Shaw Brothers Celestial Film Library

[LifelongLearner]

Anyone know what the status is on the Shaw Bros. Celestial Film library being made available for DVD Region 1? I've tried researching it, and I keep finding old info dating back to '02 making it sound like these movies would be released very soon. Here we are, well into '05 and still no DVD Region 1 Shaw Bros. flicks. The most recent news I've heard is that Miramax was going to release these movies at some point. Anyone out there know more?

For those of you who might not know what I'm talking about, a while back Celestial, an overseas film distributor bought up most if not all of the Shaw Bros. film library. They remastered all of them and re-released them. The quality is greatly improved over VHS and bootlegs. Most of those DVD's from Crash Cinema or the myriad of others that bought the rights to a lot of the old classic kung fu flix (and a lot of really terrible ones, too) that go for cheap at your local video place are of VHS or worse quality. Waste of money, avoid them like the plague.

Anyway, I'm asking because I've almost broken down and bought a region free DVD player, just so I can get all those great old flicks in region 3. However, if Miramax or someone else out there is really going to release them in region 1 anytime reasonably soon, then I can wait. Unless of course, they butcher them like they did with Hero......

[MasterKiller]

I've been waiting for the same thing.

I usually just burn the Region 3 discs and crack the software region code so I can watch them. Region Free players tend to have poor picture quality unless you buy an expensive one.

[Shaolinlueb]

not philips dvp642. you can make it region free very easily. and it plays divx and all these other avi files. :D and its like 70 dollars at amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000204SWE/102-2940007-4525739?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

[MasterKiller]

Wal-Mart sells that model for like $50. I looked at it, but it looks cheaply made and the remote was pretty crappy.

I love Sony electronics. My TV, Stereo, Satellite Receiver, VCR and DVD player all function with one remote. You can make a Sony DVD player region free by using one of those pre-programmed remotes, but it's kind of a hassel. It's much easier for me just to burn them on a new DVD and break the encryption.

[Shaolinlueb]

Wal-Mart sells that model for like $50. I looked at it, but it looks cheaply made and the remote was pretty crappy.

I love Sony electronics. My TV, Stereo, Satellite Receiver, VCR and DVD player all function with one remote. You can make a Sony DVD player region free by using one of those pre-programmed remotes, but it's kind of a hassel. It's much easier for me just to burn them on a new DVD and break the encryption.



nah the player is pretty nice. i have had it for a year or so. i ugraded the firmware and now it plays even more stuff. :D. you have to enter a code once on the remote to get it to be region free, but its hot man. i would get it.

[CLFNole]

If you go to yesasia.com you can get a good multi-region player for not to much money. I have been getting the Region 3 DVDs for a few years now and have my collection up to about 50 movies. There are a lot of movies that I have never seen before that were not part of the black belt theater stuff I grew up with.

We have a karaoke dvd player so my wife could get stuff from Hong Kong. The picture quality is very good and I only have it hook up with S-video. It would be even better with component but I use that for my regular dvd and my HDTV set top box.

Make the investment because I have heard recently that Celestials sales have not been as good as they would have liked. With that in mind I don't see them putting on a full court press for Region 1.

Also I have been able to hack all of my DVD players in my home with the exception of my Sony Dream System so that is another option.

[TangLangCh'uan]

sorry to break it to you, but there's no plans as far as i've heard for those to be released in region 1. my advice....cave in and buy a region free player. get one from hkflix.com....they'll ship it to you in about 2 days, and you won't regret it....my JVC player is absolutely wonderful, and i have no compaints about it at all. the celestial releases of the shaw brothers films are worth buying a region free player alone, nevermind the numerous other movies that are only available in foreign countries, or the movies that you can get before anyone in the states just because they have already been in and out of the theatres someplace else.
almost half of my rather large collection are DVD's that are not region 1.

-christopher

BTW.....buy a player that is not only region free, but one that also does correct NTSC to PAL / PAL to NTSC conversion. that comes in handy when watching european releases of films.

[PunkRockMantis]

5 fingers of death, 36 Chambers (wich i had a hard time finding) my young auntie and one more i believe...released tuesday june 19th....

[Jimbo]

Yup, just saw the ad on TV. I'm glad to see Dragon Dynasty is joining Image in releasing classic Shaw Brothers films. If the other films they've released are any indication, including some of the '80s Golden Harvest ones they've released already, the quality should be top-notch, and they should be true to the films (i.e., no change of the music, opening credits, sound effects, etc.). One thing I hope but doubt will be on them: an option for both the subtitled Chinese versions AND the original English dubbed versions. Though I prefer original language w/good subtitles, the original English dubs were usually well-done, had 'character', and were often funny, too.

I hope Dragon Dynasty really gets into the very best SB kung-fu films. The majority of what Image has released are not the very best...maybe interesting historically, but IMO, w/the exception of Legendary Weapons of China, most released by them have been so-so. I'd like to see all the Lau Kar-Leung works and the Shaolin series by Chang Cheh get treated to proper releases, among others.

[jethro]

I saw the screencaps for 36th Chamber and it looks AMAZING. And I can't wait to finally see My Young Auntie. I imagine if these first 4 sell well, they will come out with more Shaw movies.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/36thchamber.htm

King Boxer- http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2007/06/king-boxer-screencaps.html

[BlueTravesty]

Looks like some good stuff. I'm glad they're finally willing to put the time and effort into doing some of these films justice. Those grainy, stretched-out, english-dub-only copies floating out there just weren't cutting it...

[MasterKiller]

Most of the Shaw films were remastered a few years ago. You just have to either have a region-free DVD player or, do what I do and rip the region 3 to a region 0.

I got 36 Chambers probably 2 or 3 years ago.

There is no English track, but the video is awesome.

http://us.yesasia.com/en/Browse/ProductGroupList.aspx/section-videos/code-c/version-all/pid-1002426052/

[PunkRockMantis]

i snagged "legendary weapons of china" a few weeks back and the transfer looks awesome. hopefully Shaolin mantis makes its way through the process, ive been hunting down 36th chambers with no luck recently, im sure i could have picked it up online, but there would be no" thrill of the hunt" that way. im glad i waited

[jethro]

The English dub is a big deal MK, and the pic quality on the DD version is a little better than the IVL.

[Zenshiite]

You guys should check out www.jaman.com They've got like 50 some old Shaw Brothers flicks from Celestial Pictures on there. Most of them are wu xia, but they're great. Sentimental Swordsman, Return of Sentimental Swordsman. Alot of the Cheng Pei Pei films.

[GeneChing]

I wonder how you translate Dirty Ho into Hebrew...


2007-10-08
Celestial Scores Slovenian, Israeli Deals on Martial-Arts Films (http://www.imartial.com/index.aspx)

HONG KONG, October 8: Celestial Pictures has expanded the reach of its Shaw Brothers martial-arts films into Slovenia and Israel, scoring deals with Viasat Broadcasting and SAT-Interactive.

The Viasat deal marks the first time Celestial’s Shaw Brothers martial arts films will be available on TV3 Slovenia. Under the agreement, Viasat has taken a package of kung-fu classics, among them The Five Deadly Venoms, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and One-Armed Swordsman.

