In their attempts to land a deal with a popular movie actress, kung fu studio Golden Harvest ended up signing a contract with Bruce Lee. It was with them that the actor became a big name in the genre. Four of his five kung fu films were made with Golden Harvest, with the other – Enter the Dragon – being a Hollywood production.

Before Golden Harvest burst onto the scene with Bruce Lee movies, Hong Kong’s kung fu film industry was being dominated at the box office by Shaw Brothers. With highly profitable stars like Jimmy Wang Yu, Cheng Pei-pei, Lo Lieh, David Chiang, and Ti Lung, the studio was doing quite well for itself. In 1970, a Shaw Brothers executive named Raymond Chow left the company to form Golden Harvest, a studio which eventually made legends out of both Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. It found its first great success when it signed a two-picture deal with Lee and cast him in The Big Boss. At first, he was only supposed to be a supporting character, but he was later elevated to the starring role over James Tien. His career took off from there.

Related: How Bruce Lee Beat James Tien For The Big Boss Role

It’s interesting to note that signing Lee in 1971 wasn’t Golden Harvest’s top priority. Lee biographer Matthew Polly explained in his book, Bruce Lee: A Life, that what Raymond Chow was really after was Cheng Pei-pei. As mentioned above, Cheng had been a Shaw Brothers actress. It was she who starred in 1966’s Come Drink With Me, which was a groundbreaking film for putting a woman in an action-oriented, lead role. Shortly after leaving Shaw Brothers, she relocated to California and lived not too far from Bruce Lee. Chow, seeing in Cheng an opportunity to compete with Shaw Brothers by banking on her star power, sent someone to the U.S. to hire her.

Apparently, Chow was aware of Lee’s presence in the same area and regarded him as an “interesting prospect” that was worth looking into. Plus, Lee and Cheng were friends, so Chow supposedly believed that Lee might provide a pathway to swaying the actress [via South China Morning Post]. However, Golden Harvest’s efforts to make a deal with her didn’t pan out the way they had hoped. It would seem that they had trouble with Lee too. Lee had just turned down Shaw Brothers, and was hesitant to sign with Golden Harvest as well because there were concerns about this young studio’s future. But Lee, who had been unsuccessful in his attempts make a career for himself in Hollywood, needed the $15,000 they were offering him.

In the end, they failed to convince Cheng to work with them but the visit to California was far from a waste of time. After all, they did walk away with Bruce Lee, who would soon become the biggest star in the history of kung fu cinema. If Chow's goal really was for Golden Harvest to get a victory over Shaw Brothers, there's no question that he succeeded.

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