Cinema of Hong Kong
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{{Demographics and Culture of Hong Kong}}
{{East Asian cinema}}
The '''[[Movie theater|cinema]] of [[Hong Kong]]''' is one of the three major threads in the history of [[Chinese language]] [[film|cinema]], alongside the [[cinema of China]], and the [[cinema of Taiwan]]. As a former [[British colony]], [[Hong Kong]] had a greater degree of political and [[economic freedom]] than [[mainland China]] and [[Taiwan]], and developed into a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world (including its worldwide [[Overseas Chinese|diaspora]]) and for [[East Asia]] in general. For decades, Hong Kong was the third largest motion picture industry in the world (after [[Cinema of India|Indian Cinema]] and [[Hollywood]]) and the second largest exporter. Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-'90s and Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage.
In the West, Hong Kong's vigorous pop cinema (especially [[Hong Kong action 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 on recent Hollywood trends in the [[action film|action]] genre.
==The Hong Kong industry==
Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little to no direct government support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It is a thoroughly commercial cinema: highly corporate, concentrating on crowd-pleasing [[film genre|genres]] like comedy and action, and relying heavily on [[formula fiction|formula]]s, [[sequel]]s and [[remake]]s.
Hong Kong film derives a number of elements from Hollywood, such as certain genre parameters, an ingratiating "thrill-a-minute" philosophy and fast pacing and [[film editing|editing]]. But the borrowings are filtered through elements from [[Chinese opera|traditional Chinese drama]] and [[Chinese art|art]], particularly a penchant for stylization and a disregard for Western standards of [[Realism (arts)|realism]]. This, combined with a fast and loose approach to the filmmaking process, contributes to the energy and surreal imagination that foreign audiences note in Hong Kong cinema.
===The star system===
As is common in commercial cinema, the industry's heart is a highly developed [[star system (film)|star system]]. In earlier days, beloved performers from the [[Chinese opera]] stage often brought their audiences with them to the screen. For the past three or four decades, television has been a major launching pad for movie stardom, through acting courses and widely watched drama, comedy and variety series offered by the [[Free television services (Hong Kong)|two major stations]]. Possibly even more important is the overlap with the [[Cantopop|Cantonese pop music industry]]. Many, if not most, movie stars have recording sidelines, and vice versa; this has been a key marketing strategy in an entertainment industry where American-style, multimedia advertising campaigns have until recently been little used (Bordwell, 2000). In the current commercially troubled climate, the casting of young Cantopop idols (such as [[Ekin Cheng]] and the [[Twins (band)|Twins]]) to attract the all-important youth audience is endemic.
In the small and tightly knit industry, actors (as well as other personnel, such as directors) are kept very busy. During previous boom periods, the number of movies made by a successful figure in a single year could routinely reach double digit.
===Budgets===
Films are typically low-budget in comparison with [[Cinema of the United States|American product]]. A major release with a big star, aimed at "hit" status, will typically cost around US$5 million (Yang et al., 1997). A low-budget feature can go well below US$1 million. Occasional [[Blockbuster (entertainment)|blockbuster]] projects by the very biggest stars ([[Jackie Chan]] or [[Stephen Chow]], for example) or international co-productions aimed at the global market, can go as high as US$20 million or more, but these are rare exceptions. Hong Kong productions can nevertheless achieve a level of gloss and lavishness greater than these numbers might suggest, given factors like lower wages, the efficient professionalism typical of behind-the-scenes personnel, and the general lack of the expensive frills that are typical on Hollywood sets.
===Language and sound===
Since the 1980s, films have been made mostly in the [[Cantonese (linguistics)|Cantonese]] language.
For decades, films were typically [[MOS (film)|shot silent]], with dialogue and all other sound [[Dubbing (filmmaking)|dubbed]] afterwards. In the hectic and low-budget industry, this method was faster and more cost-efficient than recording live sound, particularly when using performers from different dialect regions; it also helped facilitate dubbing into other languages for the vital export market. Many busy stars would not even record their own dialogue, but would be dubbed by a lesser-known performer. Shooting without sound also contributed to an improvisatory filmmaking approach. Movies often went into production without finished scripts, with scenes and dialogue concocted on the set; especially low-budget productions on tight schedules might even have actors mouth silently or simply count numbers, with actual dialogue created only in the editing process.
A trend towards [[sync sound]] filming grew in the late '90s and this method is now the norm, partly because of a widespread public association with higher quality cinema.
