Chapter 1156 In Hong Kong

"Does Shaw Brothers own the copyright?"

"Yes, I bought it from Tianying Entertainment for 450 million Hong Kong dollars!"

"Not bad... spend some money to produce a few restored versions..."

"Doing this work..."

Two thousand years ago, Shaw Brothers announced that it would sell the permanent copyrights of the company's 760 movies to "Celestial Entertainment" for HK$400 million...

Celestial Entertainment is affiliated to Malaysian pay television station ASTRO…

In recent years, PPTV has dominated streaming media in Southeast Asia in the form of dimensionality reduction attacks. ASTRO has not performed well, so it is naturally willing to sell its copyrights...

However, the price of 450 million Hong Kong dollars... feels a bit too low!

"You've always been interested in "The Drunken Man" and "Thirteen Eagles". Now we can remake them..."

Shen Xudong scratched his head: "I have to think about this carefully... By the way, please announce this news. There are also a group of martial arts practitioners in the mainland..."

Zhong Lifang nodded: "Well, I know..."

…

The predecessor of Shaw Brothers Movies is Tianyi Pictures, which started with period films...

It put forward the slogan of "paying attention to old morals and ethics, carrying forward Chinese civilization, and trying to avoid Europeanization". Although the content of the produced works has many issues that are questionable and the art is relatively rough, the storyline is well-known to everyone, and the huge The propaganda momentum was very popular among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.

In 1950, he moved to Hong Kong and changed his name to Shaw Brothers Films. At first, he also followed the path of period films...

The person in charge is Run Run Shao’s second brother, a native of Shaocun!

In the late 1950s, International Film and Television Co., Ltd. was established, which was actually Film and Television. Film and Television was very powerful and was willing to spend money. It also had the support of theaters in Nanyang. After its establishment, the Hong Kong film industry also began to emerge. Due to the changes, Shaw Brothers' films were known for their low-budget productions, which obviously no longer fit the trend of the time.

Moreover, people in Shaocun also wanted to get involved in the real estate business, so they began to shrink the film production business.

In 1958, Run Run Shaw came to Hong Kong from Nanyang. Because he was dissatisfied with his second brother's decision-making, he resolutely took over the family's film business. Run Run Run Shaw established "Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd.". Since then, the big LOGO of "SB" Officially appeared.

From 1959 to 1979, for 20 years, the Shaw family was basically the only one!

Four famous directors in the Southeast Asian film industry, Li Hanxiang, Chang Cheh, King Hu and Chu Yuan, were presented.

It just so happens that the four of them are famous for their martial arts and action films.

But don’t think that Shaw Brothers only makes action movies. In fact, Shaw Brothers have tried every subject you can think of, including science fiction films. In 1975, Shaw Brothers imitated Japan’s “Ultraman” and shot a special feature film. The movie "Chinese Superman"...later spent huge sums of money to film "The Orangutan King"...

The problem is that the cost of "King of Orangutans" was HK$5 million, and the box office was less than 1.2 million. On the contrary, another movie "Pornographic" starring the heroine of "King of Orangutans", Evelenga, sold 7.7 million …

If you were replaced, how would you choose?

Later, Shaw Brothers continued to spend huge sums of money to film "Interstellar Pier"...

Mainly at that time, science fiction films represented by "Star Wars" were popular in Hong Kong, followed by "Starship Troopers" and "Star Trek", and Shaw Brothers were also anxious...

Speaking of Shaw Brothers' masterpieces, "The Drunken Man", "The One-Armed Sword", and "Horse" are all well-known works, but the one that is most well-known to audiences around the world, or in North America, should be "The Best Punch in the World" , this film was among the top ten grossing films in North America that year.

In fact, the initial market of Shaw Brothers, including Cinema Pictures, was indeed in Southeast Asia, but they have always had ambitions to occupy the world, especially Run Run Shaw. He used Hong Kong as his production base and conquered cities and territories along the way, seizing Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. In addition to the market, it also set its sights on South Korea, Japan, Europe and the United States, launching a global expansion strategy for production and distribution. Even though it failed to get off the ground, it laid the foundation for Hong Kong films led by Golden Harvest to successfully enter the international market in the future.

Shaw Brothers' big productions can't break out of Chinatown in the United States.

How to break into the two major film markets of the United States and Japan, and distribute "Shaw Brothers' masterpieces" to the world?

After the failure of the film festival offensive, another strategy chosen by Run Run Shaw was to strengthen business cooperation and jointly produce transnational films, hoping to first enter foreign countries through co-productions...

