * A synthesized fanfare with drum hits and a reverse crash.
 * A high-pitched descending synthesized arpeggio, followed by a triumphant fanfare, also synthesized. Deep gunshots when the Chinese characters flash.

Availability: Uncommon. Found on late 80's and some 90's movies from Hong Kong, like The Killer, Just Heroes, and The Untold Story II.

Legacy: This is a very well done logo.

(1990's)
Logo: On a black background, a bunch of orange lines compress more and more until they form the Magnum logo in a pixel-like way. "VIDEO PRODUCTIONS LTD." and Chinese characters fade in below.

Technique: The compressing, which is much less of a effort than the Magnum logo.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Rare. Found on VCDs from the company from the time.

(1999)
Logo: On a space background, the Fitto Movie logo rotates as the F glows. It stops glowing and then shifts to the middle of the screen and a glowing object slides into place, which then dies down to reveal a segmented, orange "M". It slides to the left and then 4 lights shoot forward to reveal 4 Chinese characters. The rest follow later and then "FITTO MAGNUM MOVIE LIMITED" rotates into place.

Technique: The logo forming, the lights.

Music/Sounds: A dramatic piece of music with gunshots for the 4 lights.

Availability: Only seen on The Untold Story III.

Legacy: The glowing Fitto logo taking up the whole screen combined with the dramatics and gunshots will scare people.