Astro Shaw

Established in 1996 under the Astro Shaw and Tayangan Unggul brand, its initial focus was to enhance the film industry in Malaysia through high quality production and compelling storytelling. Astro Shaw produced its first film Nafas Cinta in 1998. The movie starred Awie and received a great reception when released in cinemas. Nafas Cinta paved the way for Astro Shaw to expand its film production efforts and since 2001, Astro Shaw has released over 80 films. In 2010, Astro Shaw further expanded its reach by producing its first Chinese language film Woohoo. Since, Astro Shaw has release 5 more Chinese language films including the awarded winning The Journey.

In 2014, Maindhan became Astro Shaw's first Tamil language Malaysian film. The film had a limited release on 9 August 2014 in Malaysia, Singapore, and Tamil Nadu. It gained acclaim from critics and emerged as the highest grossing locally produced Tamil film of all time before being beaten by Vedigundu Pasangge in 2018 which was co-produced by Astro Shaw.

From 2010 to 2013, top grossing Malaysian movies only averaged around RM 8 Million in the local box office. Astro Shaw defied all odds and raised the benchmark for local films in 2014, breaking the RM 15 million mark with The Journey (RM 17.28 Million). The Journey was the first Chinese language film to top the local box office for its respective release year, a feat no other production company has been able to achieve.

In 2018, there was a huge spike in the local box office, with a total collection of RM 170 Million from 49 film releases. Astro Shaw contributed greatly to this tremendous increase by being the leader of the local box office in 2018 with more than 60% of market share. Astro Shaw alone had an impressive cumulative box office collection of over RM 103 Million from 4 blockbuster films, Hantu Kak Limah (RM 38 Million), Dukun (RM 12 Million), Paskal (RM 30 Million) and Polis Evo 2 (RM 23 Million).

From that successful year, Astro Shaw is now proudly sitting on 7 of the top 10 all-time highest grossing local blockbusters, dominating the Malaysian film industry. By achieving RM 38 Million with Hantu Kak Limah, it became the first local film to surpass the RM30 million gross box office (GBO) shattering the record of the Malaysian box office.

Astro Shaw produced its first award-winning film KL Menjerit in 2003. The film won in 8 categories for The 16th Malaysia Film Festival including Best Film and 2 categories during the TV3 Screen Awards.

Following from the success of KL Menjerit, Astro Shaw has gone on to win over 170 awards from local and foreign film festivals. Astro Shaw, The Journey won best film in the KL Film Critics Awards and Best Non-Malay Language Local Film and the special Jury Award at the 2014 Malaysia Film Festival. The Journey and Ola Bola were selected to compete in the Far East Film Festival.

Most recently, Astro Shaw's upcoming film The Garden of Evening Mists due to release in January 2020, was nominated in 9 categories for the 56th Golden Horse Awards and won for best Makeup & Costume Design.

Astro Shaw's recent international film investments have enjoyed various critical acclaim, such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film, Cemetery of Splendor, which was screened in the Un CertainRegard section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and won Best Film at the 9th Asia Pacific Screen Awards, as well as Mouly Surya’s Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, which made its debut at the 2017 Director’s Fortnight section in Cannes. The White Girl, a Hong-Kong film co-directed by Christopher Doyle and Jenny Suen and Astro Shaw’s first foray into North Asian films, competed at the 2017 London Film Festival.

Astro Shaw has since ventured beyond film production and is an establish film distribution and marketing partner in Malaysia and internationally. The highly success 2019 kids film BoBoiBoy Movie 2 was distributed and marketed by Astro Shaw.

Leveraging on its strong regional and international partnership, Astro Shaw continuously finds new markets for the distribution of Malaysian films and helps international films enter the Malaysian market.

Astro Shaw is taking the leading in grooming home grown storytellers with the formation of its in-house screen writing team lead by Anwari Ashraf. The team aims at developing stories and ideas from local creative minds and seeks to create compelling stories for the local and international audience.