Shaw Brothers

When you hear the words "Shaw Brothers" one of the first things that would come to your mind would be a bald Gordon Liu exchanging deadly blows against Lo Lieh or a three-way kung fu brawl between Ti Lung, David Chiang and Chen Kuan-Tai. If the words "Shaw Brothers" doesn't ring any bells with you, well you haven't even scratched the surface of the old school kung fu scene.

History

The story of the Shaw Brothers Studio starts back in 1924 when Runje Shaw (1896-1975), Runme Shaw (1901-1985) and Run Run Shaw started 'Unique Film Productions. Their first production was the silent movie "The Man From Shensi", this was the first of many silent movies the three brothers went on to producing other films such as "Journey to the West" and "The Love Eternal". The brothers seeked business opportunities else where. In Singapore Runme and Run Run incorporated"Hai Seng Co" to distribution and exhibit their movies. Later when the company was picking up the brothers decided to rename the company to - Shaw Brothers Studios.

The studios started to expand by testing small towns to see if there was any interest in their movies. They even went to the lengths of holding temporary cinemas in opens fields and setting up shows in local opera houses. Wherever they got good feedback they would then set up permanent theater in those areas. Now running a successful chain of theatres popping up the brothers had to split up, Runme took charge of north china while Run Run controlled the the south including Singapore and Runje continued to Shanghai.

Shaw Brothers were responsible for creating the first movie in China to have a soundtrack, the film was called "The Nightclub Colors". We have a this short news clipping from the Business Times in 1984;

"When sound was first introduced into films in Singapore and Malaysia in 1936, it was a great novelty. All our cinemas were doing enormous business throughout Singapore and Malaysia. We were the first ones to produce talking pictures in Hong Kong and in Shanghai and with those new talking pictures, our business took off." - Run Run Shaw.

By 1961 all of their movies were being made in full color and in a wide screen movie format, anamorphic lenses which process to project film up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, twice as wide as the conventional format of 1.33:1. Shaw Brothers had their own version of this 'CinemaScope', which they called 'ShawScope', which everyone should be familiar with as it runs at the start of almost every Shaw Brother VHS, VCD and DVD you'll ever see.

Now with Shaw Brothers in full flow they had a healthy selection of actors, actresses and directors. Each and everyone of them churned out fantastic kung fu films, breathtaking swordplay's, subtle yet engaging romantics and of course old school martial arts epics!

A lobby card of Gordon Liu in the classic "36 Chambers of Shaolin" aka The Master Killer!

The Stars

We ran our own little survey to find out who is the public audiences favorite Shaw Brothers Actor, Actress and their favorite movies. Our results are displayed in some Pie Charts, we'd also like to thank everyone that took part in helping us getting our information.

The Publics Favorite Shaw Brothers Actor

Some of the Shaw Brothers biggest star included Gordon Liu, Chen Kuan Tai, David Chiang, Danny Lee, Alexander Fu, Hsiao Ho, Lau Kar-Leung, Lo Lieh, Ti Lung, Johnny Wang, Wei Pei and at one point the top paying martial arts actor in the studio Jimmy Wang-Yu aka The One Armed Swordsman.

Other notable stars who weren't exactly their biggest stars soon went on to bigger things fine examples include; Stephen Chow, to whom is now a international star with his amazing action comedy - Kung Fu Hustle. He had starred in some Shaw Brother films such as Look Out, Officer co-starring Bill Tung, Stanley Fung and a busty Amy Yip. He also starred in the period comedy Mad Monk setting him upside Anthony Wong, Maggie Cheung & the late Anita Mui.

Chin Siu-Ho is another example, he done his round at Shaw Brothers by starring in several films such as the kung fu comedy - Fast Fingers with Chin working along side Bill Tung, Lo Meng, Johnny Wang and the portly Chiang Kam. He also starred in Ten Tigers from Kwantung starring amongst many Shaw legends such as Ti Lung, Alexander Fu, Lo Meng and Johnny Wang.

Availability

Nowadays most of you will all be collecting your Shaw Brother movies from Hong Kong's Intercontinental Video Limited (IVL/Celestial) DVD Label. These Region 3 DVD's introduce you to a world of re mastered pictures, optional subtitles and remixed audio tracks (which sometimes aren't the best).

click on the images to enlarge

Now being from the UK we'll need to mention what's happened to our Shaw releases, in 2005 Momentum Asia (UK Asia DVD Label) planned on releasing at least 24 different Shaw titles and ended up releasing only six titles. Those titles included; Heroes Two, The Heroic Ones, Death Duel and The  Spiritual Boxer. Although these titles never really seemed popular and were soon found in the local bargain bins. This bad start for Momentum Asia has caused them to abandoned all the other Shaw Brother titles they were planning on releasing. It's a shame because the quality from them was surprisingly good, big subtitles, clear picture and audio. What else can you ask for?

Although another source of Shaw Brother Movies that could be found in the UK is the 'Vengeance Video' label, they provide you with the old VHS blurry scratched up picture with english dubbed titles, these titles have pretty much started off in the Bargain Bins, they are basically just a large variety of any old school Kung Fu flick some of their Shaw Titles include; 36 Chambers of Death and the rest aren't really worth mentioning. Although there future releases promise optional audio tracks and english subtitles.

Now in America the Weinstein Company have produced; Dragon Dynasty, that showcases cutting-edge presentations of significant classic and contemporary Asian Cinema for the home entertainment market. They've just planned on releasing four re mastered classic Shaw Brother titles;

These DVD's come presented in 16x9 Wide screen, with Mandarin and English language tracks. Each DVD has feature length audio commentary's from several notable fans of Old School Kung Fu, from Film Scholars David Chute and Andy Klein to The RZA and Quentin Tarantino. Unfortunately Dragon Dynasty's resident commenter Bey Logan is nowhere to be seen on these single disc DVD's.

Hopefully in the future Dragon Dynasty can bring out more of the classic Shaw Brother movies such as Martial Club, The Five Venoms, Heroes Two and Mad Monkey Kung Fu. I'm telling you now, I've already pre-ordered The 36th Chamber and The One-Armed Swordsman.

In conclusion

What can you say to sum up the history of the worlds most impressive martial arts orientated film company's ever? They had an amazing legacy and their legacy will live forever through DVD's and through the internet. Long live the Shaw Brothers!