The SAT deal brings Shaw Brothers features to the Hot Cable Channel and VOD platforms in Israeli.

The Shaw Brothers library consists of 760 films produced from the 1950s to the 1990s. Since 2002, Celestial Pictures has been making these remastered versions available to audiences around the world.

Those titles, in HD, will be available at MIPCOM this week, alongside The King Boxer mobisodes, which were nominated for this market’s MIPCOM 2007 Mobile & Internet TV Awards.

Mobisodes, video messaging, video clips, ring tones, wallpaper and games will be a focus at MIPCOM. As will be the mobile TV channel Kung Fu TV, which features short-form segments of kung-fu film clips from the Shaw Brothers slate.

[jethro]

I heard Media Blasters will be releasing 20 movies, so there will be more R1 Shaws. I heard about it a while ago and they all sound good. Chinese Super Ninjas is on the list. A lot of times Media Blasters doesn't follow through with their plans so I have my fingers crossed.

[jethro]

http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2008/01/bci-and-celestial-ink-deal-of-us-shaws.html


"This is direct from BCI.
They have signed a deal with Celestial Pictures to release 15 films during 2008 & 2009.

The titles are:
Life Gamble
Opium and the Kung Fu Master
The 14 Amazons
Shaolin Hand Lock
Hong Kong Godfather
Shaolin Prince
Invincible Shaolin
The Basterd Swordsman
The Duel
Return of the Basterd Swordsman
Shaolin Rescuers
Soul of the Sword
The Lady Hermit
The Supreme Swordsman
The Sword of Swords"




This is such awesome news for Shaw Brothers fans. Some really REALLY good titles on there. And I have always wanted a remastered uncut version of the blood drenched Hong Kong Godfather.

[jethro]

I just got word from gfanikf on kungfufandom that they are trying to make sure Hong Kong Godfathers is uncut and the prints they are using are HD masters. :):):)

[Jimbo]

This is some of the best news I've heard in a long time! There's a LOTTA good Shaw titles in there!

[jethro]

I haven't seen like half of those movies, but I have heard some GREAT things about Sword of Swords, the Basterd swordsman, Soul of the Sword and LAdy Hermit. This is so awesome!!!:)

[Jimbo]

I know I've seen the following:

Shaolin Hand Lock
Opium and the Kung Fu Master
Shaolin Prince
Invincible Shaolin
The B@st@rd Swordsman
Return of the B@st@rd Swordsman
The Duel
Shaolin Rescuers (I think the real title is Avenging Warriors of Shaolin).


I think I might have seen Life Gamble.

I wonder if Soul of the Sword is the Andy Lau/Anita Mui swordplay fantasy from the '90s?

[jethro]

Soul of the Sword is a Shaws Ti Lung movie. Like most shaw movies from the time is has about 100 other recognizable faces ( I'm going by info I found on hkcinemagic.com).

Life Gamble stars Fu Sheng (in a non fighting role). Interesting movie, but kind of boring. Not a lot of fighting. Lo meng and Fu Sheng use flying daggers, Chiang Sheng uses a whip, and Lu Feng has an iron claw (this may have been the inspiration for his iron claws he uses in Crippled Avengers). Wang Lung Wei and Ku Feng have small roles. There are some pretty ladies who have big roles, including Kara Hui. Lee I Min and Kuo Choi have a really cool fight at the end. Kuo choi uses a few different weapons including double nunchukas.

The other movies I have seen on that list are-

Hong Kong Godfather
Invincible Shaolin
Shaolin Prince
the Duel
Shaolin Rescuers (my favorite venoms movie)

[Jimbo]

So if BCI has signed with Celestial, then the quality of the transfers should be up to Celestial/DD level of clarity. (isn't BCI the same company that puts out the Rarescope releases?).

I might have seen that Sould of the Sword, then. There was a super-abundance of Ti Lung swordplay movies (most directed by Chu Yuan, aka, Chor Yuen) that the Asian theaters used to show, such that the titles are mostly forgotten. Most were good quality, though. Not to mention that some movies are mentioned or released with different titles, creating ultimate confusion for a kung fu movie buff.

[jethro]

Yeah they put out the Rarescope releases.

The quality should be really good on the Shaw releases. They have the HD masters which is what Dragon Dynasty uses, so it is even better quality than the region 3 Deltamac and IVL releases.

[CLFNole]

What's the big deal why not just buy all the Celestials?

[jethro]

What's the big deal why not just buy all the Celestials?

Because Celestial isn't a DVD company. Celestial remasters the movies, and Deltamac, IVL, Image, Dragon Dynasty, and now Media Blasters and BCI release them.

[CLFNole]

Well then why not just buy the ones that are already out. I have a number of them already. A few on the last I don't care for. What I am asking is if they are already available remastered what is the big deal that another company will release them as well?

[jethro]

Well then why not just buy the ones that are already out. I have a number of them already. A few on the last I don't care for. What I am asking is if they are already available remastered what is the big deal that another company will release them as well?

I am assuming you are talking about the region 3 deltamac and IVL discs. the reason I would buy the new region 1 BCi and Media Blasters releases is because they are taken from high definition masters, and the deltamac and IVL releases aren't. Have you seen a dragon Dynasty release of a Shaw film? It looks even better than the IVL and Deltamac versions. Also, BCI and Media Blasters will be including English dubs for every movie they can, and IVL and Deltamac don't feature English dubs. The English dubs are very important for me because I usually prefer them over the Cantonese and Mandarin dubs. Also, no DVD company has ever released a remastered version of Hong Kong Godfather, the movie I most want to see on that BCI list. Black Magic 2 is another movie that has never been released (Media Blasters is releasing this one).

[CLFNole]

I prefer the cantonese to the english dubs myself. Being a kung fu person when you hear certain things they make more sense rather than some of the english translations. Names of styles and somethings, which for most might not mean much but I can understand the Region 1 aspect.

Some of the IVLs are also from HD masters but you are right not all. In any event their quality is quite good.

[Zenshiite]

Have any of you checked out www.jaman.com ?

There's a number of the very flicks mentioned. All available for download rental or purchase. Rentals are a $1.99 for a 7 day liscense... purchase is 4.99 ! I just need to purchase the liscense for most of those, I've already downloaded them as rentals.

Give me an email address and I can send you invites. Either that or let 'em know you heard about it from "DaveMoral"

[jethro]

Yeah CFLnole it is just preference. English dubs are VERY important to me, especially when the voice acting is good. I got the remastered IVL version of my favorite shaw movie Killer Constable and the English subtitles suck compared to the English dub.

[HtownShaolinBum]

I prefer the cantonese to the english dubs myself. Being a kung fu person when you hear certain things they make more sense rather than some of the english translations. Names of styles and somethings, which for most might not mean much but I can understand the Region 1 aspect.

Some of the IVLs are also from HD masters but you are right not all. In any event their quality is quite good.

Of course. I dont know the difference between cantonese and mandarin, but either way, the chinese language adds alot of drama to kung fu flicks. If you have the english dubs, it just gets too goofy.