It is a pity that Shaw Brothers does not have an equal status when cooperating with European and American companies in filming. Most of the time, Shaw Brothers only plays a supporting role, such as assisting Western films to shoot scenes in Hong Kong and providing technical and manpower support.

To a certain extent, this presents an unfair capitalist market system or political and economic environment. No matter how keen and hard-working Run Run Shaw is, Shaw Brothers and later Golden Harvest are representatives of the power of Asian or Hong Kong films, although occasionally There are "The First Punch" or "The Fighting Dragon", but they have never been able to truly integrate into the global mainstream market.

"The Best Punch in the World" should be the first Chinese martial arts movie to be released on a large scale in the United States (approximately 1,000 theaters).

It is considered a third-rate martial arts action film by Shaw Brothers. The plot is very simple. In order to uphold justice in the martial arts world, a loyal and honest martial arts prodigy went out to study under the orders of his master. However, his master was brutally murdered by a bad guy. In order to take revenge, he endured the humiliation and endured the heavy burden. Finally, I was able to kill the enemy with my own hands!

Quentin Tarantino was deeply impressed by this movie, so the "alarm music" used in "Kill Bill" whenever the heroine gets emotional comes from "The Greatest Hits".

Harvey wanted to start an Asian film project and remake "Thirteen Eagles" and "The Drunken Man"...

Looking at it from today's point of view, throwing away the old actions and shots, the first 1/3 of "The Drunken Man" can be regarded as a god, the middle 1/3 falls apart, and the last 1/3 is unfinished...

For no other reason than the interference of his old employer, Shaw Brothers...

"The Drunken Man" is a work by Hu Jinquan. Director Hu is best at filming the inn sequence. The gangsters threw the wine jar, tossed the copper coins, smashed the stool, and folded chopsticks to show the breakdown of the negotiation. Breaking in to break the deadlock, a combination of movement and stillness fully demonstrates the skill of scene planning and plot layout. At this time, a blocking technique that omits some action processes has been formed, but in the end, it still becomes a cliché of the type where justice relies on force to defeat evil...

It's a pity...

Previously, Shen Xudong commented on Shaw Brothers Kung Fu and mentioned this. Unexpectedly, Zhong Lifeng still remembered it. As for "Thirteen Cold-Blooded Eagles", this is a very typical treasure hunt type - fighting for martial arts secrets...

This type of story is relatively old.

Shen Xudong was deeply impressed because there was a gang in his old high school called Flying Eagle Castle. Thirteen "brothers" called themselves the cold-blooded Thirteen Eagles...

But, to be honest, most of Shaw Brothers' movies have lagged behind the times. The stories are too cliche and cannot sustain a 120-minute plot!

However, it is still good to make it into a big movie - try to keep the duration of each movie within 70 to 80 minutes.

…

Every time Shen Xudong comes to Hong Kong, he will be received by Yang Shoucheng and Huang Baiming, and this time is no exception...

To be honest, Shen Xudong didn’t know any of these people!

During the golden period of Hong Kong movies, there was little space for actresses. Basically, in films that were blockbuster hits, the presence of actresses was very instrumental.

The protagonist's girlfriend; something the protagonist and the protagonist fight over; the main cause of trouble or disputes; or an ideal target for bullying and exploitation...

There is also a more embarrassing, purely transitory one, designed to tell the audience that there are creatures like women in this world...

Nowadays, this situation has not improved much, and these types of roles will probably only be found in co-productions, but co-productions will not use these new Hong Kong actresses who are not well-known in the mainland.

Those who are willing to use new actors are the few authentic Hong Kong films left - the cost is usually low, the director is usually a newcomer, and the subject matter is usually serious. As for the entertainment that Hong Kong movies had in the past?

That, not one.

But this type of relatively serious Hong Kong movie no longer simply depicts the world of men. The female characters in it are all described seriously and have a sense of reality and presence.

Therefore, there are usually no big beauties...

Since she is not a beauty, she is unlikely to appear on such an occasion!

In fact, Emperor has recommended newcomers in various ways before. He did a movie called "Super Agent" and hired Ah Sa to play the role of the agent. He gave a group of newcomers a 5-minute self-introduction and then shot the MV...

——It’s a new product promotion method!

It's a pity that the movie was so bad and the scale was a bit large that it was not released in the mainland at all.

Probably only Yang Shoucheng's circle of friends received the news - new tea is on the market...