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  Joey Wong and Leslie Cheung in Chinese Ghost Story II |
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This article originally appeared in issue 13 (1994) of our discontinued print edition. This issue, devoted entirely to Hong Kong cinema, has been used as course material in university film studies classes and has been cited in several scholarly articles. Long out of print, the entire issue is now available online. See the table of contents below.
Alive and Kicking: The Kung Fu Film Is a Legend Achievement and Crisis: Hong Kong Cinema in the '80s A Brief Historical Tour of the Hong Kong Martial Arts Film Swordsman II and The East Is Red: The "Hong Kong Film," Entertainment, and Gender A Better Tomorrow? American Masochism and Hong Kong Action Films |
The Sole Cinema "Dragon"
Hong Kong, together with South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, make up the region's four "economic dragons." The rapid economic and social development of these countries, with record achievements in the 1980s, has conferred a measure of pride and confidence on the region. It has also strengthened a resolve in these countries to be more independent in facing the conflict between Western influence and Eastern tradition. No longer is there only a passive acceptance of the principle of a harmonic East-West combination.
Surprisingly, only the Hong Kong film industry, among those of the "four dragons," has been able to present a concrete and comprehensive case of prosperity and achievement. This parallels the broader economic miracle achieved in the territory. The film industries of the other three "dragons" cannot compare as favorably. In Singapore, a film industry is nonexistent and its entertainment market is dominated by Hong Kong and Western products. In Taiwan, the local film industry went through an unprecedented period of malaise in the '80s, although it did produce a number of distinguished works. The malaise in the Taiwanese film industry was contrary to the vibrant developments in the broader economic and sociopolitical fields. Its entertainment market was dominated by Hong Kong and Western products.
I am not well acquainted with developments in South Korean cinema but if one were to speak purely of dynamism in the film industry and the prevalence of local products in regional markets, the South Korean cinema quite obviously cannot compare with its Hong Kong counterpart. In fact, only a handful of film industries in the world have been able to follow Hong Kong's example of closely integrating its film industry into the entire spectrum of prosperity achieved by its society.
Why is Hong Kong's case so distinctive? One may roughly offer the following analysis.
1. Hong Kong is a small city with a dense population. The city is tight and compact and so are its lifestyle, psychology, and sense of destiny. The cinema has all along been a medium for mass entertainment and has not been greatly affected by competition from the TV and video industries. This has allowed the Hong Kong film industry to preserve advantageous conditions for competitive preeminence in the East Asian and Southeast Asian markets.
2. Among the "four dragons," Hong Kong has all along possessed a great degree of freedom of expression, with minimal interference from authorities. Filmmakers are free to express themselves and to compete with each other. In the '80s, the censorship authority has gone even further to relax restrictions against politics and sex. Although there is still censorship, Hong Kong has the most relaxed and liberal attitudes in the whole of Asia.
 Gordon Liu in Fists of the White Lotus |
Because of this factor, Hong Kong movies have, over a long period, dominated all those markets in which overseas Chinese are active. Individual movies have also achieved a close following in Japan and South Korea, markets that may be described as falling into the East Asian cultural sphere.
The Hong Kong cinema also exerts an influence over the distribution prospects of commercial films produced in the Mainland. It occupies a crucial position as a middleman broker for coproduction ventures between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong itself.
However, the sense of achievement is not all pervasive. There is also a feeling of foreboding and crisis, which in its own way plays an important part in stimulating the Hong Kong film industry to greater dynamic heights. As a colony of Britain, Hong Kong is living on borrowed space and borrowed time. Its inhabitants harbor a crisis mentality as a result of this reality, driving them to heights of achievement so as to make the most of a desperate situation and to guarantee stability and prosperity (so that the interests of both Hong Kong and Britain may be served). This sense of crisis reached fever pitch in the ’80s. With each passing day, there is a greater need to keep up with the path to modernization and to stay competitive, since Britain and China have decided that Hong Kong will return to the Mainland in 1997.
The sense of crisis is no longer a hidden danger but a pressing reality. It has forced Hong Kong's citizens to examine their identity in the ’80s more than at any other period. At the same time, it has fostered a sense of common purpose — that people in the same boat must help each other — and the idea that a common medium is needed to give vent to collective feelings. This common medium is the cinema.
Perhaps this serves to explain why the average cinema admission rate in Hong Kong remained high throughout the ’80s and why Hong Kong filmmakers, on the whole, tend to cater to a collective mass audience and to play up the sentiments of such an audience. This is a feature of Hong Kong cinema not found in the movies produced in other countries.
The collusion between the two states of mind — achievement and crisis — has, in the ’80s, increased the sense of tension already existing in Hong Kong movies. This is true of both common entertainment-oriented pictures and more refined, "artistic" pictures. Throughout the decade, Hong Kong movies have become more intense, direct, exciting, and inventive as compared to earlier decades.
