In 1922, Runje Shaw, the eldest Shaw brother who had been a lawyer and businessman, was the manager of the theatre Xiao Wutai in Shanghai. Among his colleagues were Zhang Shichuan, Zheng Zhengqiu, and Zhou Jianyun, who co-founded Mingxing Film Company. In 1923 Mingxing released the film Orphan Rescues Grandfather to great commercial success. Inspired by his former colleagues, Shaw established Tianyi Film Company in 1925. He served as general manager and director, while his younger brothers Runde Shaw and Runme Shaw managed accounting and distribution. The youngest brother, Run Run Shaw, did odd jobs for the company.
History
1920s
Tianyi's first film, A Change of Heart, directed by Shao Zuiweng himself and released in 1925, was highly profitable. A shrewd businessman who understood the audiences' preferences, Shao was one of the first Chinese filmmakers to make extensive use of traditional literature, legends, and myths. Tianyi made highly successful genre films, including costume drama, swordplay, and gods and ghosts, inspiring numerous imitations from other studios. The studio's 1925 filmSwordswoman Li Feifei is considered by some as the earliest Chinese martial arts film. In 1926, Tianyi released two highly successful costume dramas: The Lovers, and White Snake, both directed by Shao Zuiweng. In addition to success in the domestic market, White Snake also became the most successful Chinese film in Southeast Asia.
1930s
By the 1930s, Tianyi had become one of the top Chinese film studios, along with Mingxing and Lianhua. Unlike other major studios, which produced politically charged, socially conscious leftist films, Tianyi mainly focussed on making apolitical "entertainment" films. Tianyi was one of the first filmmakers to take the leap from silent films to sound. In 1931, Shao produced A Singer's Story, one of the earliest Chinese sound films, directed by Li Pingqian. The film White Gold Dragon was the first Cantonese languagesound film, inspired by Shao's encounter with Cantonese opera performers in Shanghai; the film was very successful in Hong Kong, Macao and throughout Southeast Asia. Starting in 1934, Tianyi made a series of Mr. Wangcomedy films adapted from the popular comic strip of Ye Qianyu.
Still riding the success of White Gold Dragon Shao moved to Hong Kong with his brother, where the brothers became key figures in establishing Cantonese cinema in Hong Kong. After the Shao brothers recovered from the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and Singapore during World War II, they expanded their film distribution business to include foreign films from the United States, England, France and India.
International expansion
Besides Shanghai, Tianyi also expanded its business to Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. In the mid-1920s, Shao Zuiweng sent Runme and Run Run to Singapore, then part of British Malaya, where they established a company called the Shaw Organisation to distribute films made by Tianyi. Around 1930, the Shaw brothers set up Nanyang Film Studio to produce films. In 1933, Tianyi released White Gold Dragon, the first Cantonese talkie ever produced, which was a commercial success in southern China. Tianyi subsequently established a studio in Hong Kong in 1933–34 to produce Cantonese films. The move to Hong Kong was accelerated by the banning of martial arts films by the Chinese government as these films were thought to be morally decadent and promote superstition, as well as a ban on Cantonese films. Both of these genres were important to Tianyi as they were very popular among the Chinese diaspora communities, and Tianyi exported its Mandarin films produced in Shanghai and Cantonese films produced in Hong Kong throughout Southeast Asia. Its Hong Kong studio was destroyed by a fire in 1936, but Runde Shaw, the second eldest brother, reestablished the business as Nanyang Studio, later renamed Shaw and Sons.
Demise in Shanghai
Just before the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in August 1937, Tianyi shipped its equipment to Hong Kong, and amalgamated the main operation with its Hong Kong branch, Nanyang Studio. Its studio in Shanghai was destroyed when the Japanese occupied the city, and Shao Zuiweng closed Shanghai-based Tianyi. The other major studios of Shanghai, Mingxing and Lianhua, also suffered fatal damage. The Shaws' operations in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia later also suffered setbacks during World War II, when the Japanese confiscated their theatres and imprisoned Run Run Shaw.
Legacy
After World War II and the Communist victory in mainland China, Shao Zuiweng retired from the film industry and stayed in Shanghai. His younger brothers, meanwhile, rebuilt their businesses in Singapore and Hong Kong. When Hong Kong emerged as the new centre for Chinese-language filmmaking, Run Run Shaw moved there from Singapore in 1957, and reorganized the Tianyi operations into Shaw Brothers Studio. Under Sir Run Run's leadership, Shaw Brothers became Hong Kong's largest and most influential film production company from the early 1960s until the mid-1980s. Shaw later concentrated on TVB, which became the dominant television company in Hong Kong.