[jethro]

9 times out of 10 I will take the english dub over the Chinese dub. Its not like you are hearing the original actor's voice, though every once in a great while you will. The key is the voice acting. Compare the oldschool British dubs to those "Jet Li Collection" Fortune Star dubs. Big difference.

[Jimbo]

My personal preference is to have the options for Mandarin or Cantonese, and the (original) English dubs. I positively cannot stand the new English dubs that Dimension puts on the films they release here. And as mentioned, the ones by Fortune Star. Especially the latter, because they just redo the original English dubs that were done better the first time around. Not to mention, on multiple options, often the original Mandarin (or Cantonese) version has all the original music/soundtrack while the other options do not.

[jethro]

Those Dimension releases not only have the horrible dubbing, but they change the music. It is really irritating. Oh well, at least Dimension is gone.

One movie that comes to mind where the music is better in the English dub is Young Master.

[Jimbo]

Jethro:
One thing about the Fortune Star/20th Century-Fox releases is they make some of the music almost inaudible. For example, during the final fights in The Young Master, Warriors Two, etc. And sometimes when there is a particularly heavy punch or kick landing in slow-motion, there is an odd click-type sound that prefaces the (usually) echoing sound effect. That isn't from the original sound effects, it seems to have been added during the re-dub process, and it's annoying. I have the old VHS versions of Young Master and Warriors Two, and IMO the music is better-done than in the DVD releases.

[jethro]

Yeah I remember the Warriors Two sound effects were horrible. Have you seen the cut version of Young Master? I think it is like 89 minutes long. The dubbing is some of the best i have ever heard, and the music is just as funny as the dubbing. The cut English version is one of my favorite comedies of all time right up there with Dumb and Dumber. And in the English version Jackie sings a song at the end. I don't know why they didn't include that in the Chinese version.

[Jimbo]

Yeah, the original English dub on Young Master was one of the best. The voices actually fit the characters. Why they replaced that with geeky surfer-boy voices I'll never know. And I think from Young Master through most of Jackie's '80s films, he sang the end songs. But IMO, it's probably good he didn't quit his day job. :)

Of course, the songs seem to be edited out of virtually all U.S. releases.

[Ronin22]

I know the shaw brothers library is being remastered does anyone know where you can by these online? And are they available in dubbed or just subs? Thanks, appreciate it

[MasterKiller]

I know the shaw brothers library is being remastered does anyone know where you can by these online? And are they available in dubbed or just subs? Thanks, appreciate it

The originals are all subtitled, and I believe are mostly region 3 (won't play on American DVD players).

http://us.yesasia.com/en/Browse/ProductGroupList.aspx/section-videos/code-c/version-all/pid-1002426052/

Some of them have been re-released in region 0 with the dubbing from the original releases, though. I got the dubbed version of the remastered 36th Chamber from Amazon, I think.

[GeneChing]

There are a ton of bootleg Shaw Brothers titles floating around. Celestial picked up the Shaw library and remastered them for region 3. We covered that in two e-zine articles, both published prior to 2003 (or thereabouts - I'd have to really dig to figure out the pub date on those) by Dr. Craig Reid:
SHAW BROTHERS: RELOADED (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=303)
Another Shaw Brothers Update: Distribution and a New Kung Fu (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=371)

Some of these Shaw Brothers titles have been picked up for American distribution by Dragon Dynasty (http://www.dragondynasty.com/). We've been working to promote Dragon Dynasty in a cooperative venture, thus our current sweepstakes for FLASHPOINT (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showpost.php?p=855788&postcount=86)and our previous one for PTU (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50847). I watched a check disc of their soon-to-be-released title COME DRINK WITH ME (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=333)last week and was blown away by the quality of the remastering that Dragon Dynasty has done with this classic film. They really treated it with respect. Even on my HDTV, the image looked incredibly sharp and the subtitling was perfect. Now I'm looking forward to seeing more of the old classics on Dragon Dynasty's label.

[Ronin22]

Thanks for the replies guys

Interesting articles Gene....

Specifically I'm looking for the ones that Celestial is remastering. I can't find them to buy anywhere. I don't think the region restrictions will be a problem as i think my DVD player is region free.

Any ideas where to go online to get them?

Actually now that I've checked the site Masterkiller supplied I believe that intercontinental video ltd is the distrib for Celestial, is that right?

[jethro]

Yeah IVL distibuted Celestial's remastered Shaws for a few years. For English dubs look for the Dragon Dynasty and Media Blasters (Tokyo Shock) DVDs. Image Entertainment also has English dubs on some of their releases. In fact, their last 3 releases have had English dubs. Deadly Breaking Sword, MAgic Blade and Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan.

[Ronin22]

Thanks jethro

Yeah I'm trying to decide if i want to go with subs or not, it seems there aren't a lot of choices from Dragon Dynasty for english dub. How about Image and Tokyo Shock, do they have a lot more titles?

Also, is there a good online store for these? Thanks

[jethro]

Image has a bunch of titles out, and Media Blasters is just getting started with their releases.

As far as where to buy them, I'm sure there are many sites. hkflix.com is the first one that comes to mind, and for american releases there's always Amazon.com.

[GeneChing]

I wonder if this will effect Dragon Dynasty. We have a very good relationship with Dragon Dynasty - they provide many of our sweepstakes prizes (http://www.kungfumagazine.net/index.html).

Karmaloop TV Secures Licensing Deal with Shaw Brothers Library of Hong Kong Kung Fu and Action Classics (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/karmaloop-tv-secures-licensing-deal-with-shaw-brothers-library-of-hong-kong-kung-fu-and-action-classics-106880993.html)

New Multi-Platform, Youth Targeted Network Gets Dozens of Genre Films that Have Inspired Creativity in Hip Hop, Video Games and Fashion

BOSTON, Nov. 8, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Karmaloop TV, the new multi-platform programming network designed to help operators "reclaim" viewership among the 18 to 34 year old demographic, has announced its first film licensing deal with Celestial Pictures. The Hong Kong based company owns, restores and licenses the world's largest collection of Chinese-made films including the Shaw Brothers library of fan favorite kung fu and action classics such as THE 36th CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS and THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN.

"This is a unique genre of films that has a huge following and influence on Verge Culture, the multi-cultural community of tech-savvy young people who communicate digitally to share the latest trends in fashion, lifestyle and entertainment," states Greg Selkoe, CEO of Karmaloop TV. "This is particularly true of the Shaw Brothers' kung fu films, which have inspired everything from the names, rhymes and album titles of iconic hip hop superstars like Wu-Tang Clan to action films like Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL to a vast array of art, video games and fashion."

The licensing deal with Karmaloop TV also means that kung fu and action film fans in the United States will see these films in their digitally restored versions, many of which will be premiering for the first time on U.S. television in High Definition. The licensed collection includes more than 60 of the greatest martial arts masterpieces, movies which launched the careers of stars like Jet Li, Ti Lung, David Chiang, Alexander Fu Sheng, Gordon Liu and Jimmy Wang Yu.