The Modernization of Hong Kong
Hong Kong cinema in the ’80s has obviously reflected an all-new facade. It has resolutely followed the track of modernization. In terms of a production system, the decade saw the end of the studio system dominated by big studios such as Shaw Brothers, which closed down production in 1986. Production shifted into the hands of a more vibrant and freer production house system. At the same time, a new generation of filmmakers, mostly born and educated in the territory itself, was coming of age and appeared to take over the reins of the industry. (The active filmmakers of the ’60s and ’70s, such as Li Hanxiang, Zhang Che, and King Hu, were born in the Mainland, grew up there, and had come to Hong Kong as immigrants.) Many of the new generation of Hong Kong filmmakers started their careers in television or had undergone education and technical training in the West.
In terms of film genres, the more traditional genres with historical backgrounds in China had given way to more Westernized, urban-based genres. This tendency had appeared in the '70s but the main achievement of that decade was the development and innovation of traditional Chinese genres, as in the kung fu genre of that period. The popular series of films that director Chu Yuan made from the martial arts novels of Gu Long may be taken as representative examples. Another example is the film, which gave Michael Hui an opportunity to first show his talent on the screen, The Warlord (1972), which belongs to traditional genres with historical China backgrounds made famous by veteran director Li Hanxiang. Later in the decade, Hui became even more famous for making comedies with a purely urban Hong Kong background and characters that all Hong Kong people could identify with. As to the film that is acknowledged to have single-handedly revived the Cantonese cinema, House of 72 Tenants (1973), this too is an adaptation of an old Shanghai comedy classic.
The situation began to change in the ’80s. The kung fu films with old-China backgrounds were still successful in the early ’80s but soon changed to reflect modern urban settings. The films of Karl Maka and Dean Shek are informative of such changes. In the late ’70s, the kung fu comedies of Maka and Shek (who, together with actor Raymond Wong, founded Cinema City in 1980) were still set in China's early Republican period. in the '80s, they changed the settings of their popular comedies to the recognizably urban settings of modern Hong Kong in films such as Chasing Girls (1981) and Aces Go Places (1982), films which no doubt helped establish Cinema City as the most successful film production company in Hong Kong in the early ’80s.
Similarly, Sammo Hung, whose successes in the early '80s were kung fu comedies set in the late Qing or early Republican period (such as Encounter of the Spooky Kind, 1980, and The Dead and the Deadly, 1982) reverted to modern-day urban settings in comedies such as Winners and Sinners (1983), My Lucky Stars, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (1985).
Jackie Chan, too, went through the same transformation phase from old to new. In Drunken Master (1978), which broke successfully into the Japanese market, Chan was a young Huang Fei Hong (Wong Fei Hong), the Cantonese kung fu hero of the early Republican period (and a popular character of Cantonese cinema in the ’50s and ’60s). The star shed the image of a historical hero in the '80s and set his subsequent films such as Police Story (1985) and Armour of God (1986) in the modern era.
Tsui Hark, who became one of the most important directors of the '80s, began his career with two films set in traditional China, Butterfly Murders (1979) and We're Going to Eat You (1980). These two films were not box-office successes. It was only with All the Wrong Clues (for the Right Solution) (1981), a contemporary comedy, that Tsui achieved box-office respectability.
Themes dealing with traditional Chinese backgrounds or history were consigned to the back burner by Hong Kong cinema. In their place came films with modern settings that were increasingly shot in locations all over the world. More significantly, the Hong Kong cinema gave a sense of belonging to Hong Kong itself. No longer was there a grappling for identity, to belong either to the left, right, or center (although, of course, production companies established with either Taiwan or Mainland investments continued to exist). The Hong Kong cinema belonged completely to Hong Kong.
Jackie Chan in
Project A Part I
Even when there was a sense of nostalgia for the old days of Chinese history, the status of Hong Kong prevailed. Jackie Chan's Project A (1983) is set in Hong Kong in the last century, during the early days of British administration. Chan plays a police sergeant loyal to the colonial administration and doing battle with Chinese pirates who prey off the South China coast. In the film, Chan is also portrayed as a "patriot" who sympathizes with Mainland revolutionaries fighting for the demise of the Qing Dynasty. At the same time, he declares his loyalty to Hong Kong.
Ann Hui's first film, The Secret (1979), set in the evocative West Point district, is full of nostalgic reminiscences of old Hong Kong. Her next film The Spooky Bunch (1980) may be described as the first film to capture a fully local Hong Kong flavor on film. It is set in Hong Kong's outlying islands, where the feel of a more "traditional" Hong Kong comes through more strongly. Love in a Fallen City (1984) goes back to the days immediately prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War and the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong.
Other representative works that fall into this genre of nostalgic reminiscence of old (or pre-war) Hong Kong include Hong Kong 1941 (1984), Welcome (1984), Rouge (1988), and Painted Faces (1988).
