Background: Mandarin Films Distribution Company Limited was founded by Raymond Wong, a co-founder of Cinema City. Wong later sold Mandarin, using the proceeds to start up another label, Pegasus Motion Pictures, together with his son.
1st Logo (1991-92)[]
Logo: On a time lapse sequence of a sunrise over a river, a silver Tweety-like bird flies towards us and tilts a bit. The bird slides to the left of the screen and then throws some blue sparkly powder that form the text "Mandarin Films Limited" in a TNR font with fancy capital letters and some Chinese characters in blue. The capital M in "Mandarin" is in a Vivaldi-like font. The bird materializes in wind streaks and sparkles and disappears through a whirlwind, as the company name zooms in to the middle, making the "M" flash.
FX/SFX: Extremely choppy and outdated animation.
Music/Sounds: A rising ominous synth tune with drums is heard at first. A cheerful piano tune is heard when the bird is seen, quickly-rising harp notes when the text appears, and then a cartoon-like trombone tune is heard.
Availability: Extremely rare. Films that have it include Happy Ghost V, Daddy: Father: Papa, The Great Pretenders, Beyond's Diary, and Lucky Encounter.
Editor's Note: The synth tune at the beginning, the creepy sunrise animation, and the bird appearing out of nowhere may surprise some.
2nd Logo (1992-99)[]
Logo: On a black background, a white flash appears below and a sun rises to illuminate an ocean. The sky becomes a white background and we zoom back into a golden rounded square tunnel. The tunnel turns green and we zoom out to reveal a green marble surface with filmstrip holes in a shadow, that the one of the holes we're emerged from the tunnel. The holes disappear and a golden curve falls on top of the marble. The curve gets drawn into an golden Vivaldi-like M which is the same one from the first logo and the logo zooms out to reveal the marble as either a rectangular slate with sprocket holes on their sides to form a filmstrip or just a square slate on a black background. The background fades to white and the following text appears alongside a Chinese translation:
- Earlier films: "MANDARIN FILMS LTD."
- Later films: "MANDARIN FILMS DISTRIBUTION CO. LTD."
- Films developed by the Singapore division: "MANDARIN FILMS (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD., appear with their Chinese translations."
The lighting and color contrast of each version is also different.
FX/SFX: The sunrise, the zoomings, and the M getting drawn. Pretty good CGI effects for 1992.
Music/Sounds: A synthesized fanfare. There exists low and high pitched versions of it.
Availability: Rare.
3rd Logo (1999-)[]
Logo: On a black background, many flames fly around and when we get to a zooming out shot, the flames form the M from before. The M flashes and then turns green with a golden, glowing slate with filmstrip holes. Below is "MANDARIN FILMS DISTRIBUTION CO. LTD." and the Chinese translation on top of it. The logo shines and flames make the logo disappear.
FX/SFX: The flames. Decent animation for its time.
Music/Sounds: A shining synth pad with burning noises all throughout.
Availability: Uncommon.