In 1922, Li Minwei established Minxin, the first Chinese-owned film company in Hong Kong, China, with Li Haishan as the manager and Li Minwei as the deputy manager. The company advocated that "the purpose must be pure, and the product must be beautiful." and in 1924 produced the first feature film Rouge in Hong Kong, China.
In February 1926, Minxin Film Company, founded by Li Minwei, Li Haishan and Li Beihai, moved from Hong Kong to Shanghai. The documentary "Dr. Sun Yat-sen went northward" and "Marshal Sun vowed the Northern Expedition", which recorded the scenes of Sun Yat-sen, Liao Zhongkai, Li Dazhao and Zhou Enlai, even became valuable historical materials. As a result, Li Minwei became not only the father of Hong Kong films, but also the father of Chinese documentaries.
The plaque "the World is shared by the people" inscribed by Sun Yat-sen is well known. There are at least 39 definite owners, the earliest being in April 1907, when Sun Yat-sen wrote the banner "the World is shared by people" for the Rishinlou Restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam. Li Minwei was also one of the recipients during the Northern Expedition with Sun Yat-sen in September 1924.
In 1929, Minxin co-produced with North China Film Co., Ltd. of Luo Mingyou, the king of North China cinema, and soon merged into Lianhua Film Co., Ltd., and the first film company in Hong Kong, China officially withdrew from the historical stage.
The Lai family has a large number of entertainers. Li Minwei's wife, Yan Shanshan, is the first film actress in Hong Kong film history. Lin Chu Chu, his flat wife, is a generation of film queens who are as famous as Hu Die and Ruan Lingyu in the 1920s. Li Xuan is a famous supporting role in Hong Kong films and TV dramas, and her granddaughter Li Zi used to be the leading actress of TVB.
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In June 1925, Tianyi Film Company was founded by Shaw Brothers (Shao Jiuweng, Shao Yuren, Shao Renmei, Shao run run) in Shanghai Hongkou Hengbang Bridge, specializing in film production and distribution. Shao Jiuweng served as general manager and director, second brother Shao Yuren was responsible for production and screenwriting, third brother Shao Renmei and sixth brother run run Shaw went to Singapore and Malaysia to develop the Nanyang market. His brothers cooperated with each other and were good at controlling costs, so they soon had a tripod with Star Pictures and Lianhua Pictures in Shanghai.
But where there are people, there are rivers and lakes. Because Shaw Brothers are outsiders, Chinese Lily Pictures, stars, Luo Xin, Shanghai Film Company, and Shenzhou soon formed Liuhe Film Company to encircle and suppress Tianyi Pictures, forcing many big cinemas to stop showing Tianyi films.
In addition, in 1932, Shaw Brothers launched China's first Cantonese sound film, "the Platinum Dragon". After its release, it caused a sensation in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Shanghai, with a cost of only 10, 000 yuan, and reaped millions of returns and made a lot of money. originally, Shaw Brothers had vigorously promoted similar Cantonese themes while the iron was hot, but the Kuomintang New Year's Day started the New Life Movement in 1934 and renamed the Mandarin (Mandarin) spoken in Beijing to National Language. As Putonghua now belongs to Northern Mandarin, under the background of the language Unification Movement, it is a general trend for audio films to use Mandarin. Tianyi Film has suddenly lost its biggest market and areas of expertise.
However, when Shanghai Tianyi Film Industry was sandwiched between left and right, and the eldest brother Shao Jiuweng even withdrew in disappointment, Shao run run and Shao Renmei, who had previously gone to Nanyang with the help of Wang Jingcheng, the richest man in Penang, rented Singapore Huaying Theater, Kuala Lumpur Chinese Theater, Ipoh Wan Jingtai Theater and Malacca Theater. It has become a super theater alliance competing with the Lu family Cathay Pacific cinema chain in Nanyang.
So the second son, Shao Yuren, arrived in Hong Kong in 1937, renamed Tianyi Hong Kong Factory as Nanyang Film Company and expanded the studio. It was one of the film companies that produced the most films in Hong Kong at that time, and its business focus completely shifted to the south. In 1950, he and his eldest son Shao Weimei formed Shaw and son Co., Ltd. However, in the face of the deep-pocketed and aggressive Dianmao, the small-cost production of Shaw and son has gradually declined.
Unlike Shaw Yun, who gradually stepped into cinemas and real estate management, run run Shaw was still optimistic about the potential of Hong Kong films, so in 1958, Shaw run run and his third brother Shaw Renmei established Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. at the same time, it bought land in clear Water Bay in Kowloon to build Shaw Cinema, which was later the famous Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong, which was different from the logo of his brother's "Shaw and son". Since then, Shaw Brothers has only been in charge of cinemas and film distribution, while Shaw Brothers is in charge of production.
