Film studies: A reel action hero

Golden Harvest without Raymond Chow would once have been unthinkable. His departure from the studio he co-founded in 1970 is emblematic of the huge changes the entertainment industry has undergone in the past decade, and underlines the impact Chow once had on the film industry.

For many people, Hong Kong cinema is synonymous with kung fu. And to many, kung fu is synonymous with the variety practised by Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, two of the most famous Chinese personalities in the world.

As a guiding hand behind Golden Harvest, Chow (right) was instrumental in transforming Lee and Chan into stars and propagating the image of Hong Kong pictures as 'chopsocky', a style Wikipedia describes as 'characterised by overblown story lines, cheesy special effects and excessive violence'.

Yet this stereotype doesn't begin to describe the depth of Chow's contribution, or the variety of features bearing his name. At the end of the 1970s he was an early champion of John Woo Yu-sum and Yuen Woo-ping, two filmmakers who would play a significant part in reshaping Hollywood's action style. Golden Harvest also helped pioneer the genre of kung fu comedy made famous by Chan and Sammo Hung Kam-bo.

But even in the 1970s, Chow and his studio made much more than just martial arts, notably the hit Hui brothers comedies, which ushered in a new era of Cantonese-language cinema.

A keen spotter of talent when it might prove profitable, prestigious or both, he promoted so-called New Wave auteurs such as Patrick Tam Ka-ming and Tsui Hark and artsy fare such as Edward Yang De-chang's The Terrorisers (1986). Despite the studio's macho image, he didn't shy from financing female directors, such as Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting and Ann Hui On-wah.