He bid farewell to his film kingdom with our affection for Hong Kong films.

Special feature of 1905 film network On November 2nd, movie mogul Zou Wenhuai passed away at the age of 91.

As the boss behind the scenes, audience fans may not have a deep personal impression of him, but as long as four dazzling "golden bricks" are presented under a powerful "Deng Deng Deng" music, everyone will surely think that in the golden age of Hong Kong movies, there was such a film company that created countless Hong Kong film legends and became the best memory of an era.

This is Golden Harvest. Its birth not only brought revolutionary changes to the whole Hong Kong film industry, but also trained a large number of Chinese superstars and directors who are still famous today, and even made a unique and important contribution to Chinese films — — In other words, Jiahe’s achievement is the best portrayal of Hong Kong films becoming "Oriental Hollywood"!

Fight for a new company

Since the 1950s, only two institutions in Hong Kong have been called "the film kingdom".One is Shaw, which was founded in 1957, and the other is Jiahe, which was founded in 1970. Zou Wenhuai is the core figure in the two "kingdoms".

One year after Shaw was founded, he took up his post as a propaganda director and worked hard for ten years. In 1968, he was promoted to deputy general manager and production director, in charge of Shaw’s production and publicity business, which can be described as another film tycoon Shaw’s most trusted cadre.

However, in the late 1960s, Fang Yihua took charge of Shaw’s finance, which made Zou Wenhuai more and more constrained. But at this time, he had formed a "faction" with He Guanchang and Liang Feng, the technical directors of Shaw, and fought with the "financial faction" of Fang Yihua, which was not pleasing to the eye.

After several rounds of confrontation, Zou Wenhuai realized that he couldn’t cut off Fang Yihua’s power, and he didn’t agree with Shaw’s large-scale factory system. Finally, he brought in a group of directors and actors who were dissatisfied with Shaw, and two "allies": He Guanchang and Liang Feng.

In other words, without Fang Yihua’s "intervention", there may be no determination for Zou Wenhuai to establish Jiahe.

The store is small and ambitious

After the establishment of Jiahe for decades, Zou Wenhuai and He Guanchang have always been two bosses, with two shares of Zou and one share of Zou.

However, at the beginning of its establishment, Jiahe was just an office building in Dongying Building, Tsim Sha Tsui, with less than 800 feet, three bosses (plus Liang Feng) each with an office, and then a range of offices for others was set aside to start a business, and the start-up capital of the whole company was only HK$ 400,000.

Although the company is small, Zou Wenhuai has great ambitions.Golden Havest"is the name of the highest honor of the Southeast Asia Film Festival held for the first time in 1954, and the meaning of" dominating Asia "is vividly portrayed.

And later, Jiahe’s opening LOGO was once "Golden Harvest Contribution, Best FilmAs he said, our wish is not only to produce the best films by ourselves, but also to see the best films produced by the same industry.

The first lawsuit

On January 30, 1971, just one week after its release, Jiahe was sued by Shaw for copyright infringement in his second film "One-armed Knife vs Blind Man". But at this time, Zou Wenhuai and Run Run Run Run Shaw had nothing to do with each other, and the film was photographed, and the final box office was 1.55 million Hong Kong dollars, which was ideal.

However, Shaw did not let Zou Wenhuai go. Shaw’s lawsuit against Jiahe went all the way from Hong Kong to the Privy Council in England, and finally ruled that Jiahe won the case. However, the film copyright of One-armed Knife vs. Blind Man belongs to Shaw, which is regarded as "compensation" for Jiahe. Since then, Run Run Shaw and Zou Wenhuai have had a knot for decades, but they never really shook hands.

The dragon returns to Hong Kong

In 1971, Jiahe made nearly 10 films, most of which were not ideal at the box office. For Zou Wenhuai, he was almost on the verge of "failure" at the beginning of his business.

But then I happened to meetBruce Lee talks with Shaw about falling back to the United States.The reason is that the salary of $10,000, the shooting time of no more than 60 days and the condition that the script can only be started if it meets the requirements of Bruce Lee make Run Run Run Shaw lack interest in this Chinese star who is not doing well in the United States.