"It seems only natural that we begin building our film programming with such a resonant collection, one that lends itself to repeated viewing," adds David Sehring, Karmaloop TV's Executive Vice President of Programming, the man who built and curated the impressive film libraries of AMC and MONSTERS HD prior to joining the new upstart youth network. "We're especially pleased to give this library the kind of multiple platform home needed to truly commune with a young audience, wherever and whenever they want to watch these action classics."

[GeneChing]

Only in Asia though. How is that controlled exactly? I don't use iTunes. My family does but I don't.

Celestial Pictures debuts Shaw Brothers movies on iTunes Store (http://www.onscreenasia.com/article/celestial-pictures-debuts-shaw-brothers-movies-on-itunes-store/10380)
Among the first titles to launch are Gordon Liu’s “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” and Stephen Chow’s “Out of the Dark”.
Posted on 08 August 2012 by Kelvin Ong
http://www.onscreenasia.com/uploadedimages/onscreenasia/The_36th_Chamber_of_Shaolin_1.jpg
Hong Kong – Celestial Pictures Limited (CPL) announced today that select titles from Celestial's Shaw Brothers Film Library are now available on the iTunes Store in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and nine additional countries in Asia. This announcement marks the first time the films will be made available on the iTunes Store in these territories.

[GeneChing]

I have just split the EL REY NETWORK posts that were here into their own separate thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68210-El-Rey-Network-and-Shaw-Brothers).

Flying Five Finger One Armed Eight Pole Shaolin Exploding Death Touch Thursdays (http://www.elreynetwork.com/#/vault/kung-fu) ROCK!

[Jimbo]

http://variety.com/2015/film/asia/hong-kongs-tvb-says-shaw-bros-to-make-movie-comeback-1201462397/

The new SB logos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfYZSaRtJjw&sns=em

[Jimbo]

Filmed by urban explorers. I find this both fascinating and sad. Clearly, when SB ceased production, they left a LOT of good stuff sitting around to rot. Since it's now going to be preserved as a historic site, I hope whoever's in charge will clean up and properly preserve it. Looks like a lot of (most likely) toxic mold will have to be removed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke1FhqpMCaQ&sns=em

[GeneChing]

The Shaw Brothers Collection of Films on DVD Distributed by Celestial Pictures (https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/collections/shaw-brothers)

https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/images/section-pages/bloodbrothers.jpg

Thanks to a generous donation from Celestial Pictures over 500 DVDs of Hong Kong films originally produced and released in theaters by the Shaw Brothers between 1956 and 1997 are now available for viewing onsite at UCLA by appointment. The Shaw Brothers DVD Collection at UCLA represents all genres, from kung fu and martial arts to romantic comedies, from historical epics to docu-realistic dramas, from horror fantasies to musicals, Huangmei opera, and period dramas to adult-themed films. Titles include: Kingdom and the Beauty (1959), Come Drink with Me (1966), The Silent Swordsman (1967).

Directors represented include: Li Han-hsiang (1926-1996), Doe Chin (1915-1969), Yen Chun (1917-1980), Lo Chen (1923-2003), Lo Wei (1918-1996), Ho Meng-hua (1923-), Yueh Fung (1910-1999), Kao Li (1924-), Chang Cheh (1923-2002), Pan Lei (1927-), Cheng Kang (1924-), Inoue Umetsugu (1923-), Sun Chung (1941-), Kuei Chih-hung (1937-1999), Pao Hsueh-li (1937-), Chu Yuan (1934-), among others.

Download a listing of the titles available for onsite viewing from the Shaw Brothers Collection in PDF format or an Excel spreadsheet.

For additional information, consult the Archive Catalog record, or contact the Archive Research and Study Center (ARSC) for assistance.

This was just brought to my attention. Follow the link for the links.

[GeneChing]

I was contacted by a Celestial (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?36995-Shaw-Brothers-Celestial-Film-Library) rep about a month ago about a potential national tour of RZA screening select Shaw Brothers films. I hope it happens.


JUNE 16, 2016
BY NICOLE DISSER
REEL PSYCHED
RZA Screens Kung-Fu Selects (http://bedfordandbowery.com/2016/06/four-films-nordic-noir-marathon-iggy-live-and-rza-screens-kung-fu-selects/)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-enqXPpcd4

RZA’s Dream Double Feature: Five Element Ninjas
Saturday, June 25, 7:15 pm at the Metrograph: $15
Classic kung fu with a member of the Wu-Tang Clan? Yes plz. RZA will be on hand to present this 1982 feature out of Hong Kong. Five Element Ninjas among other movies directed by Chang Cheh, including Five Shaolin Masters (1974) (he’s sometimes called the “godfather of Hong Kong cinema”), was clearly a huge inspiration to RZA and the rest of Wu-Tang. Cheh, in turn, took careful notes from Japanese Samurai films in addition to the Western movies of Sergio Leone.

If you’re all eye-rolly about ninja movies– don’t be, yo. This one’s regarded not only as a cult classic, but as a classic classic of the genre. And again, RZA will be there.

[GeneChing]

Shaw & Golden Harvest united.


China Media Capital Trio Takes Control at Iconic Shaw Brothers (http://variety.com/2016/biz/asia/china-media-capital-control-at-shaw-brothers-1201901995/)
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief

http://i1.wp.com/pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/shaw-bros-logo.jpg?crop=0px%2C0px%2C2716px%2C1511px&resize=670%2C377&ssl=1

China Media Capital Trio Take ControlCOURTESY OF SHAW BROTHERS
OCTOBER 27, 2016 | 02:14AM PT

Li Ruigang and two fellow executives from his China Media Capital group have taken three directorial positions at iconic Hong Kong studio Shaw Brothers.

The company made famous by Sir Run Run Shaw was once a dominant force in Hong Kong and Asian cinema, but largely ceased film production in 1987. Today, however, the company holds a key 26% stake in Television Broadcasts (TVB), Hong Kong’s leading free-to-air TV broadcaster and owner of one of the largest Chinese language rights catalogs in the world.

Li has been appointed chairman and non-executive director of Shaw. He is joined by Jiang Wei, MD of the CMC-owned mainland Chinese film distributor Gravity Pictures, who is appointed an executive director of Shaw. Also joining is Thomas Hui, president, chief strategy officer and executive director of CMC Holdings, who will be an non-executive director.

They replace chairman Allan Yap, and directors Gu Jiong and Wong Ka Ching, who are all resigning due to other “heavy work commitments” elsewhere.

The appointments further increase the control of Li and his CMC team over TVB, following Li’s appointment as chairman of TVB last week. That appointment added to some industry concerns that mainland Chinese interests are dominating Hong Kong’s supposedly unrestricted media not through censorship or central government control, but by economic ownership instead. Another high profile example was the acquisition earlier this year of the South China Morning Post newspaper by Alibaba.

The executive appointments also further expand CMC’s control over the Flagship Entertainment Chinese film production venture with Warner Bros. CMC and TVB have a narrow majority of the shares and Gravity Pictures is set as the unit’s distributor in mainland China.

CMC also owns the Fortune Star library of films produced by Shaw’s arch rival Golden Harvest.

