Golden Harvest
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Golden Harvest (Chinese: 嘉禾) SEHK: 1132 is a film production, distribution, and exhibition company based in Hong Kong.
Notable names in the company include its founders, the veteran film producers Raymond Chow (born 1 January 1929) (鄒文懐) and Leonard Ho Koon Cheung (何冠昌). Chow and Ho were executives with Hong Kong's top studio, Shaw Brothers, but left in 1970 to form their own studio. They succeeded by taking a different approach from the highly centralized Shaws model. Golden Harvest contracted with independent producers and gave talent more generous pay and greater creative freedom. Some filmmakers and actors from Shaws defected. But the making of the company was a 1971 deal with soon-to-be martial arts superstar Bruce Lee, after he had turned down the low-paying, standard contract offered him by Shaws.
In 1973, Golden Harvest entered into a pioneering co-production with Hollywood for the English-language Lee film Enter the Dragon (龍爭虎鬥), a worldwide hit made with the Warner Brothers studio.
Golden Harvest supplanted Shaw Brothers as Hong Kong's dominant studio by the end of the '70s and retained that position into the '90s. Its greatest asset for years was that from the 1980s until very recently, it produced almost all of the films of Jackie Chan, Asia's top box office star. Golden Harvest has also produced a number of films for Jet Li and Donnie Yen.
Golden Harvest's activity has declined in recent years, and the company now produce fewer than five films a year. Cinema management in Hong Kong and in Mainland China is now Golden Harvest's primary business activity.
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[edit] Cinemas
It has cinemas not only in Hong Kong, but in Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. Most of these are joint ventures. Golden Village is a joint venture with Village Roadshow and there is a Gold Class cinema and Asia's first multiplex. In Malaysia, the group has two brands. One is Golden Screen a joint venture with Malaysia's PPB group. The other is TGV Cinemas (formerly Tanjong Golden Village), which is a joint venture between Tanjong plc and GEMS of Malaysia. It has recently acquired Warner Village in Taiwan.
The group operates 5 cinemas in Hong Kong.
[edit] Golden Harvest Cinemas in Hong Kong
- Grand Ocean (in Ocean Centre, Harbour City)
- Golden Gateway (in The Gateway, Harbour City)
- New York (in Causeway Bay) (Closed already)
- GH Mongkok
- GH Hollywood (in Plaza Hollywood, Diamond Hill)
- GH Tsing Yi
[edit] Films Produced
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
- Shaolin Temple
- Once Upon A Time in China
- Once Upon A Time in China 2
- Once Upon A Time in China 3
- Police Story
- Police Story 2
- Police Story 3
- Police Story 4: First Strike
- Crime Story
- Dragons Forever
- Project A
- Project A Part II
- The Big Boss
- Fist of Fury
- Way of the Dragon
- Game Of Death
- Wheels on Meals
- The Cannonball Run
- Cannonball Run 2
- Megaforce
- High Road to China
- Lassiter
- Speed Zone
- One Armed Boxer
- A Man Called Tiger
- When Taekwondo Strikes
- The Skyhawk
- Last Hurrah For Chivalry
- Duel to the Death
- The Amsterdam Kill
- Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind
- The Storm Riders
- Till Death Do Us Part
- You Shoot, I Shoot
- Heart Of Dragon
- Rumble in the Bronx
- Dragon Lord
- Summer Snow
- The Blade
- Ah Kam
- Viva Erotica
- Hu-Du-Men
- When I Fall in Love... with Both
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-674-00214-8
- Teo, Stephen. Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions. London: British Film Institute, 1997. ISBN 0-85170-514-6
- Yang, Jeff. Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese Cinema. New York: Atria, 2003. ISBN 0-7434-4817-0