At this time, Zou Wenhuai asked Mrs. Rowe Lianghua Liu to invite Pei-Pei Cheng to come back to film in the United States. At that time, Zheng did not agree (but later filmed Jiahe). Lianghua Liu found that Bruce Lee’s cooperation with Shaw failed and simply introduced Bruce Lee to film Jiahe. This is the origin.

On October 31st, 1971, The Big Brother in Tangshan, with an investment of only $50,000, was released, which broke the historical record of Hong Kong with a box office of HK$ 3.19 million, and Bruce Lee immediately became a superstar in Hong Kong.

In 1972, Bruce Lee cooperated with Jiahe again, with 4.43 million and 5.3 million box office respectively, breaking the Hong Kong box office record twice in one year, and finally becoming a screen legend in Bruce Lee.

During this period, Zou Wenhuai also experienced "great joy" and "great sorrow" because of Bruce Lee.

In 1972, Zou Wenhuai introduced the popular "satellite company" system in Hollywood, and supported Bruce Lee to set up the "Concord" film company. The way was that Bruce Lee started shooting new films as a director, while Zou Wenhuai was responsible for investment promotion and distribution, and the two sides would split the accounts 50-50 in the future. In the end, "The Raptors Crossing the River" sold well at the box office, and both sides made a lot of money, which made Zou Wenhuai more diligent in promoting the "satellite system" in the future.

Sadly, on July 20th, 1973, Bruce Lee died suddenly. At that time, I couldn’t wake him up, and then I called him to the hospital. Finally, it was Zou Wenhuai who announced that he was hopeless.

Before his death, Bruce Lee said that he only admired two people all his life, one was his wife Linda, and the other was Zou Wenhuai.

Laughter reaches a peak.

After losing Bruce Lee, Jiahe did not experience a long low tide, so he took another valiant soldier:"Cold-faced Laughter" Xu GuanwenBring it under your command.

Jiahe can impress Xu Guanwen because when he first talked about the script, Zou Wenhuai said: "Just do the script at your own discretion. Just give me a stack of paper. I don’t understand it anyway. I’m a theater worker. You have to believe me about introspection and publicity. You can make up your own mind about other things."

In addition to such a free degree of creativity, Zou Wenhuai’s investment in Xu Guanwen’s new films is also a degree of "giving you almost everything you want". In this way, Xu Guanwen, with the support of Zou Wenhuai, broke the historical record with a box office of HK$ 6.25 million, becoming another peak of Jiahe!

Xu Guanwen, together with his two younger brothers, Samuel Hui and Xu Guanying, filmed many classics for Zou Wenhuai: he won the box office in 1975 and broke the box office record in 1976 with 8.53 million yuan, which was the highest box office movie in Hong Kong in the 1970s; 78-year box office champion; 17.7 million in 1981 broke the box office record again. …

In Xu Guanwen’s eyes, Zou Wenhuai cared about him like a father. In addition to supporting him to set up "Xu Shi Film Company" for filming and paying dividends in proportion, Zou Wenhuai even said that he would buy a sports car, so in those days, the relationship between Xu Shi brothers and Zou Wenhuai was really like "father and son".

Millions dig into dragons.

In 1979, Zou Wenhuai made a bigger deal and sent a check to Jackie Chan, who had just made a big red. At that time, Jackie Chan simply didn’t count how many zeros were on the check, thinking it was 100,000 pieces. The result turned out to be1 million hong kong dollars!

Later, Jackie Chan returned the cheque to Jiahe, but Zou Wenhuai always had a unique vision. He firmly believed that Jiahe would have greater development by Jackie Chan in the future. As a result, he sent cheques of 2 million and 4.7 million Hong Kong dollars successively, which finally attracted Jackie Chan to join Jiahe.

From 1980 to 2001, Jackie Chan cooperated with Golden Harvest for 21 years, making a variety of box office achievements and even becoming an international superstar. Golden Harvest made great contributions. Therefore, Jackie Chan called another boss, He Guanchang, "michel platini" and regarded Zou Wenhuai as a "mentor", which many people didn’t know.Jackie chan’s English name was changed by Zou Wenhuai.

