When talking about Chinese Kungfu films, the first to come to the minds of U.S. viewers may no longer be Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and those featuring Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
There will be many more possibilities from September, as a U.S. film company said recently that it spent US$84 million on Chinese kungfu films from the Shaw Brothers Film Co. Ltd. (HK). It plans to start screening them in the U.S. from September.
The name of the U.S. film company was not specified in local media.
Shaw Brothers Film Co. Ltd. said it has stored many kungfu films as good as Jackie Chan's Shanghai Noon and A Good Man in its film bank. Most of them were made between 1950 and 1970 when martial arts films were most popular in Hong Kong. Those it sold to the U.S. company are only part of them.
Shaw has long been a promoter of Chinese films in western countries.
(eastday.com July 4, 2002)