Boasting a Hong Kong stock market listing of its own, Shaw could now be positioned to become a far more active company than of late, either as a production company or as a vehicle for fund raising.

In its heyday, Shaw was responsible for iconic Hong Kong studio movie classics films including “One Armed Swordsman,” and “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.” As the golden age of Hong Kong cinema waned, Shaw ended film production to concentrate for over a decade on television. In 2002 its film catalog – some 760 titles – were sold in 2002 to Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan who used them to found Celestial Pictures, a company that now has a TV channels business with Lionsgate and Saban.

Shaw tentatively restarted film production in 2009 though volumes have been low. In the last year, it has been involved as a partner in two film adaptations of TVB series, that went on to become hits in mainland China. Its “Line Walker” recently earned $90.9 million, while “Triumph In The Skies” earned $24.6 million in 2015.

[Jimbo]

This could be both good and bad news.

I sure hope that since these film libraries are owned by a mainland company that they aren't edited for content. As any fan of SB and GH film would know, both SB and GH movies often contained content that would be deemed unacceptable to the mainland Chinese censors. And while I myself always found certain content (rape scenes, for example) something I strongly dislike, IMO all films from these libraries should be kept as they are. I do not like censors going in and deciding what parts of a film are or aren't acceptable for me to watch.

[GeneChing]

Jim Vallandingham
Posts Visualizations Experiments About
A Data Driven Exploration of Kung Fu Films (http://vallandingham.me/shaw_bros_analysis.html)
January 24th, 2017 Demo Source

Recently, I’ve been a bit caught up in old Kung Fu movies. Shorting any technical explorations, I have instead been diving head-first into any and all Netflix accessible martial arts masterpieces from the 70’s and 80’s.

While I’ve definitely been enjoying the films, I realized recently that I had little context for the movies I was watching. I wondered if some films, like our latest favorite, Executioners from Shaolin, could be enjoyed even more, with better understanding of the context in which these films exist in the Kung Fu universe.

So, I began a data driven quest for truth and understanding (or at least a semi-interesting dataset to explore) of all Shaw Brothers Kung Fu movies ever made!

For those not dedicating some portion of their finite lives to these retro wonders, the Shaw Brothers Studio is the most famous (to me) Kung Fu film producer of all time. Their memorable title screen is almost always a part of my Kung Fu watching experience.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/shaw_scope.jpg

I figured this company’s entire martial arts collection would provide for a consistent and thorough look at the genre. Fortunately, after a bit of searching, I stumbled on what appears to be a comprehensive list of Shaw Brothers Films. I decided to pull down details for each of these movies from the amazingly useful Letterboxd movie-list-creation site to explore them in a data driven way to see what patterns could be discovered and what context I could learn from those patterns.

So here is a bit of data exploration fun. The analysis is in R, using tips and tricks from Hadley Wickham’s wonderful new Data Science in R book.

The full analysis code can be found in this R Notebook, which includes the code and graphs in an integrated format. And (spoilers!), the end Actor Collaboration Network and the rest of the code can be found on github.

Come for the Kung Fu, stay for the word embedding and interactive networks!

#Shaw Brothers, Through The Ages

To get started, here is a look at the count of Shaw Brothers films by year.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/films_by_year.png
I’m using the wonderful theme_fivethirtyeight for these charts. Someday, I’ll make my own.

That’s 260 films over 22 years.

The first Kung Fu Shaw Brothers film in this data set is Temple of the Red Lotus from 1965. From the reviews, it sounds like it was a bit rough around the edges - but that’s about what you would expect from this burgeoning genre.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/temple_of_the_red_lotus.png
Looks pretty sweet to me, I’ll have to check it out

The studio hits its stride in the early 70’s, with a lull in the mid 70’s and another spike in the late 70’s / early 80’s. Keep in mind that even during the lull, most years the studio is still putting out 10 or more Kung Fu movies.

To create this graph, I first loaded my raw JSON file into R using the tidyjson package like this:


# load the library
library(tidyjson)

# read the raw json as text
filename = '../out/shaw.json'
shaw_json <- paste(readLines(filename), collapse="")

# parse the json into a table, pulling out
# the variables we want to explore.
films <- shaw_json %>% as.tbl_json %>% gather_array %>%
spread_values(
title = jstring("title"),
director = jstring('director'),
year = jstring('year'),
watches = jnumber("watches"),
likes = jnumber("likes"),
time = jnumber("time")
)

I then graphed count by year using ggplot:


films %>% ggplot(aes(x = year)) +
geom_bar() +
labs(title = 'Shaw Bros Films by Year')

Not too shabby.

#Which Shaw Brothers Film should I watch?

If you are just getting started with the Kung Fu classics, 260 movies can be difficult to wade through. How do you get to the best of the best to make your initial experience in this genre a pleasant one?

Well, we can use the Letterboxd “watches” and “likes” metrics to help winnow down to the films that are the best bang-for-your-buck.

As you might expect, these two metrics are highly correlated:

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/watches_vs_likes.png

Basically, anything with more than 400 watches or 100 likes seems like a good place to start. The standout, with over 800 watches is 1984’s Eight Diagram Pole Fighter. Not the catchiest title, but as one reviewer puts it:

Some of the raddest fights from any Shaw Bros films I’ve seen (specially that last one).

I haven’t seen this one yet, so I can’t comment - but it’s definitely on my list!

#Prolific Directors

We have the director for each movie in our dataset, let’s look to see if there are any popular standouts.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/director_count.png

I’d say! Chang Cheh directed 67 or roughly 26% of all Shaw Brothers Kung Fu!

According to his Wikipedia page, he was known as the “The Godfather of Hong Kong cinema”, and rightly so - at least in terms of quantity.

Let’s pull out the top 5 directors, in terms of movie count, and see when they were most active.

Here’s the R code:


# pull out just the top 5 directors
top_directors <- by_director %>% head(n = 5)
# filter films to those directed by these titans of Kung Fu
films_top_director <- films %>% filter(director %in% top_directors$director)

# add a label to distinguish top directors from everyone else
films_top_director_all <- films %>% mutate(director_label = ifelse(director %in% top_directors$director, director, 'Other'))

# graph
films_top_director_all %>%
ggplot(aes(x = year)) +
geom_bar(aes(fill = director_label)) +
labs(title = 'Shaw Bros Director Count by Year', fill = '') +
theme_fivethirtyeight()
and plot:

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/top_directors_by_year.png

We can kind of see that Chang Cheh’s reign is towards the beginning of the Shaw Brothers timeline and tapers towards the end. Let’s view the same data as a percentage of the total movies made each year:

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/top_directors_by_year_fill.png

This shows how dominate Chang Cheh was in directing nearly half of Shaw Brothers films in some years. In the mid and later years, Chor Yuen came in to direct many films as well.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

#Title Showdown: Shaolin vs Swordsman
We will get to the actors in these films in a second, but first I wanted to explore the words used in the titles of these movies.

These classic Kung Fu films typically have thrilling and mysterious names, like The Thundering Sword and The Invincible Fist. I wondered if there were any terms used frequently in titles, common threads or themes that became popular in the genre.