==History==
===1909 to World War II===
During its early history, Hong Kong's cinema played second fiddle to that of the [[mainland China|mainland]], particularly the city of [[Shanghai]], which was then the movie capital of the Chinese-speaking world. Very little of this work is extant: one count finds only four films remaining out of over 500 produced in Hong Kong before [[World War II]] (Fonoroff, 1997). Detailed accounts of this period, especially those by non-[[Chinese spoken language|Chinese]] speakers, therefore have inherent limitations and uncertainties.
====Pioneers from the stage====
[[Image:LaiMan-Wai.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A young [[Lai Man-Wai]] in 1913 in ''Zhuangzi Tests His Wife'' credited as the first Hong Kong film]]
As in most of China, the development of early films was tightly bound to [[Chinese opera]], for centuries the dominant form of dramatic entertainment. Opera scenes were the source for what are generally credited as the first movies made in Hong Kong, two [[1909]] short comedies entitled ''[[Stealing a Roasted Duck]]'' and ''[[Right a Wrong with Earthenware Dish]]''. The director was stage actor and director [[Liang Shaobo]]. The producer was an American, [[Benjamin Brodsky]] (sometimes transliterated 'Polaski'), one of a number of Westerners who helped jumpstart Chinese film through their efforts to crack China's vast potential market.
Credit for the first Hong Kong [[feature film]] is usually given to ''[[Zhuangzi Tests His Wife]]'' (1913), which also took its story from the opera stage, was helmed by a stage director and featured Brodsky's involvement. Director [[Lai Man-Wai]] (Li Ming Wei or Li Minwei in [[Mandarin (linguistics)|Mandarin]]) was a theatrical colleague of Liang Shaobo's who would become known as the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema". In another borrowing from opera, Lai played the role of wife himself. His brother played the role of husband, and his wife a supporting role as a maid, making her the first Chinese woman to act in a Chinese film, a milestone delayed by longstanding taboos regarding female performers (Leyda, 1972). ''Zhuangzhi'' was the only film made by Chinese American Film, founded by Lai and Brodsky as the first movie studio in Hong Kong, and was never actually shown in the territory (Stokes and Hoover, 1999).
The following year, the outbreak of [[World War I]] put a large crimp in the development of cinema in Hong Kong, as Germany was the source of the colony's film stock (Yang, 2003). It was not until 1923 that Lai, his brother and their cousin joined with Liang Shaobo to form Hong Kong's first entirely Chinese-owned-and-operated production company, the [[Minxin Film Company|Minxin]] (or China Sun) Company. In 1924, they moved their operation to the Mainland after government red tape blocked their plans to build a studio. (Teo, 1997)
====The advent of sound====
With the popularity of [[talkies]] in the early 1930s, China's many, mutually unintelligible, spoken [[Chinese spoken language|dialects]] had to be grappled with. Hong Kong was a major center for [[Cantonese (linguistics)|Cantonese]], one of the most widely spoken, and political factors on the Mainland provided other opportunities. The government of the [[Kuomintang]] or Nationalist Party wanted to enforce a "[[Mandarin (linguistics)|Mandarin]]-only" policy and was hostile to Cantonese filmmaking in China. It also banned the wildly popular ''[[wuxia]]'' genre of [[martial arts]] swordplay and fantasy, accusing it of promoting superstition and violent anarchy. Cantonese film and ''wuxia'' film remained popular despite government hostility, and the British colony of Hong Kong became a place where both of these trends could be freely served. The name (粵語長片, [[Jyutping]]: jyut6 jyu5 coeng4 pin3*2) soon became the standard name for black and white Cantonese movies.
Filmed [[Cantonese opera]]s proved even more successful than ''wuxia'' and constituted the leading genre of the 1930s. Major studios that thrived in this period were Grandview, Universal, Nanyue and Tianyi (the last an early incarnation of the [[Shaw Brothers|Shaw]] family dynasty that would become the most enduring and influential in Chinese film). (Teo, 1997)
====The advent of war====
Another important factor in the '30s was the [[Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)|Sino-Japanese War]]. "National defense" films - patriotic war stories about Chinese resisting the Japanese invasion - became one of Hong Kong's major genres; notable titles included Kwan Man Ching's ''[[Lifeline]]'' (1935), Chiu Shu Sun's ''[[Hand to Hand Combat]]'' (1937) and Situ Huimin's ''[[March of the Partisans]]'' (1938). The genre and the film industry were further boosted by emigre film artists and companies when Shanghai was taken by the Japanese in 1937.
