Orange Sky Golden Harvest

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Orange Sky Golden Harvest
Type Public company
Industry Film production
Founded 1970
Founder(s) Raymond Chow<br/ >Leonard Ho
Leung Fung
Headquarters 16th floor, The Peninsula Office Tower
18 Middle Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong[1]
Key people Raymond Chow
Leonard Ho
Products movies
Website http://www.goldenharvest.com
Orange Sky Golden Harvest
Simplified Chinese 橙天嘉禾娱乐集团有限公司
Traditional Chinese 橙天嘉禾娛樂集團有限公司

Orange Sky Golden Harvest (OSGH) (Chinese: 橙天嘉禾娛樂集團有限公司) SEHK: 1132 is a film production, distribution, and exhibition company based in Hong Kong. It dominated Hong Kong box office sales from the 1970s to 1980s[2] and played a major role in introducing Hong Kong films to the Western market, especially those by Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.

History

Notable names in the company include its founders, the veteran film producers Raymond Chow (鄒文懐) and Leonard Ho (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 what really put the company on the map 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 the 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. Golden Harvest has also produced a number of films for Jet Li and Donnie Yen.

The Company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1994. Li Ka-shing and EMI became shareholder of the company in 2004.

Golden Harvest's activity has declined in recent years. In 2003, they withdrew from film-making to concentrate on film financing, distribution and cinema management in Hong Kong and in Mainland China.

In 2007, Raymond Chow sold the company to Chinese businessman Wu Kebo, who owns the China-based Orange Sky Entertainment Group. In early 2009, Golden Harvest merged with Orange Sky and was renamed Orange Sky Golden Harvest (橙天嘉禾娛樂集團有限公司).[3]

In 2009, Golden Harvest announced their relaunch and previewed a new trailer set for movies in 2010.

Cinemas

See also: List of cinemas in Hong Kong
Entrance to Grand Ocean Cinema at Harbour City

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 Cinemas 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.

Films produced

Main article: List of Golden Harvest productions

See also

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

Notes

  1. ↑ Golden Harvest Official website: Contact Us - Office Address
  2. ↑ Chu, Yingchi. [2003] (2003). Hong Kong Cinema: Coloniser, Motherland and Self. Routledge. ISBN 0700717463
  3. ↑ Pollard, Mark. "Golden Harvest aims high for studio revival". kungfucinema.com. 

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