CELESTIAL Pictures will spend up to US$15 million (HK$117 million) for the digital remastering of the Shaw Brothers film library. Remastering experts and machinery have been flown in for the job which is expected to take two years.

As Hong Kong's top movie studio in the 1960s and '70s, Shaw Brothers churned out cult classics such as The One-Armed Swordsman and The Five Deadly Venoms. Its biggest asset is Television Broadcasts (0511), the world's biggest producer of Chinese-language television programming. TVB has also ventured into publishing, the Internet, cable and satellite.

The remastering of the 760-picture library, acquired in March 2000 for HK$600 million, will be done out of the Shaw Brothers studio in Clearwater Bay, says Celestial CEO William Pfeiffer. The original Shaw House is being renovated to house the Celestial offices.

The company plans to re-release the Shaw Brothers films on video, television and digital media. It has also revealed its intention to remake some of the library's most famous films, although no specific titles were mentioned.

Largely undisturbed after the theatrical release of the pictures, the Shaw Brothers library was hotly pursued by a number of companies, including major Hollywood studios.

Mr Pfeiffer was ironically one of the bidders in his former capacity as managing director of Sony Pictures' Columbia Tri-Star. He says Celestial Pictures was chosen because of the ``good relationship'' between parent company Usaha Tegas and TVB.

The Malaysian conglomerate is the parent company of Measat Broadcast Network Systems, which owns the Astro satellite and TV network. TVB products and channels are distributed on the Astro satellite platform. The Malaysian network made Hong Kong headlines last March when it dropped a 24 per cent stake in pay-TV licensee Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting.

Celestial, which has existed for about a year, aims to increase its output of production, acquisition, commissioning, licensing and distribution of Asian-made content.

Mr Pfeiffer says the tremendous growth opportunities in production and distribution are an offshoot of Asian audiences discovering more ``culturally relevant'' programming.

``In 1960s Japan, for example, half of programming was foreign; now it's less than 4 per cent.

``They don't have budgets to spend as the US markets do - US$1.5 million to US$2 million per one-hour episode - but then they don't need it. The stuff they make there is more compelling.''

Mr Pfeiffer says piracy was one of the reasons Shaw Brothers kept the library out of circulation. ``If they released it onto one format in one country, it would then be found around the rest of the region.'' Videos available through some websites are not official products. Copies may have been made when film rights from legitimate deals expired.

``We're not competing against other studios,'' Mr Pfeiffer says, ``we're competing against piracy because that's where the bulk of the revenue goes.''

Copyright Hong Kong iMail - 4 September 2001 / 01:14 AM