This of course came to an end when Hong Kong itself [[History of Hong Kong#World War II|fell]] to the Japanese in December 1941. But unlike on the Mainland, the occupiers were not able to put together a collaborationist film industry. They managed to complete just one propaganda movie, ''[[The Attack on Hong Kong]]'' (1942; aka ''The Day of England's Collapse'') before the British returned in 1945 (Teo, 1997). A more important move by the Japanese may have been to melt down many of Hong Kong's pre-war films to extract their [[silver nitrate]] for military use (Fonoroff, 1997).
===The 1940s-1960s===
Postwar Hong Kong cinema, like postwar Hong Kong industries in general, was catalyzed by the continuing influx of capital and talents from Mainland China. This became a flood with the 1946 resumption of the [[Chinese Civil War]] (which had been on hold during the fight against Japan) and then the 1949 [[Communist Party of China|Communist]] victory. These events definitively shifted the center of Chinese-language cinema to Hong Kong. The colony also did big business exporting films to [[Southeast Asia|Southeast Asian]] countries (especially but not exclusively their large Chinese [[expatriate]] communities) and to [[Chinatown]]s in Western countries (Bordwell, 2000).
====Competing languages====
The postwar era also cemented the bifurcation of the industry into two parallel cinemas, one in [[Mandarin (linguistics)|Mandarin]], the dominant dialect of the Mainland emigres, and one in [[Cantonese (linguistics)|Cantonese]], the dialect of most Hong Kong natives. Mandarin movies had much higher budgets and more lavish production. Reasons included their enormous export market; the expertise, capital and prestige of the Shanghai filmmakers; and the cultural prestige of Mandarin, the official language of China and the tongue of the Chinese cultural and political elite. For decades to come, Cantonese films, though sometimes more numerous, were relegated to second-tier status (Leyda, 1972).
Another language-related milestone occurred in 1963: the British authorities passed a law requiring the [[Subtitles#In films|subtitling]] of all films in English, supposedly to enable a watch on political content. Making a virtue of necessity, studios included Chinese subtitles as well, enabling easier access to their movies for speakers of other dialects. (Yang, 2003) Subtitling later had the [[unintended consequence]] of facilitating the movies' popularity in the West.
====Cantonese movies====
During this period, [[Cantonese opera]] on film dominated. The top stars were the female duo of [[Yam Kim Fai]] and [[Pak Suet Sin]] (Yam-Pak for short). Yam specialized in male scholar roles to Pak's female leads. They made over fifty films together, ''[[The Purple Hairpin]]'' (1959) being one of the most enduringly popular (Teo, 1997).
Low-budget [[martial arts film]]s were also popular. A series of roughly 100 [[kung fu]] movies starring [[Kwan Tak Hing]] as historical folk hero [[Wong Fei Hung]] were made, starting with ''[[The True Story of Wong Fei Hung]]'' (1949) and ending 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) starring teen idol [[Connie Chan Po-chu]] in the lead male role, were also popular (Chute and Lim, 2003, 3), as were contemporary [[melodrama]]s of home and family life.
====Mandarin movies and the Shaws/Cathay rivalry====
In Mandarin production, [[Shaw Brothers Studio|Shaw Brothers]] and [[Cathay Organisation|Motion Picture and General Investments Limited]] (MP&GI, later renamed Cathay) were the top studios by the 1960s, and bitter rivals. The Shaws gained the upper hand in 1964 after the death in a plane crash of MP&GI <!---國際電影懋業有限公司--->founder and head [[Loke Wan Tho]]. The renamed Cathay faltered, ceasing film production in 1970 (Yang, 2003).
A musical genre called ''[[Huangmei opera|Huángméidiào]]'' (黃梅調) was derived from [[Chinese opera]]; the Shaws' record-breaking hit ''[[The Love Eterne]]'' (1963) remains the classic of the genre. Historical costume epics often overlapped with the ''Huángméidiào'', such as in ''The Kingdom and the Beauty'' (1959). (Both of the above examples were directed by Shaw's star director, [[Li Han Hsiang]]). Romantic melodramas such as ''Red Bloom in the Snow'' (1956), ''Love Without End'' (1961), ''The Blue and the Black'' (1964) and adaptations of novels by [[Chiung Yao]] were popular. So were Hollywood-style [[Musical film|musicals]], which were a particular specialty of MP&GI/Cathay in entries such as ''Mambo Girl'' (1957) and ''The Wild, Wild Rose'' (1960).