Thanks to Zou Wenhuai’s vision, Jackie Chan also started two "firsts": In 1980, Jackie Chan wanted to release "Brother Out" during the Christmas of’ 79, because films from Bruce Lee and Xu Guanwen were sold at this time. However, Jiahe vetoed the proposal and arranged for the film to be released before the Lunar New Year — — At that time, Hong Kong people were visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival. How could they have time to watch movies?

Unexpectedly, "Brother Out" broke the historical box office record (HK$ 11.02 million) and made Hong Kong people flock to cinemas during the Chinese New Year for the first time. Since then, all Hong Kong filmmakers and cinemas have discovered that there may be a big market for films released during the Spring Festival.Since then, "Spring Festival" and "Chinese New Year’s Film" have officially become the two mainstream terms of Hong Kong films, in other words, they were brought up by Jackie Chan in front of the stage and Zou Wenhuai behind the scenes.

In 1995, Golden Harvest cooperated with new line cinema, a Hollywood distribution company, to release it to North America. As a result, a Hong Kong film won the North American box office week championship for the first time (9.86 million US dollars), and finally broke the box office record of non-Hollywood films in North America (32.4 million US dollars).It can be seen that it was Zou Wenhuai’s insight that brought Hong Kong films into the mainstream market of the United States!

In addition, Jackie Chan also established Jiahe’s satellite company "Weihe Film Company" with the support of Zou Wenhuai. At that time, he invested more than 30 million Hong Kong dollars () when he was filming, and more than 69 million Hong Kong dollars ("Miracle") or even 100 million Hong Kong dollars ().

Even in the 1990s, when he invested HK$ 200 million () and HK$ 170 million (), Golden Harvest did everything right. It can be seen that Jackie Chan can become an international superstar, thanks to the support of Zou Wenhuai, He Guanchang and Golden Harvest.

Japan sets a precedent

In the early 1970s, thanks to Bruce Lee films, Zou Wenhuai began to join hands with Japan’s Dongbao Donghe Company to distribute Jiahe Hong Kong films in Japan.

Originally, the two sides cooperated happily, but Zou Wenhuai never dared to talk to his good friend, the publisher of Donghe, Chuan Xi, about how long to make a play, that is.Jingwumen.

Chuan Xiduo kept asking Zou Wenhuai why he didn’t give the play to him for distribution in Japan. Zou Wenhuai asked, "Do you know this story? The Japanese will scold you to death when they read it. Why do you want to publish it? "

Chuan Xiduo’s answer is: "At that time, there were many Japanese with bad intentions and did many things that should not be done. These plays are for today’s young people (in Japan), and it’s good to be vigilant. If there is any negative reaction, I will take full responsibility. " As a result,Such a Hong Kong film that beat the Japanese out of the water has a box office of 1.09 billion yen in Japan!

It was released in Japan in 1973, with a box office of 3 billion yen. Since then, it has set off a kung fu film boom in Japan, and it has been called "by Japanese film critics"Zero years of Hong Kong films in Japan”。

Not to mention nearly 30 Hong Kong Kung Fu films introduced to Japan in those years, Japanese TV stations even broadcast Hong Kong Kung Fu films in the golden age, and even many "Kung Fu stars" appeared in Japanese film circles … These achievements are inseparable from the efforts of Zou Wenhuai and Jiahe to open the Japanese market with Hong Kong films.

From the late 1970s to the 1980s, under the control of Zou Wenhuai,Michael HuiandJackie ChanThey were introduced to the Japanese market, and the former was "MR.BOO (the person who deserves to be booed)"As a box office hit in Japan, not only is" Half a catty and 82 liang "very popular in Japanese with Cantonese soundtrack, but even the theme song is widely sung in Tokyo.

Not to mention the latter, its starring Hong Kong film.It has entered the top ten foreign language films in Japan for eight times, and the cumulative box office in Japan in the 1980s alone exceeded 30 billion yen.. Therefore, when it comes to the achievements of Chinese films in Japan, Zou Wenhuai can’t avoid them.

The only merit in North America

In 1976, Zou Wenhuai couldn’t satisfy the Hong Kong and Asian markets, so he set up a western film production department for Jiahe to shoot foreign language films.

