page_title: Raymond Chow
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Raymond Chow / Career
caption_attribution_description: Star, hand prints and autograph of Raymond Chow on the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong.
context_page_description: Raymond Chow Man-Wai, OBE GBS was a Hong Kong film producer, and presenter. He was responsible for successfully launching martial arts and the Hong Kong cinema onto the international stage. As the founder of Golden Harvest, he produced some of the biggest stars of the martial arts film genre, including Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Jimmy Wang Yu and Tsui Hark.
context_section_description: Chow's film career began in 1958. He was the head of publicity and the production chief of Shaw Brothers between 1958 and 1970. He leased Cathay's studio and contracted its exhibition chain of 104 cinema theatres in Southeast Asia. At the time Cathay was a predominant force in the Malaysian film industry.
  When Cathay wanted to end the company's association in Hong Kong, Chow left Shaw Brothers to establish Golden Harvest along with film producer Leonard Ho in 1970. He capitalized on the shortcomings of Shaw Brothers, who had a system that limited creativity, and was able to lure Bruce Lee into Golden Harvest, making it a serious competitor to Shaw Brothers. Under Chow's leadership, Golden Harvest would become the cornerstone for Hong Kong cinema leading Hong Kong box office sales for two decades from the 1970s to 1980s.
  Whilst Chow is credited with producing many films, in the audio commentary for the UK release of Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain, Tsui Hark in a conversation with Bey Logan who asked the elementary question of Chow's role as a film producer, explained that this credit is mostly meaningless. Tsui stated that any producer's role at the studio was often nothing more than to greenlight and ensure funding of the project, and that producers such as Chow would rarely, if ever, set foot on the set during the making of the film. Raymond Chow officially announced his retirement in Hong Kong on November 5, 2007.
  Chow died on November 2, 2018, in Hong Kong.
caption: Chow's star on the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong
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