Forty years after the golden age of Chinese-language cinema, classic Hong Kong movies are making a comeback. A chance to revisit the thrills and sentiment of these vintage martial arts films and period piece musicals from the Shaw Brothers studio is offered by the Shaw Brothers Film Festival (邵氏電影節), which is being organized by Mata Entertainment (邁拓娛樂), a local film distributor.
Established in 1958 and winding down in the early 1990s, Shaw Brothers created 760 titles which were instrumental in establishing Hong Kong as the Hollywood of the East. Since the massive success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the influence of the classics of the Shaw Brothers era have been underlined, part of the reason for the festival.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MATA
With the help of digital technology to enhance colors and Dolby surround sound, six films from the Shaw Brothers' collection will be brought back to the big screen, including the box office blockbuster The Love Eterne (梁山伯與祝英台, 1962) that created an island-wide frenzy for its star actress Ling Bo (凌波) when it was released in Taiwan.
The re-release of this classic coincides with a visit by Lin for a performance of The Love Eterne as a Huang-mei opera. Because Lin has become such an icon in Taiwan's cinema lore, tickets are selling fast for the film festival, which opens next Friday at Ambassador Cinema in Breeze Center.
The six films that will be shown at the festival are part of a much larger project to remaster all 760 titles of the Shaw Brothers library by Hong Kong-based Celestial Pictures.
Celestial, established in 2000, spent US$61.6 million (HK$480m) to purchase the Shaw Brothers library, and an additional US$15.4m (HK$120m) to undertake the restoration project, so that the films can be released in digital DVD and VCD format. It is estimated that the whole re-mastering project will take three years.
Beginning from today, Celestial is set to release 20 Shaw Brothers DVDs and VCDs through video distributors across Asia, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. In Taiwan, the release will be handled by Deltamax (得利影視), a member of CMC (中環集團), a major electronics and entertainment group, which also owns Mata Entertainment.
"Celestial Pictures is honored to launch the Shaw Brothers library in the restored digital format. Modern audiences worldwide will now have a unique opportunity to see these masterpieces of Chinese cinema," Celestial's CEO William Pfeiffer said in a press conference in October. Pfeiffer said the company actually bought the Shaw Brothers library in the wake of the Crouching Tiger phenomena. The success of that film and the subsequent demand for martial arts films -- films such as Hero by Zhang Yi-mou (張藝謀) and Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, which was partly inspired by the Shaw Brothers -- demonstrates that there is increasing interest around the world for Asian content, Pfeiffer was quoted by Screen International as saying.
Indeed, if we take a closer look at the development of Chinese-language cinema, it is not difficult to find out that many recent successes such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were influenced or pay homage to directors King Hu (胡金銓) and Chang Cheh (張徹), master filmmakers of the Shaw Brothers era.
For example, in Come Drink with Me (大醉俠, 1966), King Hu's first martial arts film, Hu already exhibits the poetic cinematography used in Crouching Tiger, and Ang Lee's debt is particularly evident in the massive rumble at the inn where Zhang Ziyi (張子怡) faces off against rivals from different martial arts sects.
Hu's films express a nostalgia for classical Chinese culture that goes much further than thrilling marital arts scenes and which has exercised a considerable influence over his successors.
In Chang Cheh's martial arts film The Blood Brothers (刺馬, 1973), the themes of chivalry and the conflict between brotherhood and personal ambition are explored in stories packed with stunning action. These themes can also be found in Crouching Tiger and in many of John Woo's action films.
The Shaw Brothers showcase is also a good chance to revisit three period drama masterpieces of Lee Han-hsiang (李翰祥): The Love Eterne, The Kingdom and the Beauty (江山美人, 1959) and The Empress Dowager (傾國傾城, 1975).
Ang Lee expresses his admiration for The Love Eterne, a Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet, saying that it makes him cry every time he sees it. This reaction is similar to that of many middleaged Taiwanese who spent their teenage days watching this Huang-mei musical drama when it was being screened all over Taiwan.
"I watched this film as a replay. As a young boy, I was reluctant to watch this kind of romantic drama, but when I did, I was crying long after the credits had stopped," said Wolf Chen (陳鴻元), CEO of Mata Entertainment.
The grand scenes set in a Chinese palace, the refined musical arrangements and the powerful direction mark Lee as a true master of the Hunag-mei musical and the historical drama. His deft handling can be seen whether he is making an epic drama about political struggle in The Empress Dowager or detailing subtle flirtations in The Lover Eterne and The Kingdom and the Beauty.
Finally, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin has scene after scene of eye-catching kung fu fights that future generations of martial arts choreographers would learn from. Director Liu Chia-liang (劉家良) and his brother, actor Liu Chia-hui (劉家輝), made use of Bruce Lee-style, realistic fighting rather than the wire-assisted antics of other martial arts films, andthe film manages to grip viewers through two hours of kung fu spectacle.
For your information:
"Shaw Brothers Film Festival
The Love Eterne (1962)
Come Drink with Me (1966)
The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin (1978)
The Blood Brothers (1973)
The Empress Dowager (1975)
The Kingdom and the Beauty (1959)
When: Dec. 13 to Dec. 20
Where: Ambassador Cinema, Breeze Center
Tickets: Discount tickets available before Dec. 13 at Acer ticketing outlets or at the movie theater for NT$190. During the festival, tickets available at the theater priced at NT$230
For screening schedules see
http://shaofilmfestival.mata.com.tw
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