Prior to this, Jiahe also co-produced enter the dragon with Warner Corporation of the United States.At a cost of about $700,000, it was exchanged for the amazing box office of $25 million (the tenth annual box office) in North America that year.For this market, it is natural to seize the initiative.

In 1981, the western film invested by Jiahe became the sixth annual box office in North America in 1981 with US$ 72 million, and the global box office exceeded US$ 100 million, making it one of Jiahe’s most successful works in the North American market.

In 1987, Zou Wenhuai even made a decision to start filming "The Ninja Turtle". At that time, his idea was that a unique action film could be made easily and cheaply by using Hong Kong dragon and tiger martial artists to wear turtle masks and costumes.

After the film was finished, Hollywood blockbusters were initially reluctant to release it. As a result, Zou Wenhuai found a new line company that earned box office by independently producing horror films for a long time. As a result, the box office of Ninja Turtle in North America exceeded 135 million US dollars, which not only ranked in the top five of the annual box office, but also promoted the new line from a third-rate distribution to a top distributor in Hollywood. In other words, Jiahe "completed" the position of New Line in Hollywood in 1990s!

Of course, in the 1980s, Jiahe also produced and released Jackie Chan’s first foreign language film, which was released in North America. Although it won the North American box office week championship, it ended up with just over 8 million dollars, which was a waterloo for Jackie Chan.

Fortunately, Zou Wenhuai and Jiahe persisted, and finally successfully brought Jackie Chan to North America with "Hong Fan District" in 1996. In the following years, Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong films invested by Jiahe accumulated more than 100 million US dollars at the box office in North America.

"split accounts" from the mainland

Before 1993, because the mainland film market was a system of unified purchase and marketing, there were neither cinemas nor clear box office statistics. But in other markets, the box office is linked to the income of the sub-account.

In 1993, Jiahe and Wu Siyuan talked with the mainland film department about starting the accounting system. Finally, Jiahe produced it."Huang Feihong’s Lion King for hegemony" became the first film in the mainland to be released in "local accounting", Jiahe can share the box office profits of the film released in Jiangsu (including Shanghai) and become the pioneer of the sub-account system in the mainland.

In 1995, "Hong Fan District" became the first Hong Kong-made film to be released on a large scale in the Mainland in the form of "separate account introduction", which was also the second part of the mainland’s new policy of allowing 10 foreign films to be imported each year (the first part was Hollywood). As a result,Not only did it become the box office champion of Chinese films with a box office of 95 million RMB, but it also pioneered the concepts of "New Year’s film" and "Spring Festival file" in the mainland, which was far-reaching.

In the following years, Jackie Chan’s films produced by Golden Harvest have repeatedly sold in the mainland, which also led Zou Wenhuai to announce the establishment of "Golden Harvest China Film Fund" to invest in filming mainland films, which shows that Zou Wenhuai and Golden Harvest are both great heroes in the history of the development of the mainland film market.

Genre film trend

In addition to foreign markets, Zou Wenhuai and its Golden Harvest have also created several Chinese genre films.

First of all, in 1985, with an investment of 8.5 million yuan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and even Japan all made a hit, creating a classic trend of "zombie movies" for more than 30 years, which is a myth.

In 1991, Jiahe cooperated with Johnny Mak, and the box office in Hong Kong reached 39 million, which opened the trend of "gangster biographies" for Hong Kong films.

In the same year, Golden Harvest’s films were a big hit in Hong Kong, with a box office of nearly HK$ 30 million, which once again set off a craze for martial arts films in Hong Kong, and the "Huang Feihong" series became a gold-painted signboard for Chinese martial arts.

In 1996, Jing Wong, Wen Juan and Liu Weiqiang cooperated with Jiahe to shoot the "Young and Dangerous" series and,The former is still one of the most sentimental series for Chinese audiences, and the latter is of great significance in bringing Chinese films into the era of computer special effects.

Speaking of the myth of "zombie film" created by Jiahe, we should also mention Sammo Hung, which has been owned by Jiahe since the early 1970s. In 1974, Hong Kong Kung Fu films were at a low ebb due to the death of Bruce Lee, and Sammo Hung didn’t have a job at that time. In addition, he was going to be a father, and he almost turned to be a chef for a living.

