Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers was once one of the world’s
greatest and most prolific studios. Through the Fifties,
Sixties, and Seventies, Shaw produced classic after classic
across all genres. Every Hong Kong film fan worth his
salt can name the titles. But the films themselves have
been unavailable for many years, and academics and film
fans alike have been forced to watch them on scratchy
old videos obtained from friends.
Until now, that is. Hong Kong based Celestial Pictures, a
media division of Malaysian entrepreneur Ananda
Krishnan, bought a large chunk of the library in 2000,
and is now restoring them on DVD. The restoration will
encompass 760 films - perhaps two-thirds of the Shaw
studio’s total output. The first, a digitally remastered version
of King Hu’ s Come Drink With Me (1965) played as
a special selection at Cannes, where it garnered great
reviews for its colours and clarity. The first DVD followed
in early December in Hong Kong. Miramax has now
picked up rights to about a third of the titles for US distribution.
“We bought 760 titles out of about 1,000,” says
Celestial Pictures’ Gordon Cheung. “A lot of people
abroad think that the Shaws only made martial arts pictures,
but they were active across all genres: swordfighting,
romance, historical drama, action-adventure, fantasy,
comedy, kung-fu, and musicals. Out of the 760 films we
bought, a little over 25 per cent are martial arts. We
have selected films from all genres.”
Much talent passed through the gates of the studio’s
“Cinema City” lot in Hong Kong’s Clearwater Bay. Martial
arts legend Chang Cheh was a contract director at Shaw,
making films like The One-Armed Swordsman with performing
legends like Jimmy Wang Yu, Ti Lung and David
Chiang. Li Hanxiang, known for his focus on Chinese history,
was also contracted to the studio, where he made
marvellous costume epics like The Empress Dowager
(1975). Big stars like like the tragic Lin Dai ruled the
box office with romantic melodramas like Love Without
End (1964) and The Blue and the Black (1964). The
great King Hu, who went on to make martial arts films
‘respectable’ in the West with the philosophical A Touch
of Zen, got his start there in 1965 with Come Drink With
Me (and fans will love Hu’s guitar-strumming turn in front
of the cameras for his pal Li Hanxiang in The Love
Eterne, 1963).
Restoring and remastering the 760 films will take around
three years. The films are being restored at the Shaw
Brothers Studios Remastering Centre. The centre will
complete 20 high definition masters for Celestial each
year, while the rest will be remastered in standard definition.
Richard James Havis