CloseFriend posted:

As I've watched more of these movies, I've noticed a common thread emerging: most, if not all, Shaw Bros. films portray the state negatively.

This shows up in particular in Venom Mob movies. 5 Deadly Venoms reveals the chief constable as the most ruthless and manipulative of the venoms. Several times—in particular, in Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms and Invincible Shaolin—the Venom Mob's resident heavy Lu Feng plays the main antagonist, who works for the government in some capacity. In the former, he ruins the protagonists' lives, setting them on their course. In the latter, he tries to destroy Shaolin by fanning sectarian flames. Shaolin & Wu-Tang, although not a Venom Mob film, uses a similar plot device.

When the government doesn't serve as the heavies, they either serve as ineffectual buffoons—as in Knockabout—or they don't show up at all. Interestingly, in their absence, they make dynastic China look like a lawless frontier, a Far Eastern Wild West.

Considering Shaw Bros. operate out of Hong Kong and Macau, with distribution in Singapore, and their movies have seen particular success in Hong Kong and Taiwan, one gets the feeling that in this trend we get an idea of how Chinese-speaking peoples outside the PRC (at the time) regarded their government. Although Communist China's government has little in common at the surface with the dynasties who ruled for most of its history, the films' recurrent distrust of the state seems redolent of contempt for Mao Zedong and his legacy.