Tsui and Shi set up a separate production company from Cinema City so they could focus on the films they wanted to produce[1]
Tsui: "Before 1984, Hong Kong filmmaking was not that well respected and Film Workshop’s chief emphasis was to allow the director to have his own style, build his own trademark. [...] With Film Workshop, I wanted to explore some of these things you’ve seen hundreds of times before and look at them in new ways, new ways to look at gangster movies or political satires through a period action film, etc."[2]
Shi: "Cinema City had become this big independent studio with certain quotas to meet. We were happy in this family in this huge mansion, but Tsui and I thought it would be nice to have our own gazebo out in the garden and do things which Cinema City might not want to do."[3]
Film Workshop's first film was Shanghai Blues (1984), a comedy with an all-female cast that Cinema City declined to greenlight production on[4]