In the second half of the '60s, the Shaws inaugurated a new generation of more intense, less fantastical ''[[wuxia]]'' films with glossier production values, acrobatic moves and stronger violence. The trend was inspired by the popularity of imported [[samurai]] movies from Japan (Chute and Lim, 2003, 8), as well as by the loss of movie audiences to television. This marked the crucial turn of the industry from a female-centric genre system to an action movie orientation (see also the [[Hong Kong action cinema]] article). Key trendsetters included Xu Zenghong's ''Temple of the Red Lotus'' (1965), [[King Hu]]'s ''[[Come Drink with Me]]'' (1966) and ''[[Dragon Inn]]'' (1967, made in Taiwan; aka ''[[Dragon Gate Inn]]''), and [[Chang Cheh]]'s ''Tiger Boy'' (1966), ''[[The One-Armed Swordsman]]'' (1967) and ''Golden Swallow'' (1968).
===Years of transformation (1970s)===
Mandarin-dialect film in general and the Shaw Brothers studio in particular began the 1970s in apparent positions of unassailable strength. Cantonese cinema virtually vanished in the face of Mandarin studios and Cantonese television, which became available to the general population in 1967; in 1972 no films in the local dialect were made (Bordwell, 2000). The Shaws saw their longtime rival Cathay ceasing film production, leaving themselves the only megastudio. The martial arts subgenre of the ''[[kung fu]]'' movie exploded into popularity internationally, with the Shaws driving and dominating the wave. But changes were beginning that would greatly alter the industry by the end of the decade.
====The Cantonese comeback====
Paradoxically, television would soon contribute to the revival of Cantonese in a movement towards more down-to-earth movies about modern Hong Kong life and average people.
The first spark was the ensemble comedy ''[[The House of 72 Tenants]]'', the only Cantonese film made in 1973, but a resounding hit. It was based on a well-known play and produced by the Shaws as a showcase for performers from their pioneering television station [[TVB]] (Yang, 2003).
The return of Cantonese really took off with the comedies of former TVB stars 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 the (Mandarin) films of worldwide kung fu superstar [[Bruce Lee]]. The Hui movies also broke ground by satirizing the modern reality of an ascendant middle class, whose long work hours and dreams of material success were transforming the colony into a modern industrial and corporate giant (Teo, 1997). Cantonese comedy thrived and Cantonese production skyrocketed; Mandarin hung on into the early '80s, but has been relatively rare onscreen since.
====Golden Harvest and the rise of the independents====
In 1970, former Shaw Brothers executives [[Raymond Chow]] and [[Leonard Ho]] left to form their own studio, [[Golden Harvest]]. The upstart's more flexible and less tightfisted approach to the business outmaneuvered the Shaws' old-style studio. Chow and Ho landed contracts with rising young performers who had fresh ideas for the industry, like [[Bruce Lee]] and the Hui Brothers, and allowed them greater creative latitude than was traditional. By the end of the '70s, Golden Harvest was the top studio, signing up [[Jackie Chan]], the kung fu comedy actor-filmmaker who would spend the next twenty years as Asia's biggest box office draw (Chan and Yang, 1998, pp. 164-165; Bordwell, 2000).
Meanwhile, the explosions of Cantonese and kung fu and the example of Golden Harvest had created more space for independent producers and production companies. The era of the studio juggernauts was past. The Shaws nevertheless continued film production until 1985 before turning entirely to television (Teo, 1997).
====Other transformative trends====
The rapidly growing permissiveness in film content that was general in much of the world affected Hong Kong film as well. A genre of softcore [[erotica]] known as ''[[fengyue]]'' became a local staple (the name is a contraction of a Chinese phrase implying seductive decadence). Such material did not suffer as much of a stigma in Hong Kong as in most Western countries; it was more or less part of the mainstream, sometimes featuring contributions from major directors such as [[Chor Yuen]] and [[Li Han Hsiang]] and often crossbreeding with other popular genres like martial arts, the [[costume drama|costume film]] and especially comedy (Teo, 1997; Yang, 2003). Violence also grew more intense and graphic, particularly at the instigation of martial arts filmmakers.