One reason for this upsurge in nostalgia for "old Hong Kong" may be due to the common perception that a vital part of the territory’s historical legacy may vanish. Naturally, the present is felt to be more important. Hong Kong has grown into a modern and prosperous city, and as such, may have grown increasingly distant from its own Chinese traditions. Its lifestyle and modes of entertainment have acquired a distinct style that may now be described as a "Hong Kong tradition." It is with this newly acquired local tradition that Hong Kong must now maintain its existence and face China, which is to recover it in 1997.
Sally Yeh in
Peking Opera Blues
The genres with old China backgrounds such as martial arts, historical costume epics, and the opera film had been the staples of Hong Kong cinema since its inception. In the ’80s, such genres practically vanished from the screen, with the exception of the ghost story genre. Themes or stories dealing with China would henceforth be treated from the perspective of Hong Kong.
In Happiness Is Tragedy: The Aces Go Places Series
The most successful comedy series in the ’80s are the Cinema City-produced Aces Go Places pictures starring comedy star Karl Maka, popular singer Sam Hui (also of the Hui Brothers fame), and Taiwanese female star Sylvia Chang. It was a breakthrough series, setting trends for all comedy films to follow. The first entry, Aces Go Places (1982), grossed HK$26m. By the third entry, Aces Go Places: Our Man in Bond Street (1984), Cinema City had broken all box-office records at the time, grossing $29m. These records have since been broken by other films but in terms of sheer audience attendance, the five films in the series are probably still the champions.
From the plot and tone in each of the five films, we may discern both the sense of achievement and the sense of crisis that distinguishes Hong Kong cinema. The first entry, Aces Go Places, presents an entirely new concept of comedy hitherto expressed only through elements appropriated from the martial arts costume genre or the country hick kung fu pictures or the urban working class comedy (such as those produced by Michael Hui). The series brought in state-of-the-art special effects, elaborate action stunts meant both to thrill and as slapstick, recalling the James Bond and Pink Panther pictures.
The series also portrays the virtues of hardworking overseas Chinese who seek to catch up with the superior technology of the West and who view the world with a more modern outlook (the sense of achievement inherent in the series itself). There is an emphasis on modern technological gadgetry and fast cars rather than purely on kung fu prowess. The latest fashion in wardrobe and hairstyles plus a sexy and lovable star added to the overall feeling of confidence and optimism. It captured the hearts of Hong Kong audiences and became a runaway success.
The first edition was released as a Chinese New Year attraction in January 1982, in retrospect an optimistic period for the people of Hong Kong. Later that year, the 1997 problem officially became a pressing concern. In an extreme state of optimism and happiness, a sense of crisis began to emerge. 1982 was also the year that saw the release of Ann Hui's The Boat People, a film that can hardly be described as optimistic. This film was able to pander to the Hong Kong people's fear of communism. Its success at the box office transformed the sense of optimism and achievement as expressed through Aces Go Places to one of dread and crisis.
After the initial sense of shock, a feeling of stability settled in. The Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong's future were in progress and things seemed to be going well. At the same time, China's open-door policy was yielding results, building up confidence for the future. In this atmosphere, the second entry of Aces Go Places and its third, Our Man in Bond Street, were released, in 1983 and 1984, respectively. Predictably, both were commercially successful, sustaining positions at the top of the box-office chart.
The third entry, Aces Go Places: Our Man in Bond Street (1984), directed by Tsui Hark, probably has the most ingenious plot. A Chinese "hero" is recruited by Hong Kong police to recover the stolen Crown Jewels. Not only does the movie touch on the attitudes of Hong Kong people toward the British, it also makes the proposition that Hong Kong's achievement is something to be proud of in the plot device of giving the honor of recovering the Crown Jewels to a Hong Konger.
The fourth entry, released in 1986, was shot on location in New Zealand and preserves the sense of optimistic well-being, although its James Bondish plot, gadgets, and villains make it a more representative picture of anxiety-ridden Hong Kong in the mid-’80s than the earlier films in the series. After this fourth sequel, the series went into quarantine for three years, as if in reaction to the public mood of despair and anxiety. The fifth entry, directed by veteran kung fu director Liu Jialiang, came out as the Chinese New Year attraction for 1989. A sense of crisis and tragedy pervades what is supposed to be a happy holiday picture. Its two heroes (played by Karl Maka and Sam Hui) are no longer portrayed as buddies. They are unemployed, disappointed, and unloved. The film climaxes with scenes of the heroes taken prisoner in a Peking jail and undergoing various forms of torture and coercion by the military.
The box-office showings for the fifth entry were disappointing. Already steeped in anxiety, the Hong Kong audience seemed not to want their screen heroes to be similarly down and out. The box-office failure of Aces Go Places 5 has effectively put the lid on the series.
From any angle, the five films in the series reflect the twin elements of achievement and crisis prevalent in the territory in the '80s. The status of its heroes has ranged from international superstars, called in to recover the British Crown Jewels in the early optimistic days, to vagrants tortured by the PLA in a Peking jail in the anxious days of the late '80s.
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