Shaw Group’s major achievements

In 1958, Shaw Brothers Film Company was established, mainly producing movies, with Run Run Shaw as president. In 1961, Shaw Brothers Cinemas located in Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, was officially opened on December 6. In the 1970s, the Shaw Brothers entered the rapidly developing television industry and cooperated with TVB to train artists. In 1980, Run Run Shaw became the largest shareholder of TVB. During the same period, it continued to shrink its film business and stopped producing films in May 1987, focusing mainly on the production of TV series. In 2000, Shaw Brothers announced that it would sell the permanent copyrights of more than 1,000 movies to Malaysian pay television. In 2003, Shaw Brothers cooperated with China Star Film Company to invest HK$1.1 billion to build a Hong Kong Cinema City in Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate, and invested approximately HK$200 million to start filming about 15 new dramas. The Shaw brothers' father, Shao Yuxuan, was active in Shanghai's industrial and commercial circles in the early 20th century, mainly engaged in the pigment business. But none of the many brothers in the Shao family inherited their father's business, and almost all of them entered the entertainment industry. The eldest brother of the Shaw Brothers is Renjie, the second brother Renlang, and the third brother Renmei. Run Run Shaw is the youngest. His original name was Renlang. Because he wanted to be famous in the film business, they all had different nicknames. The eldest brother was the drunkard, the second brother was the villager, and the third brother was the villager. The youngest brother Shanke is called Yifu.

In 1924, Shao Zuiweng founded Tianyi Film Company. Shao Zuiweng served as producer and director. Shao Du was good at screenwriting, the third brother Shao Renmei was good at distribution, and the sixth brother Shao Yifu was good at photography.

In 1925, the first film "Becoming a Buddha" was shot, which was very popular among Shanghai residents after it was screened. "Spring Scene", filmed in 1931, is one of China's first two sound films with on-film pronunciation.

In 1926, Run Run Shaw and Shao Renmei went south to Singapore to develop the Nanyang film market. In 1930, Shaw Brothers established "Shaw Brothers Company" in Singapore. Through their unremitting efforts, by 1937, on the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, Shaw Brothers owned more than 110 cinemas and 9 amusement parks in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Java, Vietnam, Borneo, etc., and established a complete film distribution network, ruling the roost. Southeast Asia film industry market.

After 1937, the barbaric invasion of Japanese imperialism disrupted the development process of Shaw Brothers Pictures. Shaw Brothers struggled to survive, and later became even more unsustainable and was forced to close its doors.

In 1958, Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. was established in Hong Kong by Mr. Shao Renmei and Mr. Run Run Shaw. Since then, Shaw Brothers Films has released more than 40 films every year and has been the largest film and television production base in Hong Kong for decades.

After entering the 1960s, Shaw Brothers has produced more than a thousand films and won dozens of awards including the Golden Horse Award and the Academy Award. Shaw Brothers was the first to implement the movie star system in Hong Kong, creating a large number of big stars, big directors and famous screenwriters, such as Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu, Li Lihua, Lin Dai, Ling Bo, Li Hanxiang, Zou Yuhuai, Zhang Che, etc. Diao Chan", "A Falling Country", "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai", "The Drunken Man", "The One-Armed Sword" and other films have all been famous overseas and caused huge repercussions in the Chinese world.

The Shaw family has made an indelible contribution to the Chinese film industry. From silent films to sound films, from black and white to color, every step of the transformation of Chinese films is due to the efforts of the Shaw family. After Run Run Shaw took control of Shaw Brothers Film Company, Shaw Brothers movies developed vigorously. In the 1950s, when Hong Kong movies were flourishing, Shaw Brothers films were not very eye-catching. After the Shaw Brothers Company became fully fledged, many luxurious productions were launched, making the slogan "A Shaw Brothers film must be a good film" deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Movies represent the quality of a film.

Shaw Brothers has dominated the Hong Kong film industry for more than 20 years and has had a profound impact on Hong Kong films. Before Shaw Brothers, Hong Kong films dominated the market with literary films that emphasized artistic connotation. "Island Paradise", "Secret History of the Qing Palace" and "Song of Exile" are all early Hong Kong literary classics. After Shaw Brothers dominated the world, the Hong Kong film industry gradually changed from a focus on literature and art to a situation where commercial films became the mainstream.

Shao Run Run believes that in order for a film to be a hit, it must know how to cater to the audience's taste. Although he gives his directors a lot of room to play, these directors must also follow certain market rules. Make a film that the audience loves to see, rather than just watching it in isolation. Among the types of films that have been or are still continuing in the Hong Kong film industry, such as Huangmei Diao films, martial arts films, fashion action films, ghost films, romance films, Qing palace films, and even Lunar New Year films, Shaw Brothers Company The movies are shot to the extreme, and they have been learning from Hollywood, knowing how to use high investment and big stars to attract the audience's attention. It can be said that the early business operation model of Chinese-language films has been matured and further developed here at Shaw Brothers.

