Cinema of Hong Kong

The history of Chinese-language cinema has three separate threads of development: Hong Kong, the Mainland and Taiwan. Hong Kong as a British colony had a great degree of freedom and developed into East Asia's filmmaking hub. For decades it was the third largest motion picture industry in the world (after Bollywood and Hollywood), although after a recent industry crisis it has slipped considerably.

In the West, Hong Kong's vigorous pop cinema has long had a strong cult following, which has become large enough that it is now arguably a part of the cultural mainstream, widely available and imitated. This influence has been particularly heavy in recent Hollywood trends in the action genre.

Early history

The first Hong Kong film was Zhuangzi Tests His Wife in 1913. The director was Lai Man-Wai, Father of Hong Kong Cinema, who also played the wife himself. But the Hong Kong film industry did not take off until after World War II.

Postwar Hong Kong cinema, like postwar Hong Kong industries in general, was catalyzed by an influx from Mainland China. Filmmakers, actors and studio heads came there fleeing first the Sino-Japanese War, then the Chinese Civil War and the eventual Communist victory. This brought an infusion of talent, expertise and money, mainly from Shanghai, the prewar movie capital of the Chinese-speaking world. It also led to the strange, long-standing bifurcation of the industry into two parallel cinemas, one in Mandarin, the majority dialect of the Mainland, and one in Cantonese, the dialect of most Hong Kong residents. Partly because of their enormous export market, Mandarin movies generally had much higher budgets and more lavish production, leading to the longtime relegation of Cantonese movies to second-tier status.

Hong Kong cinema, 1940s-1960s

• Cantonese movies
  • Cantonese opera on film dominates the industry. The top stars are the female duo of Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin (Yam-Pak for short). Yam specializes in male scholar roles to Pak's female leads. They make over fifty films together, The Purple Hairpin (1959) being the most enduringly popular (Teo, 1997).
  • Low-budget martial arts films:
    • Long-running series of roughly 100 kung fu movies starring Kwan Tak Hing as Wong Fei Hung. Starts with The True Story of Wong Fei Hung (1949) and ends with Wong Fei Hung Bravely Crushing the Fire Formation (1970). (Logan, 1995)
    • Fantasy wuxia (swordplay) serials with special effects drawn on the film by hand, such as The Six-Fingered Lord of the Lute (1965). (Chute & Lim, 2003)
  • Contemporary melodramas of home and family life
  • Wah Tat Studio
• Mandarin movies
  • Shaw Brothers and Cathay are the top studios.
  • A musical genre called Huang2 Mei2 Diao4 (黃梅調) is derived from Chinese opera - The Love Eterne (1963) becomes record-breaking hit and the classic example of the genre.
  • Love stories based on novels by Chiung Yao (瓊瑤 pinyin qiong2 yao2).
  • A new generation of more intense, less fantastical wuxia film featuring glossier production values, acrobatic moves and stronger violence; launching of the trend generally credited to King Hu's Come Drink with Me (1966) and Chang Cheh's The One-Armed Swordsman (1967).

The Comeback of Cantonese Cinema (1970s)

For a brief time in the early '70s, production of Cantonese movies dropped to almost zero in the face of the dominant Mandarin studios. But there quickly emerged a movement towards more down-to-earth movies made about modern life in Hong Kong and emphasizing Cantonese so as to appeal to the average people.

The first films to re-popularise Cantonese were the comedies of the Hui Brothers (Actor-Director-Screenwriter Michael Hui, Actor-Singer Sam Hui and Actor Ricky Hui). The rationale behind the move to Cantonese was clear in the trailer for the brothers' Games Gamblers Play (1974): "Films by devoted young people with you in mind." This move back to the local audience for Hong Kong cinema paid off immediately. Games Gamblers Play initially made US$1.4 million at the Hong Kong box office, becoming the highest grossing film up to that point, even beating such favourites as Bruce Lee's The Big Boss, Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon. The Hui movies also broke ground by portraying (and satirizing) the up-to-date reality of an ascendant Hong Kong middle class whose long work hours and dreams of material success were transforming the colony into a modern industrial and corporate giant (Teo, 1997).

