Great Wall Movie Enterprises, Ltd / 長城電影製片有限公司 [1948-1982]

Submitted by OldTimer on Thu, 03/30/2017 - 20:30
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
Date closed / demolished

Great Wall Movie Enterprises, Ltd.* was one of several companies that operated in Kowloon City.   According to Wikipedia, it was founded in 1948.  Its first film was released in January 1950*.

Wikipedia source: "In 1982, Great Wall merged with Feng Huang, Chung Yuen and Sun Luen Film Company as Sil-Metrople Organization."  As such, operation under the name Great Wall was considered to have ended in 1982. 

The location marker on this page has been determined using Gwulo's 1956 Kowloon Map which shows the site of the studio.

* Updated April 23, 2017, including the official English and Chinese names of the company, as per comments by breskvar.

Source:

Later place(s) at this location
Stone Houses Family Garden (石屋家園) [c.2016- ]

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Photos that show this Place

Stone Houses Family Garden (石屋家園)
2017
Stone Houses Family Garden (石屋家園)
2017
Stone Houses Family Garden (石屋家園)
2017
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Comments

I've added some pictures of the site as it currently stands. It has a small cafe and tucked away next door is a small (but unfortunately for me) Chinese-text only museum display detailing the history of the site, the renovation works and a whole room dedicated to the old Kai Tak airport.

https://gwulo.com/node/37580

I visited the Stone House Cafe and information centre today, and managed to browse through the film studio section of the Chinese introduction.  There seems to be some extra information that we have not picked up on here. 

Great_Wall_Studio_info.jpg
Great_Wall_Studio_info.jpg, by breskvar

In this photo (zoom in to read), the bigger bubble says that Great Wall actually moved out in the late 1950s, and then the workshops and factories moved in.  OldTimer has found that in 1982 it merged with some other studios, but we do not have any information on where it moved to from 1960-1982. 

The smaller bubble mentions two films, the film in the smaller picture on the middle right is Family Doctrine (詩禮傳家), recorded by the HK Film Archive (HKFA) as released on 26th March 1952, and filmed and distributed by Great Wall.  The HKFA information also gives the full name of Great Wall: The Great Wall Movie Enterprises, Limited (長城電影製片有限公司). 

Using this name as keyword, the HKFA database reveal in excess of 140 films made down the years, and four of them released as early as 1950.  Among them, the earliest entry is the famous film A Strange Woman (一代妖姬) (http://ipac.hkfa.lcsd.gov.hk/ipac/cclib/search/showBib.jsp?f=e&id=655371612108805), released on 7th January 1950, and starring actress Bai Guang (白光).  It looks like we have to push the opening date of Great Wall to late 1949 at the latest. 

Among the search results is a curious series of Great Wall Ltd. magazines from 1950 to 1951, available for viewing at the HKFA.  I may pop down one day and request them for a look to see if we can find out more about this studio.

 

breskvar

NB. The menu of the cafe looked very good, with nice creamy cakes and coffee in the afternoon, and a calorie count to match too.  Since my son did not come along, I did not sample anything because I would have to clear the deck.