As I really wanted a chance to play a bit with the exciting new tidytext package, I decided to use it for this very simple text analysis.

This package works well to extract text-based data into a format ready to be analyzed and parsed with dplyr, ggplot, and other packages from the tidyverse.

Here is how to split the titles column of our dataset so that each word is a separate row in a new data frame.


# load the library
library(tidytext)

# saves entire title in `title_all` column,
# then splits up title column creating the `word` column -
# with a row for every token (word).
titles <- films %>% mutate(title_all = title) %>% unnest_tokens(word, title)
Not too difficult right?

I also wanted to remove stop words, and that can be easily done with the included stop_words data:


# load stop_words into R environment
data("stop_words")

# filter stopwords
titles_filter <- titles %>% anti_join(stop_words, by = "word")
anti_join is part of the dplyr package.

Let’s take a look at the most frequently used words in these Shaw Brothers films.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/top_words_in_titles.png

Interesting! Our latest two films from my Netflix history were the afore mentioned Executioners of Shaolin and Shaolin Martial Arts, but I hadn’t realized “Shaolin” movies were so prevalent in the Shaw Brothers cannon.

Also interesting is the number of “Swordsman” movies - a term I don’t remember seeing yet.

Were these terms associated with different eras? Let’s graph their usage over time:

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/top_words_by_time.png

It would appear as if “Swordsman” movies were the hot stuff during early Shaw Brothers years, but they switched to mostly Shaolin’s in the mid-seventies. Here are the two terms overlaid:

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/shaolin_swordsman.png

Now the count-per-year isn’t mind-blowing or anything, but it does seem interesting that there was at least one movie with “Swordsman” in the title for six straight years, before an explosion of “Shaolin”.

I wanted to investigate a bit further. One of the first Swordsman movies they created was The One Armed Swordsman, and according to Wikipedia it was a big hit.

It was the first of the new style of wuxia films emphasizing male anti-heroes, violent swordplay and heavy bloodletting. It was the first Hong Kong film to make HK$1 million at the local box office, propelling its star Jimmy Wang to super stardom.

I must confess, being a casual enjoyer of Kung Fu, I was not familiar with the term “Wuxia”, so this needed a bit more investigation.

Almost immediately, I found a useful description from This essential guide to Wuxia:

The Chinese martial arts movie is generally split into two primary subgeneres: the kung fu film and the wuxia film. The kung fu film is newer and focuses primarily on hand-to-hand combat, it’s steeped in traditional fighting forms and there’s a general emphasis on the physical skill of the performer: special effects are generally disdained.

Wuxia is a much older form, based ultimately in the long tradition of Chinese adventure literature … Its heroes follow a very specific code of honor as they navigate the jianghu, an underworld of outlaws and bandits outside the normal streams of civilization.

Ah Ha! So the Swordsman / Shaolin dichotomy could be representative of the switch from this older style wuxia, to the new hip pure Kung Fu. The reappearance of both terms in the eighties could indicate a new found enjoyment for both styles. Apparently more famous modern films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fall into the wuxia category.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/crouching_tiger.jpg
I say “modern” here, but can you believe this movie is 17 years old? Time flies!

Or, it could be that the creators of these movies were lazy and just wanted to rely on the success of The One Armed Swordsman to make some money. Either way, its an interesting split.

Not knowing much about Chinese culture from that time period, I was also interested in learning more as to why “Shaolin” in particular was such a buzzword for Kung Fu movies. I’m still learning, but I found a great essay on history in the Shaw Brothers that points to an answer:


These films, focused on the Shaolin Temple as a center for anti-Qing resistance, provide a dizzying metaphorical potential, with the Qing variously standing in for Western imperialists, the Japanese, the Nationalist Kuomingtang, the Communists, or even simply the Manchurians themselves, while the Buddhism of the monks allows for examining of the contradictions at the heart of traditional Chinese belief systems, between the imperatives of social justice and withdrawal from worldly concerns. continued next post

[GeneChing]

#Silly Kung Fu Titles with word2vec
Inspired by the ever wonderful Lynn Cherny’s word2vec experimentation, I wanted to use this opportunity to experiment just a bit with word embeddings and “word arithmetic”.

So I came up with an idea too silly to be useful, but fun for me to play with. For each noun detected in a title, I used Gensim’s word2vec implementation to find the nearest word to that noun, after subtracting “Chinese”, and adding another country.

Again, don’t take this seriously, I was just wanting to see what would happen.

So, cherry-picking a comical example:


buddha - Chinese + American = God Fearin'
See? kind of funny at least in theory. I did this for every title, for a number of different countries. In practice, the results aren’t as hilarious as I had hopped for, probably because country vectors don’t impact the trajectory of most of these words much. Also, I used a pre-trained model which obviously impacts the embeddings.

But, I made a little toy for exploring these new titles anyways, check it out!


The raw results and the code I used to generate these are also available.

#Actor Troupes, Groups, and Clusters
Let’s end this exploration with a few insights into the actors in these films.

Even with my novice-level consumption of Shaw Brothers films, one thing you notice early on is a lot of familiar faces show up over and over in many of the movies.

We can see the extent of actor-over-use with another simple chart counting the number of movies frequently seen actors are found in.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/actor_counts.png

Wow! Ku Feng apparently appeared in 82 Kung Fu movies. That’s a lot of Kung Fu!

His Wikipedia page isn’t as impressed with this feat as I am, providing little information on this Martial Arts Maniac. Apparently his real name is Chan Sze-man, and his first film was in 1959, and he is still acting today! The HKMDB, or Hong Kong Movie Database, provides just a bit more info:

In 1965, Ku formally signed an acting contract with Shaw Brothers where he made around 100 films for them and became most notably known as one of their top character actors. He has worked with just about every top Hong Kong director in a variety of films.

Ok then, well props to you Ku.

Did most of the top actors’ careers span multiple decades, or did actors come and go quickly?

We can graph the number of years an actor was featured in a movie over the total number of years in our dataset:

Pehttp://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/actor_percent_active.png

For the top actors, we see most were active more than half of the entire time Shaw Brothers Studios was making Kung Fu movies.

Here’s another quick graph showing the beginning and ending of these actors’ tenures:

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/actor_career_span.png

#Finding a Mob of Venoms

One phrase that came up when researching these Shaw Brothers films, related to actor-reuse, is the Venom Mob, a group of actors that did indeed appear in a lot of Shaw Brothers films together. They became well known after the success of The Five Venoms, hence the catchy name.

So, can we find a Mob of Venoms in our data?

Inspired by David Robinson’s network analysis of Love Actually, I decided to try out the igraph package for a bit of network exploration.

After a lot of filtering and frustration, I ended up with a basic, but still fairly hairball-y network:

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/actor_network.png

In this network, the nodes are actors who have appeared in many films. The edges are co-occurrences of actors in the same movies, with the width of the edges proportional to the number of movies they were found together in.

You can see that there are a lot of actors appear together.

The Venom Mob includes Chiang Sheng, so here, I’ve highlighted in red everyone he is connected with. In this sub-cluster, you can see Philip Kwok, Lu Feng, and many of the other Venoms.

igraph is great for digging into properties of nodes, edges, and networks - and there is plenty more that could be done in this tool just for this simple dataset. I however, was wanting a bit more of an interactive exploratory tool that I could use to browse Kung Fu actor connections.

