By 1957, Shaw Brothers Ltd. had maneuvered its way from a movie-theater business in pre-revolutionary Shanghai into a globally dominating, vertically integrating film factory. Incorporating action choreography extracted from the acrobatic stagecraft of Peking Opera into every filmic genre (most famously for the unrestrained wuxia film), Shaw Studios created an entirely new film language – something David Bordwell calls a “kinetic arousal of silent-cinema technique.” Heavily stylized aesthetics, awe-inspiring athletic feats, craftily edited camera movement, vivid color and melodrama galore flowed together into perfectly spectacular popular entertainment.

Between their production facilities’ move to Hong Kong in 1957, the introduction of anamorphic lenses, the shifting of permissible standards concerning sex and violence, and the Shaw studio’s knack for genre fusion, they firmly established themselves as the premier source of filmed entertainment in China. At its prolific peak, the studio was producing roughly forty titles a year. By 1970, wuxia swordplay films were the cornerstone of the studio’s output, mixing formal elegance with elements of pulp, fantasy, and exploitation.

The clamorous fanfare and drums that accompany the studio’s logo (cheekily lifted from the Warners) act as a clarion call to action film aficionados to buckle up and brace themselves for another bold, beautiful, and occasionally bizarre foray into the fantastic. Newcomers to kung fu and die-hard genre-heads, we entreat you to join us and discover four of your new favorite films: Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972), Come Drink with Me (1966), Golden Swallow (1968), and One-Armed Swordsman (1967).

Description courtesy of Morgan Akana