Asian Film Awards to Honor Raymond Chow

By Dean Napolitano

At its annual ceremony Monday night, the Asian Film Awards will honor veteran Hong Kong film producer Raymond Chow with its lifetime achievement award.

Mr. Chow’s storied film career began at the legendary Shaw Brothers studio in 1958, first in publicity and then as head of production. He left in 1970 to co-found with Leonard Ho, Golden Harvest, a movie production and distribution company that became synonymous with Hong Kong cinema’s golden era. Mr. Chow retired in 2007.

“It is unimaginable to think of Hong Kong motion pictures today without Raymond Chow,” said Wilfred Wong, chairman of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, which organizes the awards, in a statement.

“It is through him that our talents became international superstars, and it is through him that Hong Kong martial-arts films became world-wide classics,” Mr. Wong said. “Throughout Asia and beyond, his imprint on cinema is indisputable.”

Stars such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan helped make Golden Harvest the leading Hong Kong film company in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of box-office hits.

In the mid-1970s, Mr. Chow and Golden Harvest ventured into foreign productions with Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” (1973), a Hong Kong-Hollywood co-production, and “The Man from Hong Kong” (1975), a Hong Kong-Australia film starring Jimmy Wang Yu as James Bond-type character.

The Asian Film Awards also will present an award for outstanding contribution to Asian cinema to Kim Dong-ho, who co-founded the influential Busan International Film Festival in 1996 (known then as the Pusan International Film Festival). He ran the festival until his retirement last year and now serves as its honorary director.

In a separate statement, Mr. Wong described Mr. Kim as “one of the giants of our industry—a tireless promoter of Asian cinema.”

The fifth annual Asian Film Awards will be presented in a lavish ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on March 21. Hong Kong director Yonfan is this year’s jury president.

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