Director [[Lung Kong (director)|Lung Kong]] blended these trends into the social-issue dramas which he had already made his specialty with late '60s Cantonese classics like ''[[The Story of a Discharged Prisoner]]'' (1967) and ''[[Teddy Girls]]'' (1969). In the '70s, he began directing in Mandarin and brought [[exploitation film|exploitation]] elements to serious films about subjects like prostitution (''[[The Call Girls]]'' and ''[[Lina]]''), the atomic bomb (''[[Hiroshima 28]]'') and the fragility of civilized society (''[[Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow]]'', which portrayed a plague-decimated, near-future Hong Kong). (Teo, 1997)
The brief career of [[Tang Shu Shuen]], the territory's first noted woman director, produced two films, ''[[The Arch]]'' (1970) and ''[[China Behind]]'' (1974), that were trailblazers for a local, socially critical [[art film|art cinema]]. They are also widely considered forerunners of the last major milestone of the decade, the so-called [[Hong Kong New Wave]] that would come from outside the traditional studio hierarchy and point to new possibilities for the industry (Bordwell, 2000).
===1980s-early 1990s: the boom years===
The 1980s and early '90s saw seeds planted in the '70s come to full flower: the triumph of Cantonese, the birth of a new and modern cinema, superpower status in the East Asian market, and the turning of the West's attention to Hong Kong film.
A cinema of greater technical polish and more sophisticated visual style, including the first forays into up-to-date [[special effects]] technology, sprang up quickly. To this surface dazzle, the new cinema added an eclectic mixing and matching of genres, and a penchant for pushing the boundaries of sensationalistic content. [[Slapstick]] comedy, sex, the supernatural, and above all [[Hong Kong action cinema|action]] (of both the [[martial arts film|martial arts]] and cops-and-criminals varieties) ruled, occasionally all in the same film.
====The international market====
During this period, the Hong Kong industry was one of the few in the world that thrived in the face of the increasing global dominance of [[Hollywood]]. Indeed, it came to exert a comparable dominance in its own region of the world. The regional audience had always been vital, but now more than ever Hong Kong product filled theaters and video shelves in places like [[Thailand]], [[Singapore]], [[Malaysia]], [[Indonesia]] and [[South Korea]]. [[Taiwan]] became at least as important a market to Hong Kong film as the local one; in the early '90s the once-robust [[Cinema of Taiwan|Taiwanese film industry]] came close to extinction under the onslaught of Hong Kong imports (Bordwell, 2000). They even found a lesser foothold in [[Japan]], with its own highly developed and better-funded [[Cinema of Japan|cinema]] and strong taste for American movies; [[Jackie Chan]] in particular became popular there.
Almost accidentally, Hong Kong also reached further into the West, building upon the attention gained during the '70s kung fu craze. Availability in [[Chinatown]] theaters and video shops allowed the movies to be discovered by Western [[cult film|film cultists]] attracted by their "exotic" qualities and excesses. An emergence into the wider popular culture gradually followed over the coming years.
====Leaders of the boom====
The trailblazer was production company [[Cinema City]], founded in 1980 by comedians [[Karl Maka]], [[Raymond Wong Bak Ming|Raymond Wong]] and Dean Shek. It specialized in contemporary comedy and action, slickly produced according to explicitly prescribed commercial formulas. The lavish, effects-filled spy spoof ''[[Aces Go Places]]'' (1982) and its numerous sequels epitomized the much-imitated "Cinema City style." (Yang, 2003)
Directors and producers [[Tsui Hark]] and [[Wong Jing]] can be singled out as definitive figures of this era. Tsui was a notorious [[Hong Kong New Wave]] tyro who symbolized that movement's absorption into the mainstream, becoming the industry's central trendsetter and technical experimenter (Yang et al., 1997, p. 75). The even more prolific Wong is, by most accounts, the most commercially successful and critically reviled Hong Kong filmmaker of the last two decades, with his relentless output of aggressively crowd-pleasing and cannily marketed pulp films.
Other hallmarks of this era included the gangster or "[[Triad society|Triad]]" movie fad launched by director [[John Woo]], producer and long-time actor [[Alan Tang]] and dominated by actor [[Chow Yun-Fat]]; romantic melodramas and martial arts fantasies starring [[Brigitte Lin]]; the comedies of stars like [[Cherie Chung]] and [[Stephen Chow]]; and contemporary, [[stunt]]-driven kung fu action epitomized by the work of [[Jackie Chan]].