Under the leadership of run run Shaw, from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, the four directors Li Hanxiang, Zhang Che, Hu Jinquan and Chu Yuan took turns, continuing their dominant position in Hong Kong's film industry for nearly two decades. however, because the company was not allowed to hold shares in the Shaw family, most of these talents later left on their own, including Zou Wenhuai, the former director of Shaw's propaganda department, who later established the Golden Harvest Company to completely defeat Shaw Pictures.
Unlike the Hong Kong film industry, which has always been optimistic about the Hong Kong film industry, Shaw, like his eldest brother and second brother before him, formally chose to withdraw from the film industry in 1985. Clear Water Bay Studio was transferred to TVB to shoot TV dramas, and the cinema line was rented to Debao Film Company.
In 1988, Shaw Brothers and TVB jointly formed the Metropolitan Film Company, under the responsibility of Fang Yihua, and made excellent films such as Stephen Chow's "the Dead Guard", "Ji Gong", "the King of destruction" and "the Night of Revival". Unfortunately, by the late 1990s, Hong Kong films had generally gone downhill, and Metropolis could hardly revive Shaw's former glory. After filming to Qifeng's "A hundred Rises" in 1997, Metropolitan Film also chose to close down.
Shaw Brothers even announced in 2000 that the permanent copyright of the films would be sold to Tianying Entertainment, owned by the Malaysian pay TV station ASTRO, for HK $400m, and the company also spent HK $200m on digital restoration, instead of Star Chinese Media, which had been negotiated for a long time before, which is why this Logo appears at the beginning of Shaw Brothers movies now, because the copyright is with others.
In 2003, Shaw Brothers and the boss of China Star made a joint venture with Huaqiang to build the "Hong Kong Film City" in Tseung Kwan O. Fong Yihua said that after the completion of the studio, Shaw will sign a contract with actors to start a new film. This also made Zou Wenhuai Jiahe's shooting aborted, cut off the back of production, and even withdrew from the film industry completely. if it is counted, Zou Wenhuai's self-supporting Jiahe was avenged by defeating Shaw Brothers in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 2009, after Fang Yihua was fully in charge of TVB, she reactivated Le Yiling to be in charge of Shaw Brothers and started filming "the defection of Laughing Gor" with the theme of the same name. After the TV series became popular, she immediately produced "up to the Sky", "Apostle Walker", "Flying Tiger" and so on, to maximize the use of IP integration.
In 2016, after several major equity changes, Shaw Pictures, like the later TVB, began to belong to the Chinese Culture holding Group Co., Ltd. (CMC). Since Tianyi Pictures in 1925, it has been around for nearly a century and returned to the embrace of the mainland.
It has been a miracle that a company has been in existence for nearly a hundred years. Shaw Brothers responded to the words of Chen Haonan in Gu Qizai, "tough enough!" Righteousness! There are many brothers! "and most of the brothers here are brothers, and Shaw Brothers is able to adapt to the changes of the times. During the war on the mainland, he went to Nanyang to run cinemas, and Hong Kong rose up and returned to Hong Kong to produce films. Now the mainland is strong and returns to the mainland again. Embrace the big market and carry goods live on Taobao, never sticking to one person for a while.
However, he was born in hardship and died in happiness. When the four brothers were in trouble together in Shanghai, they were able to work together. However, in the period of Southeast Asia scenery, the brothers also had many shackles. The Shaw brothers and Shaw's father and son companies were once in a row. In order to block Shao Yifu, Shao Cunren transferred Shao brothers manager and his son Shao Weiying away. Shao Weiying lost his good platform and became silent from then on. Shao Yifu also broke his arm because Shao's family members were used to hold heavy power. He Guanchang, who used a foreign surname, could only be a senior wage earner, which was difficult to meet other people's further expectations. Later, Fang Yihua was introduced to stabilize the camp. However, at this time, the movie Jianghu could not be the same language. Jiahe and Xinyi City had become big one after another. On the contrary, they became enemies with several children of their wives. As the saying goes, sugar cane is not sweet at both ends.
However, during Shaw's time on the set, although he deducted his employees, including stars, he donated more than 10 billion Hong Kong dollars to social welfare and charitable affairs in the mainland over the years. The library of my hometown high school is one of the Shaw buildings, which is really taken from society and given back to society. Although Shaw films are no longer under the control of the Shaw family, Shaw's children have no intention of taking over because of Fang Yat-Hua, and Shaw's output has withered. It is difficult to restore the glory of the past, and later people can only remember one or two from the film and television light.
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