The Celestial's Shaw Brothers Film Library is the World's Largest Chinese Film Library consisting of over 760 feature films originally released over a forty-year time frame from the 1950s to the 1990s produced by

Shaw Brothers Studio Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. () was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, and operated from 1925 to 2011. In 1925, three Shaw brothers— Runje, Runme, and Runde—founded Tianyi Film Company (also called "Unique") in Shangh ...

. The genres of the library range from Kung Fu, Action, Martial Arts, Erotica, Comedy, Horror, Situation Drama, Musical, Period Drama, Thriller, etc. Celestial's Shaw Brothers Film Library is a wholly owned film library by

Celestial Pictures Celestial Pictures is a diversified entertainment company focusing on Asian-language film and television content including production, aggregation, distribution and the operation of TV channels. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the company owns the ...

Everlasting Masterpieces Digital-Remastered since 2002

Until Celestial Pictures restored the films from their original negatives and released them on DVD beginning in 2002, very few titles from the Shaw Brothers film archive had previously appeared in any electronic multimedia form since their original cinema release in 50s-90s. State of the art digital technologies are employed to restore each and every frame - 150,000 on average - for every film. Film fans around the world are then made access to some of the best Chinese's films ever produced with all sound and picture quality even more stunning than the original cinematic prints.

Shaw Brothers Actors & Actresses

A-list lineup of film stars is one of the major attractions of the Celestial's Shaw Brothers Film Library. Many of whom still dominate the pan-Asian film industry, including

Jet Li Li Lianjie (courtesy name Yangzhong; born 26 April 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese film actor, film producer, Chinese martial arts, martial artist, and retired wushu (sport), Wushu champion. He is a naturalized Singapo ...

Chow Yun-fat Chow Yun-fat (born 18 May 1955), previously known as Donald Chow, is a Hong Kong actor. He is perhaps best known for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the five Hong Kong action heroic bloodshed films: ''A Better Tomorrow'', ''A Be ...

Stephen Chow Stephen Chow Sing-chi (, born 22 June 1962), known professionally as Stephen Chow, is a Hong Kong filmmaker, former actor and comedian, known for ''Shaolin Soccer'' and ''Kung Fu Hustle''. Early life and education Stephen Chow was born in British ...

Gordon Liu Gordon Liu (Lau Kar-fai ); born Sin Kam-hei () August 22, 1951) is a Chinese martial arts film actor and martial artist. He played the lead role of San Te in ''The 36th Chamber of Shaolin'' (1978) and its sequels, and later played two roles in Qu ...

, Cheng Pei-pei,

Maggie Cheung Maggie Cheung Man-yuk (; born 20 September 1964) is a Hong Kong former actress. Raised in Hong Kong and Britain, she started her career after placing second in 1983's Miss Hong Kong Pageant. She achieved critical success in the late 1980s and in ...

, and

Andy Lau Andy Lau Tak-wah (; born 27 September 1961) is a Hong Kong actor, singer-songwriter and film producer. He has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maint ...

Shaw Brothers Directors & Crew

The Shaw Brothers Studio also nurtured the careers of many modern talented and high-profile filmmakers, including

John Woo John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (; born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly-influential figure in the action film genre. He was a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films (a crime action film genre involving Chinese triads) and the gun fu ...

, Yuen Woo Ping and Tony Ching Siu-tung. The studio's legendary martial-arts directors include but not limited to,

Chang Cheh Chang Cheh (; 10 February 1923 – 22 June 2002) was a Chinese people, Chinese filmmaker, screenwriter, lyricist and producer active in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Chang Cheh directed more than 90 films in Greater China, the majority of them wi ...

King Hu Hu Jinquan (29 April 1932 – 14 January 1997), better known as King Hu, was a Chinese film director and actor based in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He is best known for directing various ''wuxia'' films in the 1960s and 1970s, which brought Hong Kong ...

Liu Chia-liang Lau Kar-leung (28 July 1934 – 25 June 2013), was a Chinese actor, filmmaker, choreographer, and martial artist from Hong Kong. Lau is best known for the films he made in the 1970s and 1980s for the Shaw Brothers Studio. His most famous wo ...

and

Chu Yuan Chu Yuan (褚淵) (435–482), courtesy name Yanhui (彥回), formally Duke Wenjian of Nankang (南康文簡公), was a high-level official of the Chinese dynasties Liu Song and Southern Qi. Background Chu Yuan was from an aristocratic family. ...

. Its distinguished martial-arts styles continue to influence action films around the world.

Lists of genres in the library

* Kung Fu - Action *Kung Fu - Martial Arts *Erotica *Comedy *Horror *Drama *Musical *Period Drama *Thriller

References

Corrected links as of 27 September 2010. # Celestial Pictures (2009), About Shaw Brothers, retrieved on 27 September 2010

# Celestial Pictures (2009), Celestial Pictures - Download Catalogue, retrieved on 27 September 2010

Shaw Brothers Studio films, Film organisations in Hong Kong {{film-org-stub