Drama

With years of experience in the cinema business in Southeast Asia, Shaw Brothers had a firm grasp of the tastes of the Nanyang audience. The movie scene in post-war Hong Kong and Southeast Asia was marked by a high proportion of women filmgoers, so wenyi (drama) and lunli (ethics) films became market hits, with sob-stories securing a steady female fan-following. In fact, even in the early days of Shaw & Sons Limited (Shaw and Sons), Runde Shaw had produced a number of famous drama and wenyi (drama) titles, including Love and Duty and Romance of Western Chamber (Remake). After taking charge in Hong Kong in 1957, Run Run Shaw recruited Yueh Feng, Doe Chin and the up-and-coming Li Han-hsiang as directors to make a number of wenyi (drama) films featuring ethics and love themes. They included Li Han-hsiang’s Rear Entrance (1959), Doe Chin’s Love without End (B/W) (1961), The Blue and the Black (1966), with the latter two catapulting Linda Lin Dai to superstardom. This wenyi (drama) tradition was kept alive in Shaw Studios, with Pan Lei’s Love without End (Remake) (1970) and Tomorrow is Another Day (1969), and later Chin Chien’s Till the End of Time (1966) successively enthralling the audience. Film critics had even described Yueh Feng, Tao Qin, Pan Lei and Chin Chien as the “four great wenyi (drama) film directors” at Shaw’s.