When the former British Crown Colony was handed back to the Mainland Chinese government in 1997, many of Hong Kong’s best directors and stars fled for Hollywood. This series, made in partnership with Far Out magazine, looks at the filmmakers who stayed behind and how they navigated the new world in-between East and West.
Hong Kong Movie: The Map-Speckle & the Art of Filmmaking
As one of Asia’s leading film capitals, Hong Kong has a rich and varied cinematic heritage. From the vibrant cinematic productions of Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest in the 1960s to a thriving contemporary art scene, Hong Kong film has long been synonymous with the city’s creative spirit.
While Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan culture is often celebrated on screen, it has also created an array of evocative and moving films about the city’s most enduring challenges. With the city in a state of rapid modernization and the rise of the middle class, it has become an increasingly difficult place for ordinary citizens to live.
The most powerful of these stories concerns the plight of the working class. The city’s gentrification has created a generation of young people with little job security and fewer opportunities to advance. Despite the influx of wealth, it has still been difficult for Hong Kong’s poorest citizens to afford housing, food and utilities.
Amid all of this, Hong Kong’s vibrant arts scene has been able to provide a safe space for some of the region’s most daring and innovative filmmakers to take risks. Its films have ranged from the acrobatic martial arts spectacles of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan to the surreal humour of Tsui Hark to the mind-bending genre experiments of Ringo Lam.
There is no question that Hong Kong movies paved the way for the development of a distinctive style of Asian cinema. The films of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan, along with Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, pushed against the kung fu stereotypes that had dominated local audiences for decades.
Moreover, these action-oriented films reflected the power and fervour of anti-colonial protest in Hong Kong itself, and the brashness of the radical Cultural Revolution across the border in mainland China. In many ways, the success of these films helped define an image of Chinese masculinity that resonated around the world.
When the Martial Arts of Hong Kong Movie Hits the Big Time
The late 1960s and 1970s saw a period of renaissance in Hong Kong cinema with films from Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest exulting in a hyper-kinetic, masculine redefinition of Chinese identity that would be adopted by martial arts and kung fu enthusiasts around the world. Featuring the likes of Bruce Lee, Hong Kong’s acrobatic action cinema embodied the energy and vitality that was being unleashed across the border in mainland China by the radical Cultural Revolution.
From the 1970s, Hong Kong cinema soared with martial arts films that challenged kung fu stereotypes in a way that would influence the future of action cinema worldwide. These films combined a physical dynamism with high-concept storytelling, as well as a satirical tone that was often delivered in a grotesquely vulgar fashion.