====Category III films====
The government's introduction of [[Hong Kong motion picture rating system|a film ratings system]] in 1988 had a certainly unintended effect on subsequent trends. The "Category III" (adults only) rating became an umbrella for the rapid growth of [[pornography|pornographic]] and generally outré films; however, while considered graphic by Chinese standards, these films would be more on par with movies rated "R" or "NC-17" in the United States, and not "XXX". By the height of the boom in the early '90s, roughly half of the theatrical features produced were Category III-rated softcore erotica descended from the fengyue movies of the '70s. (Yang, 2003) A definitive example of a mainstream Category III hit was Michael Mak's ''[[Sex and Zen]]'' (1991), a [[period piece|period]] comedy inspired by ''[[The Carnal Prayer Mat]]'', the seventeenth century classic of comic-erotic literature by [[Li Yu (author)|Li Yu]] (Dannen and Long, 1997).
The rating also covered a fad for grisly, taboo-tweaking [[exploitation film|exploitation]] and [[horror film|horror]] films, often supposedly based on true crime stories, such as ''[[Dr. Lamb]]'' (1992), ''[[The Untold Story]]'' (1993) and ''[[Ebola Syndrome]]'' (1996).
Since the mid-'90s, the trend has withered with the shrinking of the general Hong Kong film market and the wider availability of pornography in home video formats (Bordwell, 2000). But in 2000's, three Category III movies: ''[[Election (2005 film)|Election]]'' its sequel, ''[[Election 2]]'' (aka ''Triad Election''), and ''[[Mad Detective]]'' still enjoyed surprising box office successes in Hong Kong.
====Alternative cinema====
In this landscape of pulp, there remained some ground for an alternative cinema or [[art film|art cinema]], due at least in part to the influence of the [[Hong Kong New Wave|New Wave]]. Some New Wave filmmakers such as [[Ann Hui]] and [[Yim Ho]] continued to earn acclaim with personal and political films made at the edges of the mainstream.
The second half of the '80s also saw the emergence of what is sometimes called a "Second Wave." These younger directors included names like [[Stanley Kwan]], [[Clara Law]] and her partner [[Eddie Fong]], [[Mabel Cheung]], [[Lawrence Ah Mon]] and [[Wong Kar-wai]]. Like the New Wavers, they tended to be graduates of overseas film schools and local television apprenticeships, and to be interested in going beyond the usual, commercial subject matters and styles (Teo, 1997).
These artists began to earn Hong Kong unprecedented attention and respect in international [[film criticism|critical]] circles and the global [[film festival]] circuit. In particular, [[Wong Kar-wai]]'s works starring [[Leslie Cheung]], [[Tony Leung Chiu-Wai]] and [[Maggie Cheung]] in the 1990s has made him an internationally acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker.
===Mid-1990s-Present: Post-boom===
====The industry in crisis====
During the 1990s, the Hong Kong film industry underwent a drastic decline from which it has not recovered. Domestic ticket sales had already started to drop in the late '80s, but the regional audience kept the industry booming into the early years of the next decade (Teo, 1997). But by the mid-'90s, it went into freefall. Revenues were cut in half. By the decade's end, the number of films produced in a typical year dropped from an early '90s high of well over 200 to somewhere around 100 (it should be noted, however, that a large part of this reduction was in the "Category III" softcore pornography area [Bordwell, 2000].) 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.
Numerous, converging factors have been blamed for the downturn:
* The [[Asian financial crisis]], which dried up traditional sources of film finance as well as regional audiences' leisure spending money.
* Overproduction, attended by a drop in quality control and an exhaustion of overused formulas (Yang, 2003).
* A costly early '90s boom in building of modern multiplexes and an attendant rise in ticket prices (Teo, 1997).
* An increasingly cosmopolitan, upwardly mobile Hong Kong middle class, that often looks down upon local films as cheap and tawdry.
* Rampant video piracy throughout East Asia.
* A newly aggressive push by Hollywood studios into the Asian market.
The greater access to the Mainland that came with the July '97 [[Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong|handover]] to China was not as much of a boon as hoped, and presented its own problems, particularly with regard to censorship.
The industry had one of its darkest years in 2003. In addition to the continuing slump, a [[SARS]] virus outbreak kept many theaters virtually empty for a time and shut down film production for four months; only fifty-four movies were made (Li, 2004). The unrelated deaths of two of Hong Kong's famous singer/actors, [[Leslie Cheung]], 46, and [[Anita Mui]], 40, rounded out the bad news.
