Intelligence Online | HONG KONG FILM CLASSICS
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hidden in a Hong Kong vault for
decades, some of the best martial arts movies ever made will soon be slashing
their way back onto the screen following a breakthrough deal to unlock a
treasure trove of the genre.
The films, produced by the Shaw Brothers studios from the
late 1950s through the late 1970s, helped to define a genre that has gained a
new worldwide following with the success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon."
But while they have been cited as inspiration by directors
ranging from action master John Woo to cult auteur Quentin Tarantino, few
young fans have ever seen the Shaw Brothers originals.
That is about to change. Under a HK$ 600 million (about
US$84 million) deal, Hong Kong-based Celestial Pictures has purchased the Shaw
collection along with all video, remake, sequel and theatrical production
rights.
"We've been working hard to restore the films,"
said William Pfeiffer, chief executive officer of Celestial Pictures.
"They've been kept in their original negative cans in the Shaw's storage
facilities for all of these years."
News that the Shaw library is going to be re-released has
swept both martial arts buffs and Asian cinephiles alike.
"This is really great, fantastic news," said
director Woo, who began his career as a script supervisor at Shaw Brothers and
went on to helm such Hollywood blockbusters as "Face/Off,"
"Mission Impossible II" and the current release "Windtalkers."
"There's a lot of great films and treasures from Shaw
Brothers that haven't been seen for over 30 years," he said.
GOLDEN AGE OF HONG KONG CINEMA
Woo said acclaimed Shaw Brothers directors from the 1960s
including Chang Cheh changed the whole look of Hong Kong film, imbuing it with
the snappy razzle-dazzle that has won generations of fans for martial arts
movies.
Shaw Brothers, under charismatic leader Sir Run Run Shaw,
was established in Hong Kong in 1959 and by 1961 was the largest privately
owned studio in the world.
With strong story lines and trim film budgets, the studio
churned out wildly popular movies that helped make it one of the dominant
players in Asian cinema for decades.
But the Shaw Brothers library was kept under lock and key,
with Run Run Shaw refusing to sell the collection and declining even to loan
out prints for film festivals or educational institutions.
Meanwhile, the studio saw its position in the local film
industry eclipsed by rivals like Golden Harvest Group, while in recent years
Hong Kong's film industry slid downhill as rampant copyright piracy and
gangsters muscling onto production sets led to a rapid decline in quality and
an exodus of talent.
Production plummeted to about 80 films in 1998 from over 300
in the heydays of the late 1980s -- leading some analysts to wonder if Hong
Kong's days as the "Hollywood of the East" were over.
HEROIC SWORDSMEN
Whatever the fate of Hong Kong's film industry, the Shaw
collection will give legions of fans a fresh look at what it was like when its
film-making powers were at their height.
Heroic swordsman films such as "Come Drink With
Me" (1965) and "The One-armed Swordsman" (1967) rocketed
martial art queen Cheng Pei-pei and Jimmy Wang Yu to superstardom, while
"The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" (1977) set the standard for kung-fu
films about China's Shaolin monks.
Officials at Shaw Brothers said the decision to sell the
library came after a long period in which the company was weighing whether or
not to make the financial and technological push to exploit the collection
itself.
"So in the year 2000 we decided, 'No' and that we would
leave it up to someone else so we decided to put the films on the
market," said Jerry Rajakulendra, Shaw Brothers' chief financial officer.
"Of all the companies interested, Celestial simply offered us the best
deal."
Celestial, affiliated with Malaysia's Astro All Asia
Networks, plans to release the first films from the collection this fall,
Pfeiffer said.
"We also want to strike new 35 mm prints for limited
theatrical re-releases for festivals with special retrospectives, then on
video and our TV channel to be launched worldwide later this year," he
said.
CLASSICS ON TOUR
That is good news for Lim Cheng-Sim, a programmer at the
University of California-Los Angeles Film and TV Archives responsible for
curating film exhibitions.
For years Lim has been working with John Woo trying to put
together an ambitious film festival of martial arts classics.
"We want to show 20 films in L.A. highlighting the
genre's development from its silent roots in Shanghai through the early
'80s," Lim said, adding that the exhibition would then tour nonprofit
film museums and festivals in the United States and Canada.
"People say they love Hong Kong martial art films but
in truth they haven't really seen them," Lim said. "Celestial's move
is very significant because now it's possible to see them again."
The pull of the Shaw Brothers mystique is strong in
Hollywood, which saw how successful a kung-fu epic can be when "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon" scored a whopping four Academy Awards in 2000,
including best foreign language film.
And while directors like Woo have been bringing elements of
the martial arts visual lexicon into U.S.-made movies, some are also making
the pilgrimage to Hong Kong to get a first-hand look at how it is done.
Tarantino, a well-known martial arts buff who wowed American
audiences with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," is now
shooting his next film, "Kill Bill," on the old Shaw Brothers lot.
"I've always loved the Shaw Brothers films and they
have a very special place in my heart," Tarantino said. "It's
important for me to shoot part of 'Kill Bill' on the old Shaw Brothers lot.
It's sort of my homage to Hong Kong film and there will be references to Shaws
in the film."
And with more Shaw Brothers originals due to make it back to
the screen, industry watchers say the Hong Kong connection to Hollywood is
likely to grow stronger.
"The doors are now open for remakes as well as sequels
where today's technologies can improve upon the film," Celestial's
Pfeiffer said
June 27, 2002