You were too? Great! That’s why I created the amazing Shaw Brothers Actors Network Visualization.

http://vallandingham.me/images/shaw_bros/shaw_networktool2.png

With it, you can clearly pick out the Venom Mob on the right, in the screenshot. But that’s not all, you can also browse all the movies actors appeared together in, and modify the network in lots of fun ways.

The code is based on my interactive network Flowing Data tutorial, which recently has been updated to use plain old Javascript and D3v4.

That wraps up my little data-driven exploration of Shaw Brothers films. As with any analysis, there’s plenty more to explore - but hopefully this was fun for you too, and inspires some data-driven exploration of your own.

I love graphs like these. Kudos to Jim Vallandingham for these ultimate stats.

[GeneChing]

01 JUN SHAW BROTHERS’ COSTUME EXHIBITION FACEBOOK LIVE STREAM IS TODAY! (http://shawbrothersuniverse.com/shaw-brothers-costume-exhibition-facebook-live-stream-is-today/)
Posted at 00:45h in News by admin Share
The Shaw Brothers Costume Exhibition Facebook live stream is TODAY, May 31!

Join us on Facebook today we showcase the history of Shaw Brothers’ illustrious films through their exceptional costumes!

http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/ce/CulturalService/HKFA/image/image_gallery-bf0e8c64-5a08-42e9-9fd5-89dd493ccf7c.html?uuid=bf0e8c64-5a08-42e9-9fd5-89dd493ccf7c&groupId=2005525&t=1496211501832
http://shawbrothersuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/HKFA-700x959.jpg

Shaw Brothers films are known for their creative stories lines, exciting visual effects, and wondrous characters. Like the films themselves, each costume is crafted with artistry, exhilarating color, and fine detail. Though there are many we could’ve chosen, we’ve decided to highlight nine costumes from different cinematic dynasties.

From Shaw Goddess Linda Dai’s iconic wardrobe in the classic Huangmei operatic film “The Kingdom and The Beauty,” to what our king and queen of comedy Stephen Chow and Anita Mui wore in “Justice, My Foot!” – this exhibition has it all!
We have been preparing these majestic costumes to be exhibition-ready for almost a year! If you are in Hong Kong or have plans to visit this summer, this exhibition is something you won’t want to miss. However, if you can’t make the trip, check out today’s live stream on Facebook!

Facebook Live Stream Time
HK: 9:45am on Thursday, June 1st
PST: 6:45pm on Wednesday, May 31st
EST: 9:45pm on Wednesday, May 31st

The ship to the past is boarding soon….

Are you getting on board?

http://shawbrothersuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Profolio-86-Exh-Ad-655x1024.jpg


Here's the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/shawbrothersuniverse).

[GeneChing]

https://www.americangenrefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ShawScope.jpg

AGFA + Shaw Brothers Studio team up for theatrical distribution (https://www.americangenrefilm.com/agfa-shaw-brothers-studio-team-up-for-theatrical-distribution/)
Wednesday, January 17th, 2018

American Genre Film Archive, the largest non-profit genre film archive in the world, is excited to announce a theatrical partnership with Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studio. AGFA will distribute thirty new restorations from the Shaw vaults to theaters in 2018. This is AGFA’s latest collaboration following their distribution partnerships with genre home video labels Arrow Films (DONNIE DARKO), Severin Films (SANTA SANGRE), and Vinegar Syndrome (DOLEMITE).

Founded in 1958, Shaw Brothers produced the most significant and popular Chinese-language genre films of all time. From kung-fu battle-epics like THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN to psychedelic monster-mashes like THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN, the studio is responsible for setting off a worldwide cultural explosion of martial arts mania and influencing multiple generations of filmmakers. Quentin Tarantino once told the Los Angeles Times, “For a year, I’d watch one old Shaw Brothers movie a day — if not three.”

AGFA has curated thirty sparkling restorations from the Shaw Brothers vaults to reissue in theaters throughout the year. This includes fan favorites such as THE SUPER INFRAMAN, as well as deep cut horror-blasts like THE BOXER’S OMEN.

“It’s a dream come true to help a new generation of film lovers discover the Shaw Brothers catalog,” said AGFA director Joe Ziemba. “These movies deserve a new life on the big screen, where they can fulfill their destiny of melting as many minds as possible.”

Shaw Brothers movies are available on DCP — and in some cases, 35mm — for theatrical bookings from AGFA starting immediately.

The full list of Shaw Brothers titles distributed by AGFA:

THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN
THE AVENGING EAGLE
******* SWORDSMAN
BLACK MAGIC 2
BLOOD BROTHERS
THE BOXER’S OMEN
THE BRAVE ARCHER
BUDDHA’S PALM
COME DRINK WITH ME
CRIPPLED AVENGERS
DIRTY HO
THE DUEL
THE EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER
THE FIVE VENOMS
GOLDEN SWALLOW
THE HEROIC ONES
HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD
HUMAN LANTERNS
INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF A CHINESE COURTESAN
KING BOXER
LEGENDARY WEAPONS OF CHINA
MAD MONKEY KUNG FU
MASKED AVENGERS
MARTIAL ARTS OF SHAOLIN
THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN
ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN
SHAOLIN TEMPLE
THE SUPER INFRAMAN
VENGEANCE
THE WATER MARGIN

To book a Shaw Brothers title at your theater, contact us here (https://www.americangenrefilm.com/contact/).

Interesting selection of classic titles. Most of these are available on the major streaming services now - Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, iTunes (rent-able) and of course, El Rey Network (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68210-El-Rey-Network-and-Shaw-Brothers).

[GeneChing]

Shaw Brothers’ Kung Fu Movie Marathon to Stream on Twitch (https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/1030387-shaw-brothers-kung-fu-movie-marathon-to-stream-on-twitch)
MOVIE NEWS SHAW BROTHERS STREAMING TWITCH
BY KYLIE HEMMERT ON JANUARY 23, 2019

https://cdn1-www.comingsoon.net/assets/uploads/2019/01/crippledavengers.jpg
Shaw Brothers’ kung fu movie marathon to stream on Twitch

GammaRay (presented by Skybound Entertainment) and Celestial pictures have announced they will stream a Shaw Brothers movie marathon on Twitch from February 4 to February 8, 2019. The marathon will include 44 full-length features from the Shaw Brothers’ extensive library of kung fu titles, including iconic films such as King Boxer, Crippled Avengers, and Five Deadly Venoms. This viewing event will be streamed globally and exclusively on Twitch, marking the first time Twitch has featured kung fu films.

After the marathon airs from February 4-8, there will be double feature movie nights on Thursdays and Fridays at 5:00 pm PT for four weeks. The marathon is also the first time GammaRay has hosted full-length features on Twitch.

