Better later than never. Raymond Chow, the veteran Hong Kong producer who introduced Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan to an international audience, will be honoured for lifetime achievement at the fifth Asian Film Awards.
Organizers of the Hong Kong event said that the 83-year-old filmmaker was “instrumental in making Asian cinema the global cinematic and box office force it is today.”
Chow worked at the famed Shaw Brothers studios before leaving to found Golden Harvest in 1970. The breakaway company jump-started Lee’s career with martial arts movies hits like “Fist of Fury” and “Enter the Dragon.” In 1979, it signed Chan, casting him in his first English-language productions, including the star-studded 1981 action comedy “The Cannonball Run.”
Raymond Chow Man-Wai (born January 1, 1929) is a Hong Kong film producer, and presenter and was responsible for successfully launching martial arts and the Hong Kong cinema onto the international stage. As the founder of Golden Harvest, he would produce some of the biggest stars to ever grace the screen including Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Ricky Tam and countless others. Chow was the head of publicity and the production chief of Shaw Brothers between 1958 and 1970. He leased Cathay’s studio and contracted its exhibition chain of 104 cinema theatres in Southeast Asia. At the time Cathay was a predominant force in the Malaysian film industry.
When Cathay wanted to end the company’s association in Hong Kong, Chow left Shaw Brothers to establish Golden Harvest in 1970. Chow capitalized on the Shaw Brothers who had a system that limited creativity, and was able to lure Bruce Lee into Golden Harvest, making it a serious competitor to Shaw Brothers.
Under Chow’s leadership, Golden Harvest would become the cornerstone for Hong Kong cinema leading HK box office sales for two decades from the 1970s to 1980s. Whilst he is credited with producing many films, in the audio commentary for the UK release of Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain, Tsui Hark in conversation with Bey Logan explained that this credit is mostly meaningless. Tsui stated that the producer role at the studio was often nothing more than to greenlight the project, and that producers such as Chow would rarely if ever set foot on the set during the making of the film.
