Fans of Robert Rodriguez who also enjoy getting their kicks from classic kung fu movies are getting more and more reasons to subscribe to filmmaker Robert Rodriguez newly established television network, El Rey, following breaking news this week from yesterday’s press breakfast in New York City.
Reports are saying plans are now underway for the network to begin airing Shaw Brothers martial arts titles, following a multi-year deal with Hong Kong-based distribution company, Celestial Pictures. The films, to be varied between English-subs and dubbed tracks and as per El Rey’s monthly Saturday Kung Fu marathon, namely include The 36th Chamber Chamber Of Shaolin, The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter and Executioners From Shaolin – three popular collaborations between legendary film actors Gordon Liu and the late Lau Kar-Leung, along with the 1975 Chen Kuen-Tai actioner, The Flying Guillotine and the 1968 flick, The Sword Of Swords starring Jimmy Wang Yu.
“Long before El Rey Network was born, I had many of the Shaw Brothers films on my playlist at home. It was a hard drive that had my hit list of personal favorites and certainly these titles were among the best in kung-fu films.” says
Rodriguez in a report from
Screendaily.
“They are action-packed and still have cult status among fans of the genre. We are thrilled to partner with Celestial Pictures on this collection as it is a perfect addition to our existing line-up of renegade programming.”.
The news follows a series of updates that began when news of El Rey’s December 2013 launch made headlines
eight months earlier, a move which
Rodriguez explained in an except this week regarding many of the things that motivated him to create his own diversified entertainment platform, telling
Indiewire,
“It really spoke to me personally. I have five kids, and even though they grew up bilingual, they live and converse in English like most second and third generation Hispanics. I realized there wasn’t anything on television that represented who they were in this country. And I thought it was important — there was not a network like that, and we were growing as a population.”. He goes on to say,
“It’s something that I’ve kind of been doing over 20 years — “Spy Kids,” “Desperado,” “Machete” or “Dusk Till Dawn” or “Sin City,” you don’t think of them as Hispanic films, because everybody can enjoy them. But for those who are Hispanic — they are. I wanted to do something like that — a network that was for everybody, yet had an eye toward more diversity.”.
Thankfully, that very diversity now expands the program line-up which includes El Rey’s original programming, with Rodriguez’s first, From Dusk Til Dawn: The Series, set to air on March 11 at 9:00 pm Est/Pfc, and the production of another new action series, Matador, from a script by writing and producing superduo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and also produced by Rodriguez who will direct the pilot set to air in July.
Rodriguez‘s next big screen venture will be with co-director and graphic novelist Frank Miller for the forthcoming sequel release of
Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For on August 22, 2014 with a
third also in development; photos are now available online, including a first look at actress
Jessica Alba (pictured right) courtesy of
Comic Book Movie via Entertainment Weekly. Meanwhile, the network’s next kung fu marathon is this Saturday,
March 1, which will also include Chang Cheh’s
The One Armed Swordsman trilogy, starring actors Jimmy Wang Yu in the first and second film, and David Chiang in the third.
This week’s news also signifies the enduring trickle of headlines regarding Shaw classics sustained by the legacy of their studio founder, philanthropist and movie mogul
Sir Run Run Shaw who passed away on January 7 this year at the age of 106. His films continue to live on currently through North American distributor Well Go USA with the re-release of
four new titles, including the 1977 film,
Death Duel, which is currently undergoing a newly-titled theatrical remake by Derek Yee and financed by Bona Film Group.
Stay tuned for more info.
