page_title: Tianyi Film Company
section_title: International expansion
hierarchical_section_title: Tianyi Film Company / International expansion
caption_attribution_description: English: Run Run Shaw at age 20
context_page_description: Tianyi Film Company, also called Unique Film Productions, was one of the "big three" film production companies in pre-Second World War Republic of China. Founded in Shanghai in 1925 by the Shaw brothers led by Runje Shaw, the company also established operations in Malaya and Hong Kong. Although the company's Shanghai studio was destroyed in 1937 during the Japanese invasion, its offshoot in Hong Kong, later called Shaw Brothers Studio, blossomed into a media empire under the leadership of the youngest brother, Sir Run Run Shaw.
context_section_description: Besides Shanghai, Tianyi also expanded its business to Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. In the mid-1920s, Shao Zuiweng sent Runme and Run Run to Singapore, then part of British Malaya, where they established a company called the Shaw Organisation to distribute films made by Tianyi. Around 1930, the Shaw brothers set up Nanyang (South Seas) Film Studio to produce films.
  In 1933, Tianyi released White Gold Dragon, the first Cantonese talkie ever produced, which was a commercial success in southern China. Tianyi subsequently established a studio in Hong Kong in 1933–34 to produce Cantonese films.  The move to Hong Kong was accelerated by the banning of martial arts films by the Chinese government as these films were thought to be morally decadent and promote superstition, as well as a ban on Cantonese films. Both of these genres were important to Tianyi as they were very popular among the Chinese diaspora communities, and Tianyi exported its Mandarin films produced in Shanghai and Cantonese films produced in Hong Kong throughout Southeast Asia. Its Hong Kong studio was destroyed by a fire in 1936, but Runde Shaw, the second eldest brother, reestablished the business as Nanyang Studio, later renamed Shaw and Sons.
caption: Sir Run Run Shaw (Shao Yifu), the youngest Shaw brother who expanded the business in Singapore and Hong Kong
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