Television Syndication of Martial Arts Movies

You never saw actual martial arts movies on television in the '70s. Sure, Kung Fu movies were all the rage in theaters. But you could never see them in your living room. They were considered too violent, perhaps because they had titles such as Master Killer, Fists of Fury and Street Fighter. Martial arts fans had to settle for David Carradine's watered down Kung Fu series. In 1979 World Northal, a company that has previously distributed foreign art house movies, branched out into English dubbed martial arts films. World Northal's vice president of distribution Mel Maron came up with the idea of also syndicating the movies to television. Hiring film editor Larry Bensky to cut out any overtly violent scenes as well as any nudity or other objectionable material, 13 movies were edited for television distribution. Bensky insisted on and got an extra screen credit added to the prints of the syndicated movies. packaged together as part of a show called Black Belt Theater, World Northal put the movies into syndication in early 1981.

Usually shown along with it's syndicated opener and commercial bumpers Black Belt Theater was picked up by several television stations, some which removed the bumpers and opening segment and replaced it with their station's own. Metro-Media, the forerunner of the Fox network, purchased Black Belt Theater to be shown on all of it's stations as part of their Drive-In Movie series. The success of the series had World Northal expand the syndicated package of martial arts movies from the original 13 to around 90 films with classics like Five Deadly Venoms and Master Killer. Other distributors noticed World Northal's success, and soon were editing together their own syndicated martial arts movies.

Kung Fu Theater was both offered into syndication and sold to the USA Network who aired it Sundays before the wrestling match. Kung Fu Theater had a few minor classics including Hot Dog Kung Fu shown in syndication as Writing Kung Fu, Renegade Monk, Incredible Master Beggars, and No On Can Touch Her shown in syndication as Flying Claw Fights 14 Demons. Another syndicated package of movies went by the title Fist of Fury Theater. It also had some minor classics including Cantonen Iron Kung Fu and Northern Kicks/Southern Fists but was better known for editing videotaped stock footage of Bruce Lee onto some of their movies, claiming he was the star of the movie. This included the distasteful The True Game of Death.

Golden Harvest took matters into their own hands and syndicated their own movies. This included all but one of the Bruce Lee movies, Fists of Fury, The Chinese Connection, Return of the Dragon, Game of Death and Game of Death II. It also included early Jackie Chan movies including Young Master and Winners and Sinners. The one Bruce Lee movie that Golden Harvest did not have the rights to was Enter the Dragon which was later syndicated by Warner Brothers Television. Warner Brothers also syndicated a number of other martial arts movies including Jackie Chan's The Big Brawl and The Protector, as well as the Hammer horror and Shaw Brothers hybrid Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires.

By 1990 Black Belt Theater, Golden Harvest Syndication, and Fist of Fury Theater were no longer available for syndication. Filling this void was Cinema Shares Syndication and Harmony Gold. Cinema Shares featured mostly Bruce Li films including Bruce Lee the Invincible and Soul Brothers of Kung Fu. Harmony Gold scraped the bottom of the barrel with forgettable bargain rate martial arts movies like Fury in Shaolin Temple. By the mid 90's local stations were no longer airing B movies on the weekends and the days of the weekly martial art movie were over. Fortunately there was DVD that made most of these movies available uncut to those who wanted to see them again.