Free Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book by Ric Meyers Page B

represents kung fu’s core truth: that a kung fu student’s only true enemy is his or herself. Sadly, that was the one fight Bruce Lee didn’t get the chance to win.

Picture identifications (clockwise from upper left):
    Liu Chia-liang vs. Liu Chia-yung in Legendary Weapons of China ; Liu Chia-hui vs. Wang Lung-wei in Dirty Ho ; Lo Lieh in King Boxer ; Jimmy Wang Yu in The Chinese Boxer ; Meng Fei , Alexander Fu Sheng , Ti Lung , David Chiang , and Chi Kuan-chun in 5 Masters of Death ; Kuo Chui , Lo Mang , Lu Feng , Sun Chien , and Wei Pai in The 5 Deadly Venoms .
    It’s a pleasure to present this chapter. For years there’s been the impression that, following Bruce Lee ’s death, kung fu films lay fallow until the ascension of Jackie Chan . To a great degree that is true ... outside Hong Kong.
    But inside Hong Kong, kings of kung fu still reigned, bringing excited audiences some of the best — if not the absolute best — kung fu films ever made. So how did this oversight happen? Because the producers and distributors of those cathartic kung fu movies kept them, for the most part, to themselves, for decades on end.
    At the time of Bruce Lee ’s death, Hong Kong cinema was booming, and the main boomers were The Shaw Brothers Studio. Having emerged victorious some years prior from a cinematic death struggle with main competitor Cathay (aka Motion Picture and General Investments Limited) — following the death of Cathay boss Loke Wan Tho in a plane crash — Shaw Studios made great use of their advantage.
    The Shaw Brothers Studio is considered the most venerable in South China, if for no other reason than being in continuous operation for more than eighty years. Starting out as Unique Film Productions in 1925, the company has always been controlled by the Shaw brothers — four siblings who also shared the name Run: Runje, Runde, Runme, and Run Run. While it has long been believed that the latter two monikers were somewhat condescending nicknames given to the youngest brothers by peers impressed with their errand boy skills at another Hong Kong studio, their handles were actually bestowed on them by their father, Shaw Yuh-hsuen , because the name meant “benevolence.” In fact, the Runs carried on the family tradition by naming their own sons with variations of “Vee,” which means “virtues.”
    By 1934, the Shaws had already established a full-fledged studio consisting of sound stages, film processing facilities, editing bays, screening rooms, and office space — while also managing an extensive circuit of cinemas throughout Southeast Asia. In the long term scheme of things, World War II was a minor blip as the brothers protected their investment by diversifying in banking, real estate, and amusement parks.
    It was in 1949 that Runde finally renamed the operation Shaw Studios, but it wasn’t until 1957, when the then-fifty-year-old Run Run Shaw decided to take the reins — that the company entered its golden era. Buying forty-six acres of land in the scenic Clearwater Bay area (for a mere forty-five cents per square foot!), Run Run announced the creation of Shaw Brothers (HK) Limited, and the internationally influential studio we know today was off and running.
    It didn’t reach full flower, however, until a full decade later when there were editing, dubbing, special effects, and film processing facilities, a dozen sound stages, and more than five hundred full-time writers, technicians, and staff members who worked in three eight-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day. In addition, Run Run instituted the Shaw Actors Training School, complete with on-lot dorms for the graduates. At their best, the Shaw Brothers Studio could produce forty films a year, or a completed movie, from start to finish, every ten days.
    For the next eighteen years, the Studio produced more than seven hundred films (dramas, comedies, musicals, etc.), of which approximately three hundred and fifty were martial art movies (both kung fu and