It was at around this time that, due to British colonial statutes, all films were mandated to be subtitled in English, facilitating their later popularity in the West.

Hong Kong Action Cinema of the 1970s-1990s

Bruce Lee

Hong Kong cinema is today famous mostly for its action movies. Its international reputation in this area began in 1971 when a little-known actor called Bruce Lee moved to Hong Kong after making only a few small roles in Hollywood movies and a TV series.

He gained a small role in a kung-fu film by the name of The Big Boss which was to star one of Hong Kong's most popular Hong Kong actors, James Tien. However, Bruce Lee's magnificent on-screen presence along with his amazing physical abilities led to Tien's character being killed off mid-way through the film, with Bruce Lee being billed as the lead. His electrifying performance led to the film becoming wildly popular not only in Hong Kong but also gaining distribution in the U.S. and Europe, something which was unheard of in Hong Kong cinema at the time. On the basis of this, he starred in (Fists of Fury and Way of the Dragon), both of which were also immensely successful worldwide.

This international success did not go unnoticed by Hollywood. Wishing to bring Bruce Lee to a mainstream American audience, Warner Brothers launched the first-ever U.S. co-production with a Chinese film company, a Bruce Lee project called Enter the Dragon, made entirely in English. On its release, it became the most internationally successful Chinese film to that date, grossing around US$ 90 million around the globe. Unfortunately, the star Bruce Lee would die just three weeks before the film's release.

The Post Bruce-Lee Void

After the death of Bruce Lee, there was a large void in the market. Westerners, given their first taste of Kung Fu movies had a huge appetite for more and Hong Kong tried to provide. It seemed that anybody with any knowledge of Kung Fu and a surname which could be mistaken for Lee adopted the English forename Bruce and started making Kung-Fu films, including Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Bruce Lei (a.k.a. Dragon Lee) and Bruce Lai. Their Chinese screen names were also cheap Bruce Lee knock-off's. Sadly, many of those films were made only to make money off the name of the genuine Bruce Lee so had relatively poor production values.

A major "Bruceploitation" film was The Clones of Bruce Lee where a professor made three Bruce Lee clones using cells from Bruce Lee's body and trained them into martial artists to be sent out to fight crime. Another, by Robert Clouse took the footage from Bruce Lee's unfinished Game of Death and new footage featuring several Bruce Lee doubles to form a new film also called Game of Death.

The many Bruce Lee clones were lampooned by Sammo Hung in his 1978 film Enter the Fat Dragon. Hung's character idolised Bruce Lee and when he hears of a film being made with a Bruce Lee imposter, Sammo goes onto the set and uses his own Kung-Fu skills (with some of Bruce Lee's traits thrown in for humour) to beat up the Bruce Lee imposter.

Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan had worked as a stuntman on Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon. According to one, possibly aprocryphal, story, Lee accidentally hit Chan in the face with a weapon at one point in the filming of Enter the Dragon; after apologising for this, he offered to use Chan for all of his following films, but died before he could keep this promise.

However, after Lee's death, Chan was directed by Lo Wei, director of Lee's The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, in several movies including a New Fist of Fury (1976). Lo's attempt to make Chan a Lee clone was no more successful than many similar efforts.

In 1978, Chan teamed up with action choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping on Yuen's directorial debut, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. The resulting blend of physical comedy and kung fu action provided Chan with his first hit and the rudiments of what would become his signature style. Chan's follow-up movie with Yuen, Drunken Master (also 1978), and his directorial debut, The Fearless Hyena (1979), cemented his popularity. (Logan, 1995)

Although these films were not the first kung fu comedies, they launched a vogue for the subgenre. Especially notable is Chan's Peking Opera Academy classmate Sammo Hung, who also quickly made a career of this specialty, starring in and directing titles like Enter the Fat Dragon (1978) and Magnificent Butcher (1979).

