Hong Kong Filmart 2012: End of Joseph Lai's IFD films?

Do you remember that line from A Fistful of Dollars when Benito Rojo tells to The Man With No Name that "the life of a man is always linked to a thread of information"? Today I have the chance to use this line from Sergio Leone's film because my good friend Domingo López, the only & the one true real reference about Asian movie industry in Spain, has told me Joseph Lai's IFD film didn't attend Filmart this year. It seems Mr Lai is retired from bussiness.

Joseph Lai & Domingo Lopez at HK Filmart 2011

But the question is what will happen to IFD films & its movie catalog? I hope someone else will continue the work Mr Lai started more almost 40 years ago when IFD was a branch of Intercontinental films & we started to enjoy those Thai action movies starred by Sombat Metheanee, Krung Svrilai or Sorapong Chatri along with those bizarre filipino actioners from Bobby Suarez and starred by a very young Chris Mitchum.

Intercontinental Films was the "mother" of IFD. We can't talk about IFD without mentioning Intercontinental Films.

We can't forget the wonderful time we spent in front of the tv screen watching those korean kung fu movies starred by Elton Chong, Eagle Han or Dragon Lee that Mr Lai brought us via Asso Asia in partnership with Tomas Tang. All those movies are part of my childhood. I remember my mother used to take me to the video rental shop every Friday after school to rent 2 or 3 of those movies. Every weekend was a kung fu festival for me!...

The most popular IFD logo. Who hasn't seen it at least a couple of times?

Then, we have the IFD ninja films, the most beloved & hated ninja films in cinema history.  I am sure 100% of HK movie goers from around the world have, at least a couple of times, enjoy some of these IFD coloured ninja adventures. Not too many were aware about their origin or the original movies used on the famous "cut & paste" experiment IFD released in the middle 80'and that was the reason because this site was created.

After the ninjas, the kickboxer came then IFD went back on time and offered us new Bruce Lee Clones, a la Asso Asia.

What a paradox! 25 years ago, these movies were everywhere from North to South, from East to West, most countries in the world had IFD films in video rental shops. Now they are a bit hard to get & what is even worse, we don't know what is going to happen to IFD Films now. Surely, Mr Lai need to rest, but I truly hope someone else will take the reins of the company. 

IFD can't dissapear just like this. IFD is an important piece of film distribution in Hong Kong cinema industry. IFD films got bigger & wider releases around the world than other bigger & more popular film companies.