Talk To Me: Toby Russell

Every now and again, Fareastfilms.com owner, Lord Mills, saunters into FEF Towers and throws a large sack at me. Usually, it’s full of rusty door knobs, but on occasions it’s full of correspondence.

Once I’ve sifted through the happy sack and removed the porn adverts and online diplomas, there’s often a couple of emails from actual FEF punters. Without my usual sack-related concussion I can get to work on responses straight away and…BAM!…six months later I’ve written one reply.

This emailer wanted to know why Asian movie releases, specifically kung fu releases, seem to have dried up in the UK. I contacted UK kung fu king Toby Russell to see what the deal is.

Mike Banner: Hey Toby. It appears that your DVD labels, Vengeance and Rarescope, have stopped releasing titles. Is this true?

Toby Russell: Vengeance has stopped and Rarescope too. However, I am still releasing films in the UK. This May I will release a Tony Jaa film called ‘Hard Gun‘ (aka ‘Mue Prab Puen Hode’ – trans. The Cop with Hard Gun, 1996). It’s one he did with Panna Rittikrai (Tony Jaa’s mentor) before his ‘Ong Bak‘ days.

MB: Why have you stopped releasing kung fu movies?

TR: I stopped releasing traditional kung fu movies because the big stores like HMV/Zavvi/etc, do not want to stock this type of product.

MB: Will this situation be permanent?

TR: If the market suddenly picks up or there’s a demand for this kind of product, then I’d release a load of stuff.  I still own many titles for the UK. Maybe when new formats are introduced then I will release them on the new formats, whatever they may be.

MB: Is there a future for Asian movies on DVD in the UK?

TR: Of course there is, but the trend is more for the new action films like Donnie Yen‘s ‘Wing Chun‘, for example. They will have no problem selling that, although the response won’t be as big as it used to be.

MB: Do you think the fans have changed over the years?

TR: No, I dont think fans have changed, but they have become more spoilt for choice and quality. As for the old skool fans, they have nearly all the films they ever wanted. So i think the old skool films e.g. 70-88, will no longer be in big demand.

MB: Thanks a lot, Toby.

So there you go people. It’s all about supply and demand. You just haven’t been buying enough DVDs. You should be ashamed of yourselves!

Note: I’ve lost the original email with the senders question and name on it, but you know, I don’t get paid for doing this, so get off my case, man.

‘Hard Gun’ is available on DVD and Blu-Ray now from Amazon.co.uk.