Reinventing Action Cinema

Chan's clowning may have helped extend the life of the period kung fu movie. For all that, he had become a star towards the end of the boom, and would soon help move the colony towards a new type of action. In the 1980s, he and many colleagues would forge a slicker, more spectacular Hong Kong pop cinema that would successfully compete with the post-Star Wars summer blockbusters from America.

Jackie Chan and the modern kung fu film

By 1983, Chan branched out into action films which, though they still used martial arts, were less limited in scope, setting and plot. His first film in this vein, Project A, added elaborate, dangerous stunts to the fights and typical slapstick humor (at one point, Chan falls from the top of a clock tower through a series of fabric canopies). The new formula grossed over HK$19 million.

Chan continued to take the approach - and the budgets - to new heights in hits like Police Story (1986). Here was Chan dangling from a speeding bus, sliding down a pole covered with exploding light bulbs, and destroying large parts of a shopping centre and a hillside shantytown. The '88 sequel called for explosions on a scale similar to many Hollywood movies and seriously injured leading lady Maggie Cheung - an occupational risk Chan had already grown used to. Thus Jackie Chan created the template for the contemporary urban action-comedy of the '80s, combining cops, kung fu and all the bodybreaking potential of the modern city with its glass, metal and speeding vehicles.

Tsui Hark and Cinema City

Chan's move towards larger-scale action films was parallelled by work coming out of Cinema City, the production company established in 1980 by comedians Raymond Wong, Karl Maka and Dean Shek. With movies like the spy spoof Aces Go Places (1982) and its sequels, Cinema City helped make modern special effects, James Bond-type gadgets and big vehicular stunts part of the industry vernacular (Bordwell 2000).

Director/producer Tsui Hark had a hand in shaping the Cinema City style while employed there from 1981-1983 (Teo, 1997) but went on to make an even bigger impact after leaving. In such movies as Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983) and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987, directed by Ching Siu-tung), he kept pushing back the boundaries of Hong Kong special effects. He led the way in replacing the rough and ready camera style of '70s kung fu with glossier and more sophisticated visuals and ever more furious editing.

John Woo and the gangster film

As a producer, Tsui facilitated the creation of John Woo's epoch-making A Better Tomorrow (1986). Woo's gangster saga combined fancifully choreographed (and extremely violent) gunplay with heightened emotional melodrama and broke another all-time box office record. It also jump-started the faltering career of co-star Chow Yun-Fat, who overnight became one of the colony's most popular idols and Woo's favorite leading man. (Logan, 1995)

For the remainder of the '80s and into the early '90s, a deluge of films by Woo and others explored similar territory, often with a similar visual style and usually with a particularly Chinese emphasis on the fraternal bonds of duty and affection among the criminal protagonists. The most notable other auteur of these themes was Ringo Lam, who offered a less romanticized take in such films as City on Fire, Prison on Fire (both 1987), and Full Contact (1992), all starring Chow Yun-Fat. These filmmakers were accused in some quarters of cravenly glorifying Triads, or Chinese organized crime figures, whose involvement in the film business was notorious (Dannen, Long, 1997).

The wire fu age

As the gangster film petered out in the early '90s, period martial arts returned as the favored action genre. But this was a new martial arts cinema that took full advantage of technical strides as well the higher budgets that came with Hong Kong's dominance of the region's screens. These lavish productions were often adapted from the more fantastical wuxia novels, which featured flying warriors in mid-air combat. Performers were trussed up on ultrathin wires to allow them to conduct gravity-defying action sequences, a technique known, sometimes disparagingly, as wire fu.

