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Originally Posted by Nanyang Man  Yep! Although the Shaw Studios get gushed about by (predominantly kungfu) fanboys all over the internet, since the library finally started to see legitimate release on DVD commencing December '02, like any major studio they definitely harboured their fare share of turkeys -- and there's some of those selfsame kungfu "classics" that line up as prime examples.
Indeed, a lot of their late period productions from the eighties, before they folded their theatrical wing circa '85, were pretty dire (the late eighties through mid-nineties productions don't really count, as the majority of what ended up released on DVD were actually films from Mona Fong's Cosmopolitan Films company re-branded with the Shaw Brothers logo as "genuine" Shaw titles -- they weren't, but as Fong was Sir Run Run's business partner and spouse, her company's productions appear to have reverted ownership to Shaw once it, too, folded). Titles like Godfather from Canton and Carry On Doctors and Nurses are low-tier B-flicks that seem more like program fillers, as well as dated relics, when viewed from a contemporary standpoint.
I enjoyed a lot of the non-genre stuff from the sixties (ie: the operas, dramas, weepies, musicals etc.), but I readily admit that few of those really hold up for modern viewers unless you're really a diehard nostalgia buff or harbour a strong interest in HK cinema history of the era. |
I absolutely love te SB s Kung Fu stuff but I find most of their really fun stuff is outside the Kung Fu genre.