Media Asia Group

Background

Media Asia is a Hong Kong film producer and distributor founded in 1993. It is one of Asia's largest Chinese language film studios and a subsidiary of Lai Sun Development Company Ltd.

Contents

1st Logo (April 21, 1994-2000)	2nd Logo (1994?)	3rd Logo (1994-2005)	4th Logo (2000-)

1st Logo (April 21, 1994-2000)

Visuals: On a black background, a hot pink series of lines fades across the screen in the shape of a vertical line. The series of lines turns into what first looks like a box, but is an abstract "A" right next to an abstract "M". The "A" flips over and hits the "M", causing the M and the "A" to look like an abstract "MA" as it glows. The finished emblem zooms out and silver Chinese characters and English words:

寰亞綜藝集團
Media Asia Group

(in a font that looks like Futura Bold Italic) fade in.

Variants:

Sometimes, the logo says "Media Asia Distribution" or simply "Media Asia".
Sometimes, the "M" would be solid red or dark purple, depending on the film quality.
Another version uses the words "Media Asia Pictures".

Technique: CGI animation.

Audio: An '80s-esque synth theme with Oriental drumbeats and a seven-beat cadence at the end. Around 1997, the theme was rearranged in an orchestral version.

Audio Variants:

There are double high (NTSC-C to PAL) and low pitched (NTSC-C to NTSC) versions of both themes.
As this often plasters older logos, it sometimes carries the music from them due to reverse plastering. Examples of this are various Golden Harvest films and the Australian DVD of The Cannonball Run, which plastered the custom 20th Century Fox logo with the fanfare underneath (heard along with the cars, crashing searchlights, Burt Reynolds' laugh and all!).
On the Mandarin dub of Naked Killer, it uses the Mei Ah Laser Disc Co. Ltd theme due to an editing mistake.

Availability: When Media Asia controlled the distribution rights to various film libraries, such as Golden Harvest's before Star TV (News Corp.) formed Fortune Star and took over, this logo either preceded or (more often) plastered the original logos.

This logo can still be seen on older (pre-Fortune Star) video and DVD releases of films from Golden Harvest, D & B, among others.
It is seen on some U.S. versions of films such as on City On Fire, Dimension-released Jackie Chan films, and the Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment (now known as Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) DVD's of Once Upon a Time in China 1-3.
Oddly appears on an airing of The Karate Kid (2010) on the now-defunct Southeast Asian Disney Channel, preceding the 1993 Columbia Pictures logo, instead of the 4th logo.
The "Distribution" logo appeared on The Yuppie Fantasia after the Fortune Star logo due to plastering the Golden Harvest logo.

Legacy: A favorite of many people that grew up with this logo in Hong Kong. However, it did gain some infamy for plastering older logos of certain companies, especially if this logo is shown but with a fanfare of another logo.

2nd Logo (1994?)

Visuals: On the left of a blue screen, there is a golden "MA" emblem without the lines. On the right is the white text:

M E D I A -- A S I A
寰亞電影有限公司出品

Technique: A printed image filmed by a camera.

Audio: None.

Availability: Unknown.^[Examples?]

3rd Logo (1994-2005)

Visuals: Just a print version of the MA emblem fading in, with "Media Asia 寰亞" in white wiping in below on a black background.

Technique: Motion-controlled animation.

Audio: None.

Availability: Usually precedes the 1994 or 2000 version of the next logo. Strangely, this doesn't precede the 1994 logo on Option Zero.

4th Logo (2000-)

Visuals: The logo starts with rapidly moving pink shards and zoom out of their view until the shards become two pink lines. The camera moves diagonally and reveals more pink lines (a la New World Pictures) until a pink edge is revealed. Then the camera moves up and turns to a blue cloudy background like Warner Bros' logo. The pink lines turn out to be the MA emblem. The Chinese characters and English letters:

寰亞綜藝集團
Media Asia Group

fade in.

Variants:

In 2008, the logo was redone; the animation is slightly different, the sky background is different, and the English text is no longer italicized, and in a different font that looks like Helvetica.
In 2011, the logo was redone again, the emblem is now in a blue/red gradient color and the Chinese characters/English letters are now silver and now read:

寰亞電影
Media Asia Film

There exists a shortened version that shows the final half of the logo in its still position with the "M" shining.
At the end of The Departed, the print logo is seen with the text "Media Asia Films" below.

Technique: CGI animation, with live-action for the cloudy background.

Audio: A gradually rising majestic fanfare, which gets reorchestrated over the years. Once, it had been orchestrated with a choir.

Audio Variants:

On the trailer for Aces Go Places, it uses the theme from the first logo.
Like the previous logo, on films that plaster over other companies' logos, it sometimes carries the music from them. Examples of this are on some Media Asia distributed Golden Harvest films, and Fantasy Island (1986).
The music is sometimes low-pitched for international releases, such as Netflix prints of the live-action Initial D film.

Availability: Used in tandem with the previous logo until 2008.

Appears on Media Asia's new films, including Initial D and the Infernal Affairs trilogy. It also appeared on films produced with Milkyway Image.
Also seen on current prints of other distributors' older films (surprisingly keeping the original logos intact after it), such as Taxi Hunter and Fine Catch.
The 2011 variant also plasters the 2000 logo on the Criterion release of the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

Legacy: Same as the 1st logo.