As so often, Tsui Hark led the way with The Swordsman (1990), from the works of Jin Yong, and Once Upon a Time in China (1991), which resurrected oft-filmed hero Wong Fei Hung. Sequels and a raft of imitations followed, often with Mainland martial arts champion Jet Li, who had become the biggest new superstar with his portrayal of Wong. The other signature star of the subgenre was Taiwanese-born actress Brigitte Lin. She made an unlikely specialty of androgynous woman-warrior types, epitomized by her villainous, sex-changing eunuch in The Swordsman 2 (1992).

Influence in the West

All of these developments not only made Hong Kong the dominant cinema in East Asia, but reawakened Western interest. Jackie Chan and films like Tsui Hark's Peking Opera Blues (1986) were already slowly gaining a cult following when Woo's The Killer (1989) opened the floodgates. In the '90s, Westerners with an eye on "alternative" culture became common sights in Chinatown video shops and theaters, and gradually the films became more available in the mainstream video market.

From here, Hong Kong came to define a new vocabulary for worldwide action cinema, with the aid of a new generation of North American filmmakers. Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) drew inspiration from City on Fire and his two-part Kill Bill (2003-04) was in large part a martial arts homage, borrowing Yuen Woo-Ping as fight choreographer and actor. Robert Rodriguez's Desperado (1995) and its 2003 sequel Once Upon a Time in Mexico aped Woo's visual mannerisms. The Wachowski brothers' The Matrix trilogy (1999-2004) borrowed from Woo and wire fu movies and also employed Yuen behind the scenes.

Exit of many Leading Figures

Due to the new-found international success of Hong Kong films during the 1980s and early 1990s and the quest for bigger budgets, many of the leading lights of Hong Kong cinema left for Hollywood with budgets and pay which could not be equalled by Hong Kong production companies.

John Woo left for Hollywood after his 1992 film Hard Boiled. In his 1997 film Face/Off, he brought his unique style to Hollywood. This effort was immensely popular with both critics and public alike (it grossed over US$240 million worldwide). Mission Impossible 2 grossed over US$560 million worldwide but was critically maligned. Apart from these two films, Woo has struggled to revisit his successes of the 1980s and early 1990s.

After 15 years of success in Hong Kong cinema and several attempts to crack the U.S. market, Jackie Chan's 1995 film Rumble in the Bronx finally brought him recognition in the U.S. Since then, he has made several extremely successful films for U.S. studios including Rush Hour (1998), Shanghai Noon (2000), Rush Hour 2 and Shanghai Knights. Between his films for U.S. studios, he still makes films for Hong Kong studios, sometimes in English (Mr. Nice Guy and Who Am I?), often set in western countries like Australia or Holland, and sometimes in Cantonese (New Police Story). Because of his enormous U.S. popularity, these films are usually released in the U.S., a rarity for Hong Kong films, and generally attract respectable audiences.

Jet Li has, for the large part, ceased his Hong Kong output since 1998's Hitman and worked in Hollywood since. After a minor role in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), he has gone on to star in several Hollywood films which have performed respectably and made a name for him in American audiences. So far, he has returned to Chinese Cinema for only one film: Hero.

Chow Yun-Fat has also moved to Hollywood. After his 1995 film Peace Hotel, he has made four films in Hollywood which have not seen as much success as Jet Li's: The Replacement Killers, The Corruptor, Anna and the King and Bulletproof Monk. He returned to China just for 1999's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Despite the loss of some of the most influential figures of Hong Kong cinema, Western interest in the past films of Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and John Woo has increased notably with their citation as some of the leading influences on Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and the success of The Matrix (which had action choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping). Additionally, Jackie Chan's success in Western films and continued role in Hong Kong cinema has vastly increased the audience for his Hong Kong films.

