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Home , Grand Bauhinia Medal, Mona Fong, Runme Shaw, Run Run Shaw, Shaw Brothers Studio

The Rotarian Shaw Brothers Runme (邵仁枚) and (邵逸夫)

By Herbert K. Lau (劉敬恒) (Rotary Historian) 1 March 2014

Run Run Shaw (邵逸夫) (邵仁枚)

Sir Run Run Shaw (邵逸夫爵士), Kt., G.B.M., C.B.E., was the President 1966-1967 of The Rotary Club of (九龍扶輪社) in , the year when his third elder brother Tan Sri Dr. Runme Shaw (丹斯里邵仁枚博士), K.St.J., D.Litt., was already a former Vice-President of The Rotary Club of (新加坡扶輪社).

Runme Shaw Rotarian Runme Shaw was the chairman and founder of the Shaw Organization of Singapore. Runme and his younger brother Run Run, together known as the Shaw Brothers (邵氏兄弟), were pioneers in the film and entertainment industry in Singapore and Malaya, and brought to life the movie industry in . Runme was also a philanthropist who started the Shaw Foundation, a charitable organization. He was chairman and president of several Singaporean governmental bodies, and patron to many social organizations. He was a patron of the National Kidney Foundation, Metropolitan YMCA, Singapore Association for Mental Health, Singapore National Heart Association, St. John's Council (St. John Ambulance Brigade), Society for Aid to the Paralyzed, Diabetic Society of Singapore, and the Singapore Academy of Medicine. In 1974, he held 2 honors bestowed by Italian President: Knight of the Order of Merit, and Grand Officer of The Order of Merit, Republic of Italy.

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Run Run Shaw Rotarian Run Run Shaw passed away in Hong Kong on 7 January, 2014. In remembering Run Run, Larry Parmanand (彭文龍), Past President of Kowloon Rotary Club, told his fellows: “On 17 November 1966 at the age of 29, I became the youngest member of The Rotary Club of Kowloon. Sir Run Run Shaw was our President in that year. “In those days, the Rotary Club of Kowloon had 80 members and its membership list looked like a WHO’s WHO of Kowloon business and government personalities. It was an incredible personal experience to see the remarkable leadership of Sir Run Run and his Board, and the way they managed the Club’s affairs with professionalism and fun. “Sir Run Run Shaw was very generous in his personal contributions to the Club both financially and with his personal time. It became a tradition that he would bring along to our annual fund raising events a number of movie actresses. I remember making a contribution of HK$500 to the Club’s Community Fund to be able to kiss a movie star’s cheek. (At 29, you can do those things). “With its tradition of fines for members appearing in the news media our Club was quite blessed with Sir Run Run as President. I remember he made a hefty contribution to our Community Fund for appearing in an article in LIFE Magazine entitled《The World of Run Run Shaw》. “Sir Run Run left us as President with a very hard act to follow. But the strength and compassion displayed by Sir Run Run served as a model for later presidents and The Rotary Club of Kowloon has gone on from strength to strength to this day. I believe the strong foundations I had seen from those days continue to form the basis of our Club’s culture.”

The legend with a heart of gold Sir Run Run Shaw was world-renowned for his movie-making exploits, but his philanthropy and work with the Red Cross showed his humanity. In 1966, when Run Run was the Kowloon Rotary Club President, the Society was in trouble. It had no money and even less blood. The Society was desperate. A call went out to Run Run at his movie studios in . Typically, Run Run threw his energy and influence into the effort, staging a gala charity premiere with entry set at HK$1,000 per couple. The Red Cross was stunned. Who could afford such an extravagant price to watch a movie? Run Run held a party at his palatial home on a crest above the studios. Paying HK$1,000 for a good cause was not really all that expensive, he explained to the guests. The cinema was packed. That solved the immediate money problem. But then he started asking questions about the Red Cross.

