The Shaw Brothers were the founders of the Shaw Brothers Studio, a movie production company that produced high-budget martial arts films throughout the 1970s. While their highly stylized take on the genre was influential to directors like Quentin Tarantino and Wong Kar-wai, perhaps their most notable fan was RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, let’s explore the story of how four brothers from Hong Kong laid the groundwork for the visual, sonic, and creative direction of the legendary hip hop ensemble, Wu-Tang Clan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the early 1920s, Runme Shaw set up a silent film distribution company called Unique Film Production Co, capitalizing on the burgeoning medium\u2019s popularity. With the help of his two brothers Run Run and Runje, Runme moved to Singapore in 1923 and opened a chain of theaters with films marketed towards communities across Southeast Asia. The now renamed Shaw Brothers Studio relocated to Hong Kong and built the massive, ten-sound-stage-sized Movietown studio in 1961. Now producing 40 films a year, the Shaw Brothers Studio began to see overseas success with films such as One-Armed Swordsman<\/em> and Five Fingers of Death<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of their breakthrough films was 1978\u2019s The 36th Chamber of Shaolin<\/em>. Directed by Lau Kar-Leung, the movie tells the story of San Te in a quest for vengeance against the Manchu government. In 1981, a 12-year-old Robert Diggs, a.k.a. RZA, caught the film on television for the first time. A few years later, him and his cousin Russell Tyrone Jones (aka Ol\u2019 Dirty Bastard) went to Times Square to watch the film on the big screen. The experience would eventually intertwine kung fu films and hip hop music forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Wu-Tang Clan debuted in 1993 with Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)<\/em>, the outsized influence of the Shaw Brothers was apparent. Both the album title and the moniker of member Masta Killa borrowed from The 36th Chamber of Shaolin<\/em> (which RZA claims to have seen over 300 times).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWu-Tang Clan and the Shaw Brothers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n