“We’re excited to introduce cult classic movies from the 70s and 80s to our fans on Twitch for the first time,” said GammaRay COO Do Duong. “Kung fu has influenced filmmaking, hip hop music, and pop culture, so we’re thankful to Celestial Pictures for access to their Shaw Brothers action titles, and to Twitch for using their service to introduce a larger audience to the kung fu phenomenon.”

“The Twitch community has lots of interests, with martial arts and film-based marathons among them,” said Jane Weedon, Director of Business Development at Twitch. “We’ve seen it in the games they play, their cosplay outfits, and the programming they watch, with the Shaw Brothers’ kung fu films being the perfect pop culture combo of these fandoms. Thanks to GammaRay, we get to livestream over 40 of the Shaw Brothers’ seminal movies with an interactive global audience.”

Celestial Pictures is the owner of the Shaw Brothers library of over 760 digitally remastered classics. The custodian of the Shaw Brothers legacy, Celestial Pictures continues to keep the love for peak kung fu cinema alive by presenting it to loyal enthusiasts and new-found audiences across the globe.

“We’re thrilled to bring the quintessential Shaw Brothers films to a new generation of fans through this collaboration with GammaRay,” said Agnes Cheung, Executive Vice President of Celestial Pictures. “Interactive streaming will open up a new horizon for the passionate fandom of kung fu cinema. The marathon will allow the audience to be immersed without interruption in the everlasting Shaw Brothers magic.”

44 Titles will be featured during the Twitch livestream including the following kung fu classics:

–King Boxer (1972): A student (Lieh Lo) of kung fu meets resistance on his way to a major Chinese tournament.

–Crippled Avengers (1978): After the death of his wife, warlord Dao Tian-du (Kuan Tai Chen) turns evil and holds a town in thrall to his reign of fear with the help of his sadistic son. Four of the villain’s victims — a blind man, an amputee, a deaf-mute, and an insane fighter — seek the help of a wise kung fu master as they train to eliminate the tyrant for good.

–Five Deadly Venoms (1978): A dying master sends his last student to check up on five former pupils, who each know a special style of kung fu.

Twitch streamers will also be able to co-stream the marathon. Co-streaming is a feature unique to Twitch which allows a streamer to share another channel’s video feed, but with their own commentary and community. The result is a more personalized, social experience.



THREADS
Shaw Brothers Celestial Film Library (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?36995-Shaw-Brothers-Celestial-Film-Library/page4)
Year of the Pig 2019 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71112-Year-of-the-Pig-2019)

[GeneChing]

The birthplace of kung fu films will turn into flats and villas in Fosun’s plan to redevelop Shaw Brothers’ Hong Kong Movietown heritage site (https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3174881/birthplace-kung-fu-films-will-turn-flats-and-villas-fosuns-plan-redevelop)
The complex on Clear Water Bay Road in Sai Kung will be redeveloped into a project with 1.05 million square feet (97,548 square metres) of usable space
The development is estimated to cost between HK$3.8 billion and up to HK$4.5 billion, according to estimates
Topic |
Hong Kong property
Cheryl Arcibal

Published: 4:32pm, 20 Apr, 2022


https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1098,format=auto/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/canvas/2022/04/20/18603861-e95b-4b6c-89b9-36da055661a2_331bb775.jpg?itok=8Cppe9BE&v=1650443520
The late Hong Kong movie mogul Sir Run Run Shaw with his Rolls-Royce in front of Shaw House in Sai Kung on 14 January 1993. Photo: Handout
Shaw Brothers’ Movietown studio complex in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung district is being transformed into a residential enclave, a decade after production ceased at the birthplace of Chinese kung fu films once dubbed Asia’s Hollywood.
The complex on Clear Water Bay Road will be redeveloped into a project with 1.05 million square feet (97,548 square metres) of usable space, featuring 14 three-storey villas and 23 apartment buildings that stand between six and 11 floors each, recreational facilities, a club house and a car park, according to the city’s Buildings Department.
The development is estimated to cost between HK$3.8 billion (US$485 million) and up to HK$4.5 billion, excluding the premium paid for the land, according to Martin Wong, director of research and consultancy for Greater China at the property consultancy Knight Frank.
“Given its heritage nature, the project is expected to have a strong market appeal,” Wong said. “This type of project is rare in the market, as there is a higher hurdle for redevelopment from the planning and technical perspective.”
https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2022/04/20/34d5bc46-1369-4f80-a33f-12a1f70d5024_b67d5802.jpg
The main building at Shaw Brothers Studios’ Movietown at Clear Water Bay in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung district on 31 October 2014. Photo: Nora Tam.
Movietown, constructed in 1961, was the crown jewel of Shaw Brothers Studios, which was one of Asia’s largest film producers in its heyday between the 1970s and 1990s.
Spread across 46 acres, the site featured 23 buildings used as offices, production sets and movie-editing studios, as well as accommodation for cast and crew.https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2022/04/20/5487135e-be38-4613-aa49-792527c63d6d_8c22bba2.jpg
Exterior view of one of the buildings at Shaw Studio’s Movietown on Clear Water Bay Road in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung district on 2 November 2015. Photo: Felix Wong.
Founded in 1925 by three brothers, Shaw Brothers popularised the kung fu movie genre, with an archive of more than 1,000 titles including such classics as the 1967 One Armed Swordsman and the 36th Chamber of Shaolin in 1978.
The brand was a household name in Hong Kong, with fans among the global Cantonese-speaking Chinese diaspora. Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino professed himself a kung fu movie buff, citing Bruce Lee’s films and Shaw Brothers classics as his muse.
Like the rest of Hong Kong’s once-booming movie industry, the studio struggled with soaring production costs, competition from Hollywood and mainland China’s emerging studios and rampant piracy of its films.
The company shifted its focus towards television through Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), Hong Kong’s dominant terrestrial broadcaster. The company was reorganised in 2011, and renamed Clear Water Bay Land, while the movie business was renamed Shaw Studios and moved to a new location in Tseung Kwan O in 2005.
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An undated photo of the late Hong Kong movie mogul Sir Run Run Shaw (centre) with his Rolls-Royce and a bevy of film stars at Shaw Brothers Studios in its heyday. Photo: Paul Ho Chi-kwong.
Movietown, abandoned and dilapidated, was classified by Hong Kong’s Antiquities and Monuments Office in 2015 as a Grade One Historical Structure, the city’s highest award by the government body.
Fosun Group, the Shanghai-based owner of Club Med chain of holiday resorts, paid HK$1.5 billion in 2014 for the Movietown site from Shaw Studios.
The takeover reflected the growing interest among developers to transform locations and buildings with heritage listings into modern housing or commercial projects, aiming to use the prestige associated with these sites to enhance their own brand cachet.
In China, Shui On’s Xintiandi project, redeveloped from traditional shikumen homes, has been established as one of modern Shanghai’s landmarks, setting the trend for similar heritage-linked sites elsewhere.
Recent projects in Hong Kong with a preservation element include New World Development’s State Theatre in North Point, Jessville in Pok Fu Lam and Kowloon Development’s plan to build high-rise flats at the site of the former St Joseph’s Home for the Aged in Clear Water Bay.

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Before moving to Hong Kong, Cheryl covered the economy in her native Philippines. This saddens me...