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When Run Run discovered that ingrained superstition and feudal belief deterred many people from donating blood, he became chairman and made blood collection a personal cause. Swordfight heroes and film starlets trooped out before the cameras to personally donate blood. So did wealthy businessmen and their wives. So did a swelling number of the public as a publicity drive persuaded Hongkongers that giving blood was part of their commitment to society. In 1966, a mere 20,435 units of blood were donated in Hong Kong, largely collected from British soldiers in the local garrison. In 2013, about 170,000 donors, mostly local, gave 247,007 units of blood, the highest total on record. During Run Run’s leadership in Hong Kong Red Cross, spanning for over half a century since his joining in 1961, he had taken the roles of Chairman and President for 26 years, and is the longest presidency in the Society’s history. After he stepped down in 1998, he remained to serve as the Vice Patron for 15 years. Under Run Run’s leadership, Hong Kong Red Cross has started a wide array of services, including blood transfusion service, disaster relief and preparedness, first-aid and health care service, youth and volunteer development, tracing as well as special education and rehabilitation service. It has also become a humanitarian platform well- supported by the public in Hong Kong.

Run Run Shaw (right) inspected the parade by Red Cross youth members in 1970.

In 1983, Run Run was decorated by the Queen’s Badge of Honour -- the most prestigious honour of the British Red Cross at the time, in recognition of his excellent contribution and his exemplary work in leading humanitarian service. To further promote Hong Kong Red Cross services, as now a branch of China Red Cross since 1997, Run Run generously donated HK$126 million, the largest individual

3 donation to the Society by far, to fund the building of its new headquarters. The new building will be named as “Hong Kong Red Cross Headquarters Run Run Shaw Building” upon its completion in early 2015.

One Profits Most Who Serves Best -- Rotarian Run Run’s greatest joy was knowing that the vast fortunes he gave away were doing good for humanity. Run Run was on the committee that in 1969 set up the Hong Kong Community Chest (香 港公益金). He was a guiding light for the establishment of the Hong Kong Arts Festival (香港藝術節) in 1973 and an active chairman, persuading some of the most prestigious cultural groups in the world to perform in Hong Kong's humble venues. As a philanthropist, Run Run was hugely generous. In 1985 he estimated he had already given away HK$1 billion. But as an astute entrepreneur, he was careful how he gave. He wanted to see that flood of money put to good use. He targeted education, health and other basic causes that would not merely bring short-term relief to a few people, but create building blocks for the long-term good of Hong Kong and all China. Run Run poured billions into The Sir Run Run Shaw Charitable Trust and The Shaw Foundation. They promoted education, scientific and technological research, medical and welfare services, also art and culture. Among his more recent ventures was the establishment of the Shaw Prize (邵逸夫獎) in 2002, an endowment paying US$1 million each prize to candidates picked from around the world annually. It honours living "individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and significant advances, who have made outstanding contributions in academic and scientific research or applications, or who in other domains have achieved excellence. The award is dedicated to furthering societal progress, enhancing quality of life, and enriching humanity's spiritual civilization." The Prize is for recent achievements in the fields of astronomy, life science and medicine, and mathematical sciences; it is not awarded posthumously. The Prize is widely regarded as the "Nobel of the East" which suggests that it is secondary to the Nobel Prize in terms of reputation and recognition. The annual selection and giving of Shaw Prizes across the globe is practically exemplifying the truth of Service Above Self … the infinitive influence is spreading continuously in building a better world tomorrow …

A Road To Fame 1906 Run Run Shaw was born in , the sixth child of Shanghai paint merchant Shaw Yuh-Hsuen (邵玉軒) - leading to him being nicknamed Uncle Six (六叔). 1924 He co-founds Tian Yi Film Company (天一影片公司) in Shanghai with his brothers, which later becomes Shaw Studios.

