Golden Studios - Then and Now

As a long-time HK film fan, Golden Studios holds particular interest for me because it was the filming/production location of many classic kung fu and action films during the 70's and 80's. Golden Studios was, of course, the name of the studios owned and operated by Golden Harvest. Sadly the studios are no longer around, but below is an aerial photo of the area in Diamond Hill where the studio was located so that at least we can see where it was in relation to the area now.

This aerial picture was taken during October 1973 (from 1700 ft), not long after Bruce Lee - Golden Harvest's break out star - had died and also not too long after Golden Harvest took over the studios in late 1971.

The studio lot is the triangular area in the top right. I’ve oriented the photo so that east is at the top, it makes viewing easier I feel, but in reality remember that really the picture should be rotated 90 degrees to the right. The lot was demarcated by hills to the top and right (east and south) and a stream to the left (north) and the point where the stream meets the road is where the studio’s front gateway was.

The large road at the bottom is Hammer Hill Road, with the smaller King Tung Street leading from Hammer Hill Rd up to the studio gates. Here’s another close up version of the picture showing you these points.

The large rectangular block in the middle is the main studio block which contained the two main sound stages: A & B. A was on the right side, B on the left. In front of the main studio block is a car park - a familiar sight to any Bruce Lee fans because he had quite a few pictures taken here. I guess the other buildings are a mix of offices, dubbing studio, film development labs, editing suites, costume dept and the like, but which one was which? Sorry, I don't know at this time. The buildings close to the main road at the bottom were part of "Asia Film Studio", a seemingly separate company that was, in fact, still part of the Cathay Organisation, but when Cathay sold the studios to Golden Harvest, the Asia Film buildings were taken over by Salon (remember them?).

So anyway, what happened?

Raymond Chow (and his two colleagues Leonard Ho and Leung Fung) left Shaw Bros in 1970. The accepted story is that Raymond in particular was upset because his main rival, Mona Fong - ex-singer and Sir Run Run Shaw's love interest - had been promoted over him and essentially became his boss and the holder of the purse strings.

So, Chow took a little bit of money and some film talent with him and set up the new company based on a more western-style studio model - whereby Golden Harvest provided funding and production facilities to independent film companies on a project-by-project basis. Golden Harvest would then distribute the films around Asia. This was vastly different to the Shaw model which basically controlled everything from inception to production and distribution and kept all its staff on fixed salary terms and contracts.

This was the initial intention at least, but the first few productions that Golden Harvest were involved with appear to be mainly funding and distribution deals, or were self-produced and shot overseas, because the company lacked the studio space and post-production facilities. When Bruce Lee was first signed to Golden Harvest in 1971, the company had yet to procure any studio space of their own and so Lee's initial movie, The Big Boss, was shot mainly in Thailand with studio scenes (such as the famous alleyway cart scene) completed at Wader Studios in Tsuen Wan - an independent studio facility available for hire. Golden Studios didn't come into being until October 1971, the same month The Big Boss was released. The physical studios did exist of course, but were still owned by the Cathay Organisation (formerly MP&GI) at the time.

As it turned out, Golden Harvest's future was inextricably linked with the fate of both the Wader studios and Cathay.

In 1964, following the 11th Asia Film Festival in Taipei, William Hu (the owner of Wader) and Loke Wan Tho (chairman of Cathay) were both killed in a plane crash, near Taichung, on the way back to Hong Kong. The death of these two pioneering film moguls was the trigger that saw a decline in the fortunes of both companies. For Cathay the decision was taken in 1970/71 to pull out of the Hong Kong film market and concentrate on their more familar South East Asian markets (Singapore, Malaysia etc). This also meant disposing with their studio facilities which they had bought off Yung Hwa Motion Pictures in 1955. Enter Golden Harvest, who struck a deal with Cathay to take over the lease of the studio and in return Cathay would have the south east asian distribution rights to future GH productions. In a time before home entertainment, this meant Golden Harvest productions would be shown on Cathay circuit cinemas. Shaw's had already established a large cinema network outside of Hong Kong long before it set up its production unit in Hong Kong.

In terms of the impact for Golden Harvest on the demise of Wader, the sale and redevelopment of the studio site in 1973 (one of the last films to shoot there was Das Mädchen von Hongkong) meant that Golden Harvest now owned one of the biggest studio spaces outside of Shaws Movietown and could provide filming and post-production facilities for not only their own productions but other companies too.

And so the golden age of Hong Kong cinema was ready to begin.

The GH Logo 1978 - 2003 (Source: wiki)

Golden Harvest's business model encouraged filmmakers to set up their own production companies and would provide, to some extent or another (it varied from project to project) funding, studio space, set design, crew expertise, editing and other post-production facilities (such as ADR/dubbing), and in return Golden Harvest would be responsible for distribution. In other words, Golden Harvest provided the infrastructure and the filmmakers provided the creativity. Most importantly, it gave filmmakers more freedom compared to the Shaws system which strictly controlled everything from initial script to final distribution. In some instances, Golden Harvest formed co-ventures with some of its artists as part of their "star" project, so artists such as Lo Wei, Bruce Lee, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan Michael Hui etc could be more directly rewarded for wellperforming films. This also led to a large number of satellite production companies in which Golden Harvest had an interest/owned shares (e.g Concord with Bruce Lee, Bojon with Sammo Hung etc).

This flexible production system worked well and by the end of the 1970s Golden Harvest were outstripping Shaws in box office. By the early 1980s, Shaws had lost so much ground to not only Golden Harvest but a bunch of other new production companies (Cinema City, Seasonal, Bang Bang etc) and decided to move away from film production to concentrate on television with its TVB company. Golden Harvest had effectively changed the nature of the industry in Hong Kong and they appeared to be unstoppable.

