Ditto. This is kind of annoying.
2 Likes
Anyone hear what exactly is going on over at WE? I donāt believe for a second that they sold out of The Ugly Ones or some of those other titles.
1 Like
Yep, a far fetched and laughable narrative.
2 Likes
Well, Wild East has an announcement on their site that they are going out of business. Very sad news.
Here is the link to their announcement:
WILD EAST - $0.00 : Wildeast, The spaghetti western specialists
2 Likes
That is a shame, those two guys were pioneers for sure. I never bought any of their products myself, there were way too many mixed reviews for me to take a chance, but I do believe they tried to put out the best product they could.
What I find especially strange is that other small scale companies like Mondo Macabro, which is a one man show I believe, have done so well, but the Wild East guys encountered issue after issue. I imagine thereās as much luck as hard work in the Home Media business, but still, that they didnāt grow as a company the way MM and others have seems a little āFishy in Denmarkā.
1 Like
I had a feeling something was going on when they pulled their blu rays. Back in the day these guys were putting out stuff no one else was stateside so they definitely deserve our gratitude!
4 Likes
RIP
Hopefully Wild East gets its own grave at Sad Hill.
1 Like
Wow, sad news indeed. Our salute to Ally and Eric for their pioneer work
4 Likes
I had a bad feeling when they had 2 releases get pulled this year due to rights issues (Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe and The Ugly Ones). A niche company of their size could never financially recover from that.
2 Likes
Do you know that or just presume?
Just heard about the demise of Wild East, dang I just started last year seriously collecting their excellent releases, now gonna try to get as many as possible coz theyāre going to become collectorās items
Eric Mache said they had to pull Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe and The Ugly Ones due to rights issues on facebook. He also said it was a full time job battling people uploading their transfers on youtube. They wuold make a copyright claim, it would be taken down only to reappear a few days later
People can complain that the quality of Wild East couldnāt match the likes of Koch and Arrow but they released far more spaghettis for English-speaking fans than anyone else and I will definitely miss them.
5 Likes
Exactly! Just last night I was going through my collection thinking about all of the movies I might not have seen - much less owned - had it not been for Wild East. And, just speaking for myself, I would much rather see a not so perfect copy of a hard to find good movie than I would a pristine copy of a bad movie.
3 Likes
Agreed. Blu-snobs are the worst, and toxic as hell. They throw their nose up at anything less than Criterion Collection quality. Wild East releases, though not perfect, were still great and 80% percent of the releases I own by them, I would not of seen otherwise. They will be greatly missed.
3 Likes
When Wild East started way back when, i was in late High School, early College, and unable to gain access to any of them, so I might be a little bias in that all my knowledge comes from what others have said about them here on the Forum, and from some guys on YouTube. Had they been able to get access to the original country audio like Italian and Spanish on some of their releases, Iād have definitely given them a shot as hear other languages is my third favorite thing after films and History/Culture.
Of course, if someone said to me, āOK, you have a choice between a US DVD/Blu Ray of an Italo Western that has B- audio and image quality or a German DVD/Blu Ray that has B to B+ audio and imageā Iām going with the German edition cause the extra mile of care is there.
If you think the people whoāve taken issue with WE releases are simply āBlu snobsā then you arenāt very familiar with the specifics of their releases
Most WE releases were simply poorly copied DVDs from overseas, with bad framerate conversion.
A company which was around for so many years and with the reputation of caring about quality releases of genre films could have at least taken the minimum steps towards learning the basics of a proper video transfer.
But instead they continually produced bootleg quality DVDs at the higher end of commercial pricing. The covers were very nice though, and lets be honest, thatās what sold them.
Then the DVDs would sell at $50+ when they went out of printā¦ the company could have surely made a good amount more money by simply printing more product when their OOP titles were selling for so much on ebay
Edit: Iād like to acknowledge that WE did make English dubs available and sometimes prints featuring English credits, etc. I acknowledge they made English versions of these films available to the North American audience.
My point is just that there were a lot of legitimate issues with WE and their releases. It was not simply quality snobbery. Most of the people who had problems with them have a huge collection of some of the worst quality video imaginable.
5 Likes
Iāll also add to my last post that if Wild East was capable of producing quality transfers, theyād maybe still be in business. If you look at the successful sales of other companies producing high quality genre releases, there is clearly a demand. But people arenāt really interested in paying for subpar releases these days, especially with all the high quality HD streaming available even for genre films.
Sorry if my opinions are harsh, but thatās pretty much how I see it.
Iāve always had more respect for Franco Cleef than Wild East, who was basically doing the same thing but producing better quality bootlegs at half the price.
2 Likes
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, which is what is part of the fun of this site but I have to ask, if their releases are so horrible in your eyes, how did they gain this reputation?
I own everything from Arrow and Grindhouse to Kino Lober to Mill Creek and Sinister Cinema which means I have seen many ābootleg qualityā DVDs so I could not disagree more. I have to question exactly how many Wild East releases youāve seen as they have many, regardless of their source, that are very well done which includes the most complete release of A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die that is available in the U.S.
Once more I have to disagree. What sold them was the fact that these titles were movies that people wanted to see that were unavailable in any form to purchase commercially in the U.S.
Who are these people that have āthe worst quality video imaginableā that have a problem with Wild East? Are you trying to say that Wild East video quality is worse than the āworst quality video imaginableā? Believe me, I have some videos that makes the worst Wild East release look like an Arrow in comparison. What specifically is the root of their issue with Wild East?
What did Ally and Eric do to hurt these people? 
1 Like
I agree that isnāt all about snobbery and that they left us wanting more.
But this is why I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Thereās many films that were completely unavailable on DVD or Blu-ray when Wild East started releasing them and superior releases by German companies would appear afterwards. Wild East actually helped to sell the products of other labels. Fans would be exposed to a spaghetti like Taste of Killing, fall in love with it and then seek out the superior German edition. So, I think itās fair to say that they did more good than bad.
3 Likes