I hadn't knew Shaw Brothers Studio existed, having only watched films from initially Gold Harvest, and later Emperor Media. Not forgotting MediaAsia too.
Those were the days when the actors and actresses were from Hong Kong, and their acting styles and accents did not differ too wildly from one another, unlike now where the cast had different acting styles, different accents and didn't have on-screen chemistry, making movie-watching now a painful and jarring experience. I'd rather now watch Korean or Japanese movies. At least I won't be bothered by the different accents because I couldn't decipher the accents.
Since I diligently started watching at least one Shaw Brothers movie on CCM every day, I've started to recognize some faces and match names to faces (much like my experience watching 戏说台湾). I'm quite surprised that the Shaw Brothers films were in Mandarin too. I had initially thought they were dubbed in Mandarin, but realized as I watched the mouths of the cast closely that indeed they were mouthing their lines in Mandarin.
Some faces with names that I can recognize now:
- 凌云: he seemed to be in plenty of movies, both modern and period as the lead actor. Perhaps it was the characters he acted in, he was quite expressionless, much like how 面瘫 was used to describe 霍建华.
- 狄龙: tall, muscular with boyish-good looks. He would be popular today as an idol too. Obviously the directors then were not stingy with his muscles because in most movies his bare torso was on display. However, now he doesn't quite resemble his younger days, so initally I couldn't make the connection between the now and then when I started watching movies on CCM. But so far, the then-him is beating all the 小鲜肉 in the entertainment industry hands-down.
- 姜大卫: he looked like a skinner version of Jay Chou when he was young, and often alternated with 狄龙 as the male lead, with tops firmly on.
- 傅声: I had no idea who he was, just that his name kept being mentioned whenever there was a news article on Jenny Tseng. He could certainly hold his own opposite 狄龙.
- 陈鸿烈: so far, I've only watched 2 movies with him as one of the secondary actors, but his looks then were rather unique.
- 陈观泰: another topless muscle man. In contrast to 狄龙, he was shorter and less bulchy muscular, but very lean.
- 王羽: of the 独臂刀fame. Nuff said.
- 罗烈: usually acting as the bad guy.
- 井淼: usually acting as the father.
- 杨志卿: usually in a supporting role in almost every movie I've watched. Must be THE supporting actor in the directors' minds.
- 杨帆: has leading man's looks, even by today's standards. Not sure why he didn't appear in more movies.
- 尔东升: couldn't understand back then why Maggie Cheung fell in love with him. Going back even further then when he was the leading man in Shaw Brothers film, he was also one of the boyish lookers, but not as buff as 狄龙.
- 金峰: usually as the second male lead. I was a bit curious a googled him and realized that he was born in 1928, which meant he was like in his forties or fifties in the movies where his characters were twenty-somethings opposite the young actresses! And he didn't look out of place as a twenty-something. This was the real 冻龄!
- 王青: always in some minor role, dying minutes into the films. But he was one of the rare ones who still retained some semblance of his younger days.
- 郑佩佩: still active in acting now, but somehow I find her method of acting irritating. Perhaps she was barely a teenager in those movies then?
- 井莉: 井淼's daughter who acting in plenty of movies and practically as the love interest of almost all the leading men in Shaw Brothers movies.
- 何莉莉: she and 李莉莉nearly remined me of the West's confusion between 范冰冰and 李冰冰. Obviously the two are different and look quite different from each other, but I haven't watched enough movies with them to have much of a deep impression of either.
- 李莉莉
It seems like I can match the names to faces of the male actors compared to the female actresses. I guess batwing eyeliners and beehive hairdoes of those days don't help with differentiating the actresses much....
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