Although Shaw Brothers' business philosophy has not been fully inherited by the Hong Kong film industry, its entire set of concepts from production to marketing of commercial films has profoundly influenced Hong Kong filmmakers throughout the 1980s. After Shaw Brothers announced the suspension of production in 1987, the original Shaw Brothers staff sought other jobs. This was a large number of backbone film forces, including Chow Wen-huai, John Woo, Wong Jing, Liu Weiqiang, Cheng Xiaodong, Xu Anhua, etc. They all They are film elites who have come out of Shaw Brothers one after another. The film experience they learned at Shaw Brothers will benefit them greatly in their future careers.

Run Run Shaw's 40 years of painstaking efforts have built Shaw Brothers into a huge film kingdom and made Hong Kong film industry the commercial film capital of Asia. Although Shaw Brothers stopped producing films in the 1980s, and its studios were transferred to television stations for filming TV series, Shaw Brothers gradually lost its former glory in the Chinese film industry, but no matter what, no one doubted that Shaw Brothers movies are a treasure in the Chinese film industry.

In 1999, a Malaysian consortium purchased the rights to more than 760 Shaw Brothers films, and then established Celestial Entertainment in Hong Kong with the help of Shaw Brothers' rich film library. Since its establishment, Celestial Entertainment has been committed to restoring the former glory of Shaw Brothers films. First, it spent huge sums of money to restore the old negatives of the film through digital technology. For Celestial Entertainment, their most important task after their establishment was to repair these faded negatives. Celestial Entertainment used the most advanced digital equipment and technology to restore these old Shaw Brothers films. The specific work included color adjustment, removing stains, repairing damage and scratches, etc. The next step is to bring these restored works to the market. The restored films will be able to reappear on the big screen, allowing people to see the glorious years of Shaw Brothers again; the completion of the nearly 1 billion Hong Kong dollar joint venture between Shaw Brothers and China Star in Tseung Kwan O Cinema , will also prompt Shaw Brothers to re-sign artists to make new films. Li Hanxiang

Huangmei School Movies

In Shaw Brothers movies, Chinese costume films have always occupied a very important position, and Li Hanxiang is a master of shooting costume romance films. Li Hanxiang joined Shaw Brothers during its entrepreneurial stage. At that time, he advocated the production of Huangmei-diao films and chose Lin Dai as the starring role in the film "Diao Chan". The film was released in 1958 and immediately broke the box office record of Mandarin films in Hong Kong. This success made Shaw Brothers' bosses strengthen their confidence in Li Hanxiang. With the encouragement of the company, Li Hanxiang subsequently produced "The Beauty of the Country". This film won the best film award at the 6th Asian Film Festival. Li Hanxiang The Huangmei School films gradually became a major branch of the films produced by Shaw Brothers. Before the mid-1960s, the Huangmei School was the mainstream of Shaw Brothers films, and Li Hanxiang was the star director of Shaw Brothers at that time.

Chan Cheh and Hu Jinquan

New School Martial Arts Movies

Different from Li Hanxiang’s style, Hu Jinquan and Chang Cheh are famous for shooting martial arts movies. Their style is new school martial arts movies. The pioneering work of this school is confirmed to be Hu Jinquan's "The Drunken Man" in 1966. The following year, Chang Cheh's "The One-Armed Sword" was released and became the first film with a box office of more than one million. Chang Cheh's "million-dollar director" The name started from that time.

In Chang Cheh's films, the male actors really win the leading role. In previous works of the Huangmei School, male actors played more of a foil role, but Chang Cheh is different. In his films, the male protagonists are mostly knights with strong personalities. They have independent personalities and have their own way of being. As for the standard of doing things, what they value most is the friendship between men, but the love between children often takes a back seat and becomes a foil to the main plot of the film.

Hu Jinquan and Chang Cheh are directors of the same period, and they are also the originators of new martial arts films. However, he and Chang Cheh are still somewhat different. Hu Jinquan puts more emphasis on the beauty of the action on the screen, shaping the Most of the characters are relatively reserved, while Chang Cheh pursues brutal beauty and quick and real actions, and the characters he creates are also tougher.

Chu Yuan: The most ancient martial arts film director

Surreal and weird martial arts film

It is also a martial arts film, but Chu Yuan’s style is unique and belongs to surrealism. This is related to the fact that most of the films he shoots are based on Gu Long's novels. "Meteor Butterfly Sword" and "Tianya Mingyue Dao" are all representative works of this type of surreal martial arts films. Most of the characters in this type of film are suave and bohemian. They wander around the world, and from time to time there are some unreasonable plots. This is also the characteristic of Gu Long's novels. The actor who often appeared in Chu Yuan's films was Ti Lung. Back then, people used to call Chu Yuan, Gu Long and Ti Lung the Iron Triangle.

