When William Pfeiffer was watching kung-fu movies as a child in Connecticut and practising the latest kicks on his friends, he probably never imagined he would one day occupy the office of the man responsible for most of those screen classics, Sir Run Run Shaw.
The chief executive of Celestial Pictures, owner of the Shaw Brothers' film library, feels excitement and a burden of responsibility in the role he now performs - overseeing the remastering and marketing of old films to new audiences through the latest technology.
'You can imagine the wonderful atmosphere in its heyday - all the movie stars came to this office to meet Sir Run Run and a lot of things happened between these walls,' Mr Pfeiffer says.
'It is fascinating to think about all that has gone before and in some way to do our best to continue the legacy of the Shaw brothers and the heritage and the great films that were produced here.'
But while Mr Pfeiffer has found elements of a homecoming in the old Shaw studio building in Clearwater Road, his career has progressed by a road less travelled since torn knee ligaments playing ice hockey at university forced the young student to look for a new challenge - an undergraduate overseas study programme at Sophia University in Tokyo.
'Japan at that time [1979] was still something of a mystery. It was before the boom when television series ignited people's interest in all things Japanese. I went there and fell in love with the culture and the people and the history.'