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====
[[Image:AndyLau2005 2.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[Andy Lau]] at a film interview]]
Efforts by local filmmakers to retool their product have had middling results overall. These include technically glossier visuals, including much [[Computer-generated imagery|digital imagery]]; greater use of Hollywood-style mass marketing techniques; and heavy reliance on casting teen-friendly [[Cantopop]] music stars. Successful genre cycles in the late '90s and early 2000s have included: American-styled, high-tech action pictures such as ''Downtown Torpedoes'' (1997), ''[[Gen-X Cops]]'' and ''[[Purple Storm]]'' (both '99); the "[[Triad society|Triad]] kids" subgenre launched by ''[[Young and Dangerous]]'' (1996); [[yuppie]]-centric romantic comedies like ''[[The Truth About Jane and Sam]]'' (1999), ''[[Needing You...]]'' (2000) and ''Love on a Diet'' (2001); and supernatural chillers like ''Horror Hotline: Big-Head Monster'' (2001) and ''The Eye'' (2002), often modeled on the [[J-Horror|Japanese horror films]] then making an international splash.
In the 2000s, there have been some bright spots. [[Milkyway Image]], founded by filmmakers [[Johnnie To]] and [[Wai Ka-Fai]] in the mid-'90s, has had considerable critical and commercial success, especially with offbeat and character-driven crime films like ''[[The Mission (1999 film)|The Mission]]'' (2000) and ''[[Running on Karma]]'' (2003). An even more successful example of the genre was the blockbuster ''[[Infernal Affairs]]'' trilogy (2002-2003) of police thrillers co-directed by [[Andrew Lau]] and [[Alan Mak]] (the [[Academy Award|Oscar]] winning movie, ''[[The Departed]]'', was based on this movie). Comedian [[Stephen Chow]], the most consistently popular screen star of the '90s, directed and starred in ''[[Shaolin Soccer]]'' (2001) and ''[[Kung Fu Hustle]]'' (2004); these used digital special effects to push his distinctive humor into new realms of the surreal and became the territory's two highest-grossing films to date, garnering numerous awards locally and internationally. [[Johnnie To]]'s two Category III movies: ''[[Election (2005 film)|Election]]'' and ''[[Election 2]]'' also enjoyed Hong Kong box office successes. ''[[Election 2]]'' has even been released in the [[United States|US]] theatrically under the new title ''[[Triad Election]]''; this movie received very positive reviews in the United States, with a more than 90% "Fresh" rating on [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/election_2 Rottentomatoes.com] .
Still, some observers believe that, given the depressed state of the industry and the rapidly strengthening economic and political ties among Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan, the distinctive entity of Hong Kong cinema that emerged after World War II may have a limited lifespan. The lines between the mainland and Hong Kong industries are ever more blurred, especially now that China is producing increasing numbers of slick, mass-appeal popular films. Predictions are notoriously difficult in this rapidly changing part of the world, but the trend may be towards a more pan-Chinese cinema, as existed in the first half of the twentieth century.
==Notable persons==
===Directors===
*[[Stephen Chow]]
*[[Fruit Chan]]
*[[Samson Chiu]]
*[[King Hu]]
*[[Ann Hui]]
*[[Michael Hui]]
*[[Wong Jing]]
*[[Yuen Woo-ping]]
*[[John Woo]]
*[[Wong Kar-wai]]
*[[Tsui Hark]]
*[[Stanley Tong]]
*[[Johnnie To]]
*[[Patrick Tam]]
*[[Stanley Kwan]]
*[[Ringo Lam]]
*[[Lau Kar-Leung]]
*[[Dante Lam]]
*[[Dennis Law Sau-Yiu|Dennis Law]]
*[[Herman Yau]]
*[[Andrew Lau]]
*[[Alan Mak]]
*[[Peter Chan]]
===Cinematographers===
*[[Christopher Doyle]]
*[[Peter Pau]]
===Actors===
*[[Alan Tang]]
*[[Jackie Chan]]
*[[Leslie Cheung]]
*[[David Chiang]]
*[[Stephen Chow]]
*[[Chow Yun-Fat]]
*[[Ekin Cheng]]
*[[Sammo Hung]]
*[[Yuen Biao]]
*[[Eric Tsang]]
*[[Leon Lai]]
*[[Andy Lau]]
*[[Lau Ching-Wan|Sean Lau]]
*[[Anthony Wong Chau Sang|Anthony Wong]]
*[[Bruce Lee]]
