09 Jan 2014

Sir Run Run Shaw (1907 – 2014)

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The great Run Run Shaw, Hong Kong producer of countless examples of martial arts cinema, who brought Chinese culture and flying Kung Fu masters to the world, passed away, allegedly at the admirable age of 106. Quentin Tarantino is basically his disciple, and Tarantino acknowledges the debt by routinely prefacing his own films with the Shaw Brothers logo.

Variety:

Shaw’s birthday and his exact age have long been clouded in mystery — his widow Mona Shaw (aka Mona Fong) has often refused to clarify the issue — and other sources put his age at 107. He died at 6.55am local time in Hong Kong on Jan 7, 2014.

From his early work doing odd jobs around theaters and cinemas controlled by his older brothers, Shaw went on to establish and run the leading production studios in Asia by the 1950s. Along the way he ushered in significant technical progress into Chinese film.

Shaw is best known for the Shaw Brothers’ martial arts output of the 1960s, but he should rightly also be given credit for pioneering a form of Asian musical film and for putting Hong Kong on the global cinema map.

The Shaw Brothers company was in its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s and was influential in both the Asian and Western film industries. He personally has credits on some 360 films, ranging from martial arts classics to Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner.”

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