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1928 He goes to Singapore, which was then part of British colonial Malaya, with Runme Shaw to open up a new market by making films and setting up a chain of cinema theatres. 1957 Moves to Hong Kong and founds the 650,000 sq.ft. (邵氏影 城) in Clearwater Bay, Hong Kong, the largest privately owned film studio in Asia at the time which goes on to produce more than 1,000 films over the following decades. 1967 Establishes Hong Kong's first free-to-air television station Television Broadcast Ltd., also well known as TVB. 1974 Decorated a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. 1977 Knighted a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. 1980 Conferred Doctor of Laws Degree (honoris causa) by The University of Hong Kong. 1981 Conferred Doctor of Social Science Degree (honoris causa) by The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1983 Decorated a Badge of Honour (British Red Cross) by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of 20 years of distinguished services in Hong Kong Red Cross. 1985 Donates HK$110 million to The Chinese University of Hong Kong (香港中文大學) to found the fourth constituent college at the time - (逸夫書院). 1988 Conferred Doctor of Science Degree (honoris causa) by The City University of Hong Kong. 1990 China’s Academy of Sciences names an asteroid as "Runrun Shaw" to recognize his tens of million Yuan contribution towards the development of China's education. 1991 Conferred Doctor of Business Administration Degree (honoris causa) by The Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. 1998 Decorated a (GBM) by the Hong Kong Government for his remarkable contribution to this Special Administrative Region of China. 2002 Establishes Shaw Prize for world-wide research scientists in astronomy, mathematics, and medical science. First prizes awarded in 2004. 2007 Conferred the China Charity Award (中華慈善獎終身榮譽獎) by the China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs for his decades of nation-wide philanthropic actions in China. 2013 BAFTA Award honored in Hong Kong by the British Academy of Film & Television Arts, whose London headquarters is home to the Run Run Shaw Theatre. 2014 Dies peacefully at home aged 107 in Hong Kong. Survived by two sons, two daughters and second wife.

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The Kingdom of Show Biz Sir Run Run Shaw, Hong Kong film tycoon, whose studios and TV enterprise enjoyed huge international success. Run Run was the most famous of the Shaw brothers who became synonymous with Chinese films in . He started with one cinema in pre-Second World War Singapore: by the time Japan invaded, he had more than 130 houses. After the war he moved operations to Hong Kong, spotting a market dominated by foreign films and sub-standard local productions. When he saw a picture from his studio that was no good, he would throw it away and start again. The Shaw brothers came from a family of businessmen in on China's eastern coast near Shanghai, where people have been accustomed to migrate for generations, and where Run Run was born. In the mid-1920’s, four of the six brothers became involved in films after the eldest, Runje, acquired a theatre as a bad debt. Run Run at the age of 19 began his movie career in the Tian Yi Film Company his older brothers established in 1924. Shanghai was then the center of the booming Chinese , and Run Run’s roles ranged from acting, screenwriting to directing and cinematography. But by 1926, faced with a boycott by six rival studios over various issues, Run Run and brother Runme were dispatched to Singapore in order to negotiate with theater owners there for the screening of their movies to Southeast Asia’s Chinese diaspora audiences. The Shaw brothers went into show business in the 1920’s by taking dien yin (電影) – “electric shadows” – into the villages of the Malay Peninsula. Those first movies the Shaw brothers turned out with amateur actors and a hand-cranked camera. Since then, they had seen their enterprise thrive. The first Chinese talkie was a Shaw film. They were soon significant cinema operators and distributors and in 1932, by the time Japanese military attacks began to disrupt Shanghai life, Tian Yi was able to relocate production to British Crown Colony Hong Kong, while still operating as one of the largest distributors in the region. Run Run acquired American sound recording equipment and produced what is one of the first -language talkies《The Platinum Dragon》《白金龍》.