And then it all went wrong.

In March 1997, the Hong Kong Govt announced, unilaterally it seems, that it intended to resume the land used by Golden Studios in order to build a subsidised housing estate. This led to a bidding war between Golden Harvest and Shaw Bros for a new studio site located in Tseung Kwan O. It appears Sir Run Run Shaw may have finally exacted some sort of payback on his former wayward executives by winning the bid for the site. This is the site located on Pak Shing Kok Road now occupied by the "new" Shaw Studios complex. By August 1998, Golden Harvest were a film company with no studio and things went downhill fairly quickly from there.

The company had already sold a large portion of its library to Star TV (later renamed Fortune Star) in 1993 and went bankrupt soon after - Paragon, the film production company of GH ceased operations at this time and was wound up. GH later re-established its production later under the auspices of one of its other network of limited companies, Golden Harvest Entertainment. Such is the complexity of the limited company system in Hong Kong but this was essentially how GH was able to operate afterwards. Following the loss of the studio site, a further 172 titles were sold to Warner Bros (and frustratingly, many of them are still sitting in the WB archives, unreleased).

Golden Harvest physically relinquished the site in 1998 and seemingly just left everything there. The Government did nothing with it for another year or so leaving the place, and all its uncollected film-making artifacts, out in the sun - a free-for-all for any souvenir hunters who were able to make their way into the site. There are stories of cans of film being left to rot as well as an abundance of old machinary, props and pieces of set. What wasn't saved no doubt found its way to one of Hong Kong's several landfills.

The estate, Kingsford Terrace, was completed and on sale by 2003, the same year that Golden Harvest officially released its last film, My Lucky Star. However, due to the SARS crisis it was immediately withdrawn from sale and proceeded to stand empty for several more years. In the meantime, Golden Harvest moved out of film production and into cinema management and Raymond Chow eventually sold his controlling stake in the company (as well as his personal rights in about another 39 movies) to Orange Sky.

Orange Sky Golden Harvest has gone on to produce a few more films in recent years but the halcyon days of the Hong Kong film industry and the company's role in it has long gone, just like the old studios.

Unfortunately, in terms of logging the changes at the old studio site, GoogleEarth is a little disappointing in that there is no imagery available between 2002 and 2003 as the site was being constructed, and instead we get a big gap until 2008 - after the site was already completed. Anyway, here are some of the GoogleEarth snaps over the past few years showing the same orientation (i.e. top is east).

Year 2000

The high-rises along King Tung St had actually been built several years before (around 1984) and are called Sun Lai Garden and had already replaced Asia Film Studios/Salon. So, even before the GH lot was developed, the studio area was slowly being surrounded by high-rises, making outdoor filming of period pictures slightly troublesome. This may have been one of the reasons for the creation of their own "Chinese" street set in 1979, allowing certain angles and building tops to hide the nearby high rises. If you have seen Magnificent Butcher then you will be familiar with the set. I think it may have been the first film to use it (but I could be wrong). I may do a post on it at a later date showing you where it was in relation to everything else.

Anyway, the above shot shows what looks to be initial site formation but it also looks as though the site boundaries haven’t changed even if the buildings inside have.

Year 2000, later in the year

It looks as though the old stream was filled in (or more likely directed underground) and some semblance of a perimeter wall was being constructed. But you can still see vaguely the shape of where the parking lot was (this was turned into the aforementioned Chinese street set). Film history slowly being removed. Here is a shot the following year.

Year 2001

The following year you can see that the construction of block 5 at the back is already underway and block 4 next to it has also commenced. There would be 5 blocks in total and King Tung St would be extended slightly up the side where the old stream used to be. There is no aerial snaps on Google between the years 2001 and 2008, so the next shot we have is from the latter years when the development was already completed and sold.

Year 2008

The fact that King Tung Street and Hammer Hill Road remain largely unchanged (apart from the extension of King Tung Street I mentioned) gives you a good reference for comparing the 1973 close up and the 2008 snap. I’ve put in the block numbers below.

I initially thought that Block 1 stood near to where the old entrance to Golden Harvest was, but after comparing the above photos it looks like it coincided more with where the current low level podium finishes.

Block 2 pretty much occupies the space where the car lot (and later Chinese street set) and main studio building were, and blocks 3, 4 and 5 occupy what was the rear section of the whole studio complex. 

And finally, a couple of comments from the old blog that I thought were worth keeping. Feel free to add more if you have any memories you can share.

Mark who was lucky enough to visit the site in 1998, left a comment saying...

I visited the GH studios on 24th July 1998 when Jackie Chan was shooting part of the fight scene for RUSH HOUR that was set in the LA Convention centre, with the bomb vest and the large vase.. it was an amazing place! such a shame they knocked it down and built flats instead!

It sounds like Rush Hour might have been the last proper film shot at the studio given that the studio was relinquished the following month.

Martyn Green said...

I remember working there, part-time in early '77 ("part-time" because that's all I could afford to work, as I was also working over-night at Commercial Radio as a news sub-editor!). I was an assembly editor on a film that seemed to have two titles: "The Amsterdam Killing", or "Kill Him In Amsterdam" with Robert Mitchum -- a "hard slugger" apparently, in both senses of the word. I never met him, but I did meet a very down-to-earth MICHAEL HUI, who one day breezed through my cutting room (which was more of a corridor, as his office was at the end!) and casually introduced himself -- as if he wasn't famous at all....

Sadly, I don't remember much else, as it was a long time ago -- and I was usually pretty tired working there after a full eight-hour shift re-writing news stories for Commercial Radio.

I guess I got the job because of my experience in working on British feature films, ten years and more before. I loved the opportunity to work on a film again -- and probably would have done it for FREE... if only they'd known!