Runme Shaw

Tan Sri Dr Runme Shaw (Chinese: 邵仁枚; pinyin: Shào Rénméi; born 1901 in Zhenhai, Zhejiang Province, China; died 2 March 1985 in Singapore) was the chairman and founder of the Shaw Organisation of Singapore. Runme Shaw and his brother, Run Run Shaw (1907- ), together known as the Shaw Brothers, were pioneers in the film and entertainment industry in Singapore and Malaya, and brought to life the movie industry in Asia, especially the Southeast Asian region.

Runme Shaw was also a philanthropist who started the Shaw Foundation, a charitable organisation. Many of the beneficiaries were schools, such as Maris Stella High School and Anglo-Chinese School, which have a part of their buildings named after the Shaw Foundation. In addition, Shaw was the chairman and president of several government boards, and a patron of many organisations. As a result, Shaw won many local and foreign awards for his philanthropic work and contribution to the movie industry in Southeast Asia.

Shaw's first name "Runme" connotes "kindness" in Chinese.

Early life

Runme Shaw was the third of six sons of Shanghainese textile merchant Shaw Yuh Hsuen (1867-1920). A native of Zhenhai in China, Shaw Yuh Hsuen married Wang Shun Xiang (1871-1939), and had a total of 10 children, three of whom died at an early age. He had his own import-export company, and was also the owner of an opera hall in which Runme Shaw's brother, Runje Shaw (1896-1975), was its principal playwright and director. However, the opera business failed subsequently.

Runme was educated in traditional Shanghainese schools, learning Confucian classics and classical Chinese literature.

Business in Shanghai

With the Chinese movie industry still in its infancy in the early 20th century, Runje Shaw saw the potential in producing and distributing films in China. He established his own movie company, Unique Film Production Company (also known as Tian Yi Film Company) in Shanghai, and started off with silent movies. Runme, who was then working as a sales manager in his father's trading company, and Run Run soon joined Runje in the venture.

Not satisfied with their domestic market, the Shaw brothers wanted to seek business opportunities elsewhere. Runme, who was the distribution manager, was given this task. Originally, Runme's destination was Indochina where he hoped to meet with the film distributors, but he was denied permission to land there. When the Shaw brothers saw great distribution potential in the Southeast Asian market where many Chinese migrants lived, Runme chose Singapore as his base.

Establishment of Shaw Organisation

The Empire

Runme Shaw arrived in Singapore in 1923 to test the market for the Shaw brothers' films. He was later joined by Run Run and together they founded the Shaw Organisation in Singapore.

However, for new arrivals like Runme, finding distributors and exhibitors for their brand of silent movies proved a hurdle. As Shanghainese, Runme and Run Run found themselves locked out of the highly protected market by the dominant dialect factions – Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew – who controlled the local film business. The film distributors believed that these businessmen imported films from China directly and showed them in their cinemas, and so very few wanted to release the Shaw's silent films. There was also an alliance between a major exhibition circuit run by Malayan cinema king Wang Yu Ting and Shanghai's Liuhe Film Company, a cartel that boycotted Shaw films.

Undaunted by the opposition and prejudice, Runme and Run Run persevered to carve out a market share for themselves. By 1927, they began operating their own cinema in Tanjong Pagar so as to show their films. The makeshift timber cinema, known as The Empire, was leased to the Shaw brothers at a rent of S$2000 monthly, a large amount by today's value.

The first film shown at The Empire was a Chinese theatre play, called "Romance of the Opera", produced by Runme's own company. White cloth hung from the ceiling served as the projection screen for the cinema, where the audience sat on the hard wooden benches and chairs. During screening, musicians, usually pianists, were hired to accompany the action, and this was meant more to mask the noise from projectors and the audience than to provide the sound effect. Only two evening shows were screened per day. Despite this, the theatre attracted crowds with its offering of Chinese movies.

Expansion into Malaya

As profits grew, Runme ventured into Malaya in the 1920s and 1930s, with Run Run taking charge of business in Singapore. He travelled to small towns and major cities, including Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Ipoh, to distribute and show his films. Ipoh was chosen as his base in Malaya, from where smaller towns could be explored for business potential.

Many of the small towns in Malaya did not have cinemas. One of the ways the Shaw brothers would test the market was tom set their own temporary cinemas in open fields. Another means was to retrofit local Malay opera houses into cinemas, by entering into joint ventures with the local owners. Wherever their films proved very popular, the Shaw brothers would build a permanent theatre. In more rural areas, mobile cinemas were operated.

In setting up cinemas throughout Malaya, the Shaw brothers usually bought more land than was needed around the theatres. These were Runme's first real estate ventures, who reasoned correctly that a successful cinema would benefit surrounding businesses thereby raising land value. With the growing chain of cinemas in Malaya, the Shaw brothers split their duties, with Runme eventually taking charge of northern Malaya while Run Run the southern half, which includes Singapore.

Expansion in the pre-war years

Although the Great Depression of the late 1920s affected their business, it recovered sufficiently for the Shaw brothers to buy over more movie theatres. By 1939, the Shaws operated a chain of 139 cinemas across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Indochina. All the cinemas were managed under Malayan Theatres Limited, a subsidiary of Shaw Brothers Limited. In Singapore, the Shaw brothers expanded The Empire and moved to a brick building, the Alhambra, on Beach Road. The Alhambra was the first Singapore cinema to have air conditioning and played films like Errol Flynn's Robin Hood.

The Shaw brothers not only made their own movies, but also imported foreign ones which Runme brought in the early 1930s. Runme attributed the success of the Shaw brothers' film business to hard work and consumer foresight, knowing intuitively the public's taste in films and what appealed to them.

Besides the film industry, the Shaw brothers also expanded into the business of amusement parks, first in Singapore, then in Malaya. These were modelled after the ones in Shanghai where they were popular with the locals. They acquired and operated two of the three amusement parks in Singapore — New World Amusement Park at Jalan Besar and Great World Amusement Park at River Valley — from the mid-1930s to the 1980s. The Shaw brothers also started amusement parks in major cities in Malaya like Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh.

Japanese Occupation

In 1942, the beginning of the Japanese Occupation of Singapore put an immediate stop to all the Shaw brothers' cinema and amusement park shows. The Japanese army wanted Runme to produce and distribute propaganda films. Despite his attempts to hide, Runme was eventually captured by the Japanese.

Personal life

Runme's son Shaw Vee King is also a member of the Shaw Organization. Educated in all English schools in Singapore, he later attended universities in England (engineering and economics) and Ireland (Master's in Computer Applications).

Honours

For his contributions to society and the arts, Runme Shaw received many awards including the Panglima Mangku Negara by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. This award gave him the title Tan Sri, an honorific which is the second most senior in the system of Malay titles. Runme Shaw also received a Doctor of Letters by the National University of Singapore.

See also

• Brothers, Sir Run Run Shaw and Runde Shaw
• Cinema of Hong Kong
• Shaw House and Centre

References

• Shaw Foundation, The Shaw Story, 2001. Accessed 7 Nov 2006.
• Citation on Mr. Shaw Vee King for admission to Honourary Fellowship on 1 August 2002