(The above information comes from) The Male Leader

Wang Yu

Old name Wang Zhengquan, a native of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, born in 1944. In 1963, Wang Yu was admitted to Shaw Brothers company. In 1967, Wang Yu used his superb martial arts skills to create the classic image of a knight-errant in "The One-Armed Sword", which also set a new box office record for Hong Kong movies, breaking the one-million-dollar mark. Shaw Brothers has since become the leading actor in Hong Kong martial arts movies. A leader in the market. In addition to his outstanding appearance, Wang Yu was also hard-working and quick-witted by nature, which made him the leading martial arts student in Hong Kong in the 1960s. He starred in movies such as "Mandarin Duck Swordsman", "Three Heroes of Border Town", "Magic Sword", and "Golden Swallow". "wait.

Luo Lie

Originally named Wang Lida, he is from Guangdong and was born in Indonesia on June 29. He came to Hong Kong in his teens and enrolled in a martial arts training class in 1962. In the same year, he signed a contract with Shaw Brothers, where he mainly acted in martial arts films. In 1969, he became famous with "The Heartless" directed by Chang Cheh, and later played the leading role in "The Best Punch in the World". The film was a sensation in America and Europe, and its popularity was not inferior to that of Bruce Lee's films. Luo Lie has been with Shaw Brothers for more than ten years and has produced more than 70 films, among which "The Golden Swallow", "Poison of the Dragon" and "The King of Thieves" are all classics. In the early 1980s, Luo Lie left Shaw Brothers and went to Taiwan alone to pursue his career. In 1988, he returned to Hong Kong to develop and signed a contract as an Asian Television artiste. Died on November 2, 2002, at the age of sixty-two.

Ti Long

Original name is Tan Furong, born in 1946, from Xinhui, Guangdong. Ti Lung was admitted to the Shaw Brothers Southern Actor Training Class in 1968. The following year, he was selected for the leading role in Chang Cheh's "Dead End". He stood out from ten audition newcomers and played the role of Zhang Chun, a young man with a strong sense of rebellion in the play. Ti Lung has collaborated closely with director Chang Cheh, and has played leading roles in director Chang Cheh's films such as "Bodyguard", "Revenge", and "The Thirteen Thieves". The heroes he plays not only have similar looks, but also have rich and colorful martial arts moves.

Female Number One

Text: Lin Dai

Born in 1934 in Guangxi, she settled in Hong Kong when she was 15 years old. He started to enter the entertainment industry at the age of 16. During her time at Shaw Brothers, she filmed "Diao Chan", "A Beautiful Girl" and "Beautiful Love", all of which brought her the honor of being the best actress (her other time as the best actress was for "The Golden Lotus", which she filmed at the D&M). In 1964, she committed suicide due to love, leaving behind two unfinished works, "Blue and Black" and "Lotus Lantern". Her costume appearance is particularly charming, and she was the leading actress during the period when Shaw Brothers romance films were in vogue.

Wu: Zheng Peipei

Unlike Lin Dai, Zheng Peipei is a martial arts actress of Shaw Brothers. She made 23 movies in Shaw Brothers. When she first debuted, she took over the filming of "The Drunken Man" directed by King Hu, and became famous as a "chivalrous heroine". In 1970, she retired and moved to the United States to live with her husband. When Ang Lee was filming "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Zheng Peipei, who was still very skilled, became the "blue-eyed fox" in it.

(The above information comes from) Wu Siyuan

Ng Siyuan is known as the "Godfather of Hong Kong Film Industry". He was born in Shanghai in 1944. In 1966, he joined Shaw Brothers Co., Ltd. as a director of the Southern Experimental Theater Company. After graduation, he stayed at Shaw Brothers to work as a set recorder and assistant director. After leaving Shaw Brothers, he continued to direct kung fu films such as "The Kidnapping of Rome" and "The Little Godfather of Hong Kong". In addition to being a director himself, Wu Siyuan also uses his social prestige to work for the entire Hong Kong film working environment.

John Woo

Born in Guangdong Province in 1946, he moved to Hong Kong when he was 4 years old. He started making films as an assistant director at Shaw Brothers Film Company at the age of 25, studying under Zhang Che, and later joined Golden Harvest and New Art City Company. Films such as "A Better Tomorrow", "A Better Tomorrow", "Across the World", "Blood on the Streets", "A Better Tomorrow II", and "Hot Detective" are all his masterpieces. After entering Hollywood, he directed "Target", "Broken Arrow", "Face" and "Windtalker", bringing the oriental action film style to Hollywood.