They premiered The New One-Armed Swordsman on Chinese New Year 1971, starring Ti Lung and David Chiang and debuted Chen Kuan-tai’s Boxer From Shantung (72) on New Year’s, as well as Heroes Two (74), before they basically ceded the slot to Lau Kar-leung in 1977 starting with Executioners from Shaolin, followed by The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (78), Spiritual Boxer, Part 2 (79), My Young Auntie (81), Legendary Weapons of China (82), The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (84), and Martial Arts of Shaolin (86), which was basically the last movie Shaw ever produced. For Shaw Brothers, New Year mostly meant kung fu movies. Not for export, aimed at the hometown Hong Kong audience, they’re fun for the whole family, full of hyper-local humor, sloppy but high-spirited filmmaking, mah-jongg games, big stars acting like idiots, musical sequences, blackface, cross-dressing, and the occasional rape joke.īefore the Chinese New Year movie became its own genre, the holiday was already a big release date for films. But unlike Christmas or summer release dates, Chinese New Year movies are their own genre. Work is canceled, relatives are visited, married couples distribute red envelopes full of cash to any unmarried people who wish them “ Kung Hei Fat Choi!” and some of the year’s biggest movies get released. Kung Hei Fat Choi! Sometime between late January and early February, the Chinese New Year holiday lands like an atom bomb.
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