However, when Zou Wenhuai and He Guanchang learned about it, they took the initiative to lend him 4,000 Hong Kong dollars every month, and borrowed it for a whole year, which made Sammo Hung grateful to this day, so he said: "I can charge a high price for filming outside, but I only charge 1/3 of the price in Jiahe, and I want to repay this feeling."Therefore, as the producer of "Mr. Zombie", Sammo Hung took his team to create a trend, and really gave Zou Wenhuai and others a "return the favor".

Champion record king

Since Zou Wenhuai established Golden Harvest, it has been the Hong Kong film company with the largest annual box office and record.Hong Kong’s box office records have been broken by Big Brother Tangshan (71), Jingwumen (72), Raptors Crossing the River (72), Ghost Horse and Double Star (74), Half a catty and eight taels (76), Little Brother Out (80), (85) and (87).

Among them, Half a catty and The Simple Task became the highest-grossing Hong Kong films in the 1970s and 1990s, respectively. In addition, Golden Harvest also dominated the overall box office in Hong Kong in these two years, namely, Half a catty (8.53 million) and Deed of Sale (7.82 million), and Simple Task (57.51 million) and Hongfan District.

The superstars include Bruce Lee, Xu Shi Brothers, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Stephen Chow. Why are they all willing to film for Jiahe?

A major reason is also the evaluation when the Academy Awards awarded the "Lifetime Achievement Award" to Zou Wenhuai:Jiahe’s films with Hong Kong characteristics are popular all over the world, and films all over the world are scrambling to learn from them, which has far-reaching influence.

Record-breaking award

In 1997, produced by Jiahe and directed by Chen Kexin won nine awards at the 16th Hong Kong Film Awards.It is still the award-winning record of Hong Kong films..

In fact, the "UFO Filmmakers Company" that Chen Kexin had previously participated in was also funded by Jiahe for their development, so that many unique middle-class movies could be made in the 1990s.

Jiahe has won many top honors "Best Film" at the Hong Kong Academy Awards., including (the first action film that won the best film), Lame Howe, Woman Forty, Sweet Honey, etc.

There are not a few people who star in Jiahe movies and the golden statue is the best actress.Among them, Maggie Cheung and Xiao Fangfang became the first and second Chinese stars to win the Berlin film, which can be said to win glory for their peers.

The legend ends

In 1998, the land of Jiahe’s studio in Axe Hill Road, Tseung Kwan O was recovered by the government. Later, he wanted to bid for the new studio in Tseung Kwan O, but due to the layout of Jing Wong, he joined forces with six film companies to compete for the land, which made Jiahe defeated.

In fact, Shaw is the driving force behind the scenes, so it can be seen that Shaw’s heart is still tied to Zou Wenhuai, and finally Jiahe can only give up the studio.

Therefore, even though "The Storm Dominates the World" became the annual box office champion, Zou Wenhuai was unwilling to fight.

What’s more, before this, He Guanchang, an "ally", had passed away, and the cooperation between Jackie Chan and Jiahe was coming to an end. Finally, after the cooperation with accidental spy (1999) and Zou Wenhuai, Jackie Chan also parted ways.

In 2003, Jiahe stopped the production business after making the last film. A few years ago, Zou Wenhuai sold the film library and the copyright of his films. In 2007, he sold all his shares to the orange sky entertainment Group in the Mainland, becoming today’s "Chengtian Jiahe”。

Although the four gold bricks are still preserved, they have nothing to do with Zou Wenhuai. In this regard, he only believes that Jiahe is not his family business after all, and even if it is sold, it will not regret it. …

Now Zou Wenhuai’s death has truly declared the end of Jiahe legend.

Looking back on the contributions made by Zou Wenhuai and Jiahe to Hong Kong films, we know that,Whether he changed the style of Hong Kong’s film industry, or he was the leader of Hong Kong’s film golden age, or movie mogul in the Chinese world, or even the strongest "promoter" of Chinese superstars, it seems that it is not enough to describe Mr. Zou’s position in his heart.

Just because of this moment, he bid farewell to his film kingdom with our irreplaceable "love knot" for Hong Kong films for many years, and that gratitude and nostalgia never faded.

Thank you, Mr Zou Wenhuai!