Mandarin Films Distribution Company Limited

Background

After Cinema City Company Ltd. (新藝城) closed down in early 1990s, one of its founders Raymond Wong (黃百鳴) set up Mandarin Films (東方電影) with remarkable productions like Dragon Tiger Gate (龍虎門) and Ip Man (葉問). Wong later sold Mandarin, using the proceeds to start up another label, Pegasus Motion Pictures (天馬電影), together with his son.

Contents

1st Logo (August 8, 1991-1992)	2nd Logo (1992-July 29, 2005)	3rd Logo (July 28, 2006-2014)

1st Logo (August 8, 1991-1992)

Later variant

Visuals: Starts off with a time lapse sequence of a sunrise over a river. After a while, a silver Tweety-like bird flies towards the camera and tilts a bit. The bird slides to the left of the screen and then throws some blue sparkly powder that form the text "Mandarin Films Limited" in a TNR font with fancy capital letters and the Chinese name in teal below. The capital "M" in "Mandarin" is in a Vivaldi-like font. The bird materializes wind streaks and sparkles and disappears through a whirlwind, as the company name zooms in to the middle, with the "M" flashing once.

Variant: A later variant exists, where the white text has a drop shadow in order to make it stand out a bit more from the sunrise.

Technique: Cel animation.

Audio: A rising ominous synth tune with drums is heard at first. A cheerful piano tune is heard when the bird is seen, quickly-rising harp notes when the text appears, and then a cartoon-like trombone tune is heard.

Availability: Seen on 90's movies such as Happy Ghost V, Daddy: Father: Papa, The Great Pretenders, Beyond's Diary and Lucky Encounter, while the later version appeared on Girls Without Tommorrow 1992, after the Regal Films Distribution logo.

2nd Logo (1992-July 29, 2005)

NOTE: The first video is the high-pitched version, the second video is the low-pitched version, and the third video is all the logo variants together.

Visuals: On a black background, a white flash appears below and a sun rises to illuminate an ocean. The sky becomes a white background and the screen zooms back into a golden rounded square tunnel. The tunnel turns green and the screen zooms out to reveal a green marble surface with filmstrip holes in a shadow, that the one of the holes we're emerged from the tunnel. The holes disappear and a golden curve falls on top of the marble. The curve gets drawn into the same Vivaldi-like "M" from the first logo, but in gold, and the logo zooms out to reveal the marble as either a rectangular slate with sprocket holes on their sides to form a filmstrip or just a square slate on a black background (used on the "MANDARIN FILMS DISTRIBUTION CO. LTD." variant). The background fades to white and the following text:

"MANDARIN FILMS LTD." (found on most films),
"MANDARIN FILMS DISTRIBUTION CO. LTD." (found on a few number of them),
and "MANDARIN FILMS (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD." (seen on films developed by the Singapore division),

appear with their Chinese translations. The lighting and color contrast of each version is also different.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A majestic synthesized orchestral fanfare, starting off with woodwind instruments before segueing into a horn-driven piece. Sparkles are also heard when the text fades in.

Audio Variants:

Sometimes, the sparkles plays earlier.
There exists low and high pitched versions of it.
In the 1995 film The Phantom Lover, the logo has a different orchestral fanfare, it can be viewed here.

Availability: Seen on Hong Kong films of the time, such as The Chinese Feast and Tristar.

3rd Logo (July 28, 2006-2014)

Later variant

Visuals: On a black background, many flames fly around and when the sequence gets to a zooming out shot, the flames form the "M" from before. The "M" flashes and then turns green with a golden, glowing slate with filmstrip holes. Below is "MANDARIN FILMS DISTRIBUTION CO. LTD." and the Chinese translation on top of it. The logo shines and flames make the logo disappear.

Variant: On later films, the text now simply reads "MANDARIN FILMS".

Technique: CGI.

Audio: A shining synth pad with burning noises all throughout.

Availability: Appears on newer movies made by the company until 2014, such as Ip Man.

Mandarin Films Distribution Company Limited

Pegasus Motion Pictures

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