Hong Kong Cinema Now

The industry in crisis

During the 1990s, the Hong Kong film industry underwent a drastic decline from which it has not recovered. Besides the most obvious culprit of the Asian economic crisis, which dried up traditional sources of film finance, numerous other, converging factors have been blamed. They include: overproduction and the exhaustion of overused formulas; a costly early '90s boom in building of modern multiplexes along with an attendant rise in ticket prices (Teo, 1997); the growing cosmopolitanism of an upwardly mobile middle class that often looks down upon local films; rampant video piracy throughout East Asia; and a newly aggressive push by Hollywood distributors into the Asian market. During this period, revenues generated by the Hong Kong motion picture industry halved and American blockbuster imports began to regularly top the box office for the first time in decades. Ironically, this was the same period during which Hong Kong cinema emerged into something like mainstream visibility in the U.S. and began exporting popular figures to Hollywood.

In an effort to halt the decline of the local industry, the Hong Kong Government in April 2003 introduced a Film Guarantee Fund as an incentive to local banks to become involved in the motion picture industry. The guarantee operates to secure a percentage of monies loaned by banks to film production companies. The Fund has received a mixed reception from industry participants, and less than enthusiastic reception from financial institutions who perceive investment in local films as high risk ventures with little collateral. Film guarantee legal documents commissioned by the Hong Kong Government in late April 2003 are based on Canadian documents, which have limited relevance to the local industry.

Recent trends

Efforts by local filmmakers to retool their product have had middling success overall. These include more American-styled, CGI-enhanced contemporary action pictures such as Downtown Torpedoes (1997), Gen-X Cops and Purple Storm (both '99). Successful mini-trends in the late '90s and early 2000s have included the "Triad kids" subgenre launched by Young and Dangerous (1996); yuppie-centric romantic comedies like Needing You (2000) and Love on a Diet (2001); and supernatural chillers like Horror Hotline: Big-Headed Monster (2001) and The Eye (2002), often modeled on the Japanese horror films then making an international splash.

In the 2000s, there have been some bright spots, including hits such as Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer, which broke new ground in the use of special effects, and the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

See also: Hong Kong in films, Heroic bloodshed, Emperor Entertainment Group

Notable directors, actors and actresses

• Fruit Chan
• Jackie Chan
• Sammi Cheng
• Leslie Cheung
• Maggie Cheung
• David Chiang
• Samson Chiu
• Stephen Chow
• Chow Yun-Fat
• Ekin Cheng
• Linda Lin Dai
• Tsui Hark
• King Hu
• Ann Hui
• Michael Hui
• Sammo Hung
• Wong Jing
• Lu Jie
• Stanley Kwan
• Leon Lai
• Ringo Lam
• Andy Lau
• Anthony Wong
• Bruce Lee
• Tony Leung Chiu Wai
• Betty Loh Ti
• Anita Mui
• Michelle Reis
• Patrick Tam
• Johnnie To
• Stanley Tong
• Eric Tsang
• Wong Kar-wai
• Daniel Wu
• John Woo
• Sally Yeh
• Michelle Yeoh
• Yuen Biao
• Yuen Wo Ping

Film awards

• Hong Kong Film Awards

References

• Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-674-00214-8

• Chute, David, and Cheng-Sim Lim, eds. Heroic Grace: The Chinese Martial Arts Film. Los Angeles: UCLA Film and Television Archive, 2003. (Film series catalog; no ISBN.)

• Dannen, Fredric, and Barry Long. Hong Kong Babylon: The Insider's Guide to the Hollywood of the East. New York: Miramax, 1997. ISBN 0-7868-6267-X

• Logan, Bey. Hong Kong Action Cinema. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1995. ISBN 0-87951-663-1

• Teo, Stephen. Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions. London: British Film Institute, 1997. ISBN 0-85170-514-6

External links

• Another Hong Kong Movie Page
• Asian Cult Cinema
• The Girls Guide to Hong Kong Movies©
• Hong Kong Critics Society
• Hong Kong Film Archive
• Hong Kong Film Services Office Website on the Film Guarantee Fund
• Hong Kong Movie DataBase
• Chinese Movie DataBase(GB)
• The Wonderful World of Hong Kong Action Cinema—includes an extensive bibliography on martial arts films.
• Cinemasie—A database about Asian Cinemas, including Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.