*[[Tony Leung Chiu-Wai]]
*[[Tony Leung Ka-Fai]]
*[[Jet Li]]
*[[Jacky Cheung]]
*[[Takeshi Kaneshiro]]
*[[Aaron Kwok]]
*[[Wu Jing (actor)|Wu Jing]]
*[[Donnie Yen]]
===Actresses===
*[[Michelle Yim, Mi Xue]]
*[[Chin Tsi-ang]]
*[[Gigi Lai]]
*[[Gigi Leung]]
*[[Sammi Cheng]]
*[[Maggie Cheung]]
*[[Ivy Ling Po]]
*[[Lin Dai]]
*[[Fung Bo Bo]]
*[[Xia Meng]]
*[[Michelle Yeoh]]
*[[Sally Yeh]]
*[[Betty Loh Ti]]
*[[Anita Mui]]
*[[Michelle Reis]]
*[[Zhang Ziyi]]
*[[Gong Li]]
*[[Shu Qi]]
*[[Lydia Shum]]
*[[Miriam Yeung]]
==See also==
* [[World cinema]]
* [[Asian cinema]]
* [[East Asian cinema]]
* [[Hong Kong action cinema]]
* [[Hong Kong in films]]
* [[Hong Kong Movie Database]]
* [[Heroic bloodshed]]
* [[Mo lei tau|Mo Lei tau comedies]]
* [[Emperor Entertainment Group]]
* [[List of Hong Kong films]]
* [[List of cinemas in Hong Kong]]
* [[Chinese art]]
* [[Chinese Animation]]
'''Film awards''':
* [[Hong Kong Film Awards]]
* [[Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards]]
'''Festivals''':
* [[Hong Kong International Film Festival]]
==References==
* Bordwell, David. ''Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-674-00214-8
* Chan, Jackie, with Jeff Yang. ''I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action''. New York: Ballantine, 1998. ISBN 0-345-41503-5
*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.)''
*Cheuk, Pak Tong. ''Hong Kong New Wave Cinema (1978–2000)''. Bristol: Intellect, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84150-148-2.
* 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
* Fonoroff, Paul. ''Silver Light: A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Cinema, 1920–1970''. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1997. ISBN 962-04-1304-0
* [[Jay Leyda|Leyda, Jay]]. ''Dianying/Electric Shadows: An Account of Films and the Film Audience in China''. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1972.
* Li Cheuk-to. "Journal: Hong Kong." ''Film Comment'' September-October 2004: pp. 10-12.
* [[Bey Logan|Logan, Bey]]. ''Hong Kong Action Cinema''. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1995. ISBN 0-87951-663-1
* Stokes, Lisa Odham, and Michael Hoover. ''City on Fire: Hong Kong Cinema''. London: Verso, 1999. ISBN 1-85984-203-8
* Teo, Stephen. ''Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions''. London: British Film Institute, 1997. ISBN 0-85170-514-6
* Yang, Jeff. ''Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese Cinema''. New York: Atria, 2003. ISBN 0-7434-4817-0
* Yang, Jeff, and Dina Gan, Terry Hong and the staff of ''A.'' magazine. ''Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. ISBN 039576341X
==External links==
{{external links}}
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* {{dmoz|Arts/Movies/Cultures_and_Groups/Asian/Hong_Kong/|{{pagename}}}}
* [http://www.hkfilms.com/ Hong Kong Films' Web]
* [http://gohongkong.about.com/od/historyandcultureofhk/tp/toptenHKfilms.htm Hong Kong's Top Ten Movies]
* [http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalService/HKFA/ Hong Kong Film Archive]
* [http://www.filmcritics.org.hk/ Hong Kong Critics Society]
* [http://www.fso-tela.gov.hk/fgf/index.cfm Hong Kong Film Services Office Website on the Film Guarantee Fund]
* [http://www.dyddy.com/ Chinese Movie DataBase] (encoded in [[Guobiao code|GB]])
* [http://www.hkmdb.com/ Hong Kong Movie DataBase]
* [http://www.lovehkfilm.com LoveHKFilm.com]—Reviews the vast majority of the movies currently coming out of Hong Kong
* [http://www.myspace.com/hkactioncinema Myspace page with updates and LATEST news on Hong Kong Action Films]
* [http://www.loveasianfilm.com LoveAsianFilm.com]— Celebrating Asian Films
* [http://kungfu4u.0catch.com/ The Wonderful World of Hong Kong Action Cinema]—includes an extensive bibliography on martial arts films.
{{CinemaofHongKong}}
{{Worldcinema}}
[[Category:Cinema of Hong Kong| ]]
[[Category:Film industries|Hong Kong]]
[[Category:Film industries]]
[[Category:Chinese art]]
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