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While much of the exhibition business was lost as the Japanese forces expanded through Southeast Asia, Run Run bought out his elder brother and again set Hong Kong as his company’s primary production base, with Singapore as its secondary location. From his early work doing odd jobs around theaters and cinemas controlled by his older brothers, Run Run went on to establish and ran the leading production studios in Asia by the 1950’s. Along the way he ushered in significant technical progress into Chinese film. In the 1960’s, the Shaw brothers, Runme and Run Run, ran one of the largest movie theatre chains in the world. Their audience: the “”, the millions of them who have scattered from China Mainland to Hong Kong, New York, and San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore and and many, many other cities. Runme and Run Run were impresarios of the Chinese film industry or, as the brothers bill themselves, “the greatest purveyors of entertainment in the Far East.” The fare for their theatres was produced in their vast and well-equipped movie studios in Hong Kong, turning out films set in Imperial China. The mannered sagas and peasant comedies draw audiences eager to see nostalgic scenes played in their Mandarin and Cantonese languages. Run Run is best known for the Shaw Brothers’ (邵 氏兄弟(香港)有限公司) martial arts output, but he should rightly also be given credit for pioneering a form of Asian musical film and for putting Hong Kong on the global cinema map. The Shaw Brothers company was in its heyday in the 1960’s and 1970’s and was influential in both the Asian and Western film industries. He personally has credits on some 360 films, ranging from martial arts classics to Ridley Scott’s《》. Run Run was known for his extremely hands-on approach to film production and selection, as well as the frenetic rate of production at its Clearwater Bay studios in Hong Kong. He was said to have watched 700 movies a year until the 1980s. Acting talent was groomed, put under long contracts and required to work simultaneously on multiple pictures, while having their private lives and public image carefully handled by the studio. Shaw Brothers produced films in a wide range of genres, and Run Run’s taste was populist rather than innovative. But history has already labeled him as one of the fathers of the Kung Fu movie. Every year Run Run chose 40 applicants out of over 2,000 hopefuls from all over Asia, coaching his starlets personally. He was happy to appear in public with one or more on his arm. He was reputed to have a larger personal fortune than any film-maker in the world. About 1.5 million people weekly saw a Shaw film in Hong Kong or one of his outlets in Japan, Hawaii and the United States and Canadian Chinatowns. The films emerged from the studio at the rate of 40 a year. Some sources suggest his model was the Hollywood studio system. Others, including Hong Kong Film Festival general manager Roger Garcia, say that it was closer to the Japanese film empires of Shochiku and Toho. While Maoist China remained closed, Korea was under military rule and Japan was more inward looking, Hong Kong, a free-wheeling territory made up of immigrants and refugees, was well-suited to be the Hollywood of the East. But by the mid-1990’s when

7 the South Korea film industry kicked into gear and 2000 when the Chinese government allowed private capital into its hitherto propaganda-dominated film sector, Hong Kong’s dominance was compromised. However, Run Run had refocused long before that. Long before Shaw Brothers grip on the film industry began to loosen in the 1980’s, Run Run had transposed his studio model to TV, launching Television Broadcasts (TVB) which still remains Hong Kong’s leading free-to-air network. In 1967 he launched Cantonese language TV broadcaster TVB, with former singer (方逸華) (later to be Run Run’s second wife) as his lieutenant. To great success they employed many of the same methods in TV that Shaw Brothers had employed in film, including talent management and content creation in which that talent thrived. With China’s Central TV (CCTV) as its nearest rival, TVB is one of the world’s two largest Chinese-language content owners. “Going on to produce more than 1,000 films, Sir Run Run made a tremendous contribution to the development of the Chinese film industry and extended his influence to Chinese communities all over the world. In the 1960s, he expanded his business into the television industry and co-founded Hong Kong’s first free TV station. Numerous classic TV dramas have been produced for public enjoyment, many of which have become part of the collective memory of Hong Kong people. Although Sir Run Run has passed away, his perseverance and enterprising spirit will live on in the hearts of Hong Kong people, just like those classic films and TV programs that he helped to produce.” ~~ Gregory So, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Hong Kong Government (香港商務及經濟發展局蘇錦樑局長).

The Rotarian Shaw Brothers

Run Run Shaw (邵逸夫), Hong Kong, and Runme Shaw (邵仁枚), Singapore

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6 November 1974 – Run Run Shaw was decorated CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by Hong Kong Governor Sir Murray MacLehose (香港總督麥理浩爵士) on behalf of The Queen.

7 March 1978 -- Run Run Shaw was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, London. Accompanying were his first wife Lily (黃美珍), and daughter Dorothy (邵素雲).

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More than 6,000 educational institution buildings totally worth HK$4.75 Billion donation

named after Run Run Shaw in the whole China. (October 2012)

The Shaw Prize medals

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