Bruce Lee > Golden Harvest vs Shaw Brothers
Jan 28, 2023
The Shaw brothers originally started to make silent movies in Shanghai. Later they moved to Singapore in 1924. They would spend decades making films for the Malaya Peninsula, both in Chinese and Malay. In 1959, Run Run Shaw moved to Hong Kong and built Shaw Studios. In time, it became the largest private film studio in the world. But that was before Bruce Lee!
Golden Harvest (1970 – )
Raymond Chow (1929- ) initially worked for the Shaw Brothers but left and created his own studio, Golden Harvest in 1970, using the closed Cathay Studio He signed Bruce Lee and changed Hong Kong films forever. Later in 1978, Golden Harvest signed Jackie Chan and allowed Jackie Chan complete artistic control of his films with unlimited budgets.
By signing both Lee and Chan, the two greatest stars of Hong Kong, he was able to create a studio that would out produce Shaw Brothers, who eventually quit making films in 1983.
Golden Harvest did what Shaw Brothers always wanted to do; it became an international film company. Golden Harvest has even helped to produce such films as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990). In 2003, they stopped making films.
Shaw Brothers
Sir Run Run Shaw (1907-2014 )
His actors were under contract and made which ever films were given to them, much like the old Hollywood system. Thus, Run Run helped to make cinematic history in Hong Kong.
Their productions were often lavishing and well crafted. His biggest mistakes were not signing up Bruce Lee in 1970 and later Jackie Chan in 1978. Bruce Lee had demanded a large signing contract, something Run Run never did. Trying to learn from his mistake, later he did offer Jackie Chan a huge signing bonus, but not big enough apparently.
Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, two of Asians biggest stars ever, helped to make Golden Harvest the biggest studio in the East and in a sense ended Shaw Brothers productions completely, well almost.
In 1983, the studio stopped filming movies and only worked on television shows mostly soap operas, a rather lucrative business in Asia. Television Broadcast Limited of Hong Kong (TVB) is one of the successful television production companies in the world. Stars like Chow Yun Fat would get their start there.
A Shaw Brother’s classic Golden Swallow with Cheng Pei Pei and Jimmy Wang Yu helped to make the studio popular.
–Doc Nirvana
AKA Dr. Wayne Stein