In 1896, a French film crew visited Hong Kong and marked the start of Hong Kong’s cinematic history. In the 1900s and 1910s, a series of short films were produced, for example, Stealing the Roast Duck was one of the most important productions in Asia in 1909. As sound films were introduced in the 1930s, Hong Kong was important for producing Cantonese films that were sold to Mainland China and Southeast Asian countries. During the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist Party Kuomintang did not favour Cantonese filmmaking and wanted only Mandarin films being produced in China, many film companies in Shanghai moved to Hong Kong to produce Cantonese and martial arts films.
After the Sino-Japanese War, sing-song films became popular in the 1950s. By the mid-1950s, Hong Kong had encountered a boom of Mandarin and Cantonese films. However, Cantonese films were made with a smaller scale and lower profits compared to Mandarin films at that time. Mandarin film companies like the Shaw Brothers Studio and Motion Picture & General Investment Company (MP & GI) started to become competitive and only made films dictated by popular trends, leading to a large number of rather shallow movie productions. Meanwhile, Cantonese opera singers turned to the movies as stage opera became less popular.
During the late 1960s, a new generation of martial arts films was being produced with more violence and more acrobatics. This kick-started the popularity of the kung fu genre in Hong Kong. Kung fu films’ popularity continued in the 1970s as Bruce Lee became an icon in the martial art genre. Cantonese films also started to gain more recognition through the famous comedies from the Hui Brothers as the use of Cantonese witticism and dialogues successfully appealed to the audience in Hong Kong. Golden Harvest was the top studio in Hong Kong by the end of that decade and signed rising international stars like Jackie Chan.
In the 1980s to early 1990s, modern action films and Hong Kong New Wave movies became popular. There were several remarkable filmmakers, and one of them was Wong Jing. His movies like God of Gamblers (1989), which was about gambling, started the enthusiasm of that genre among the public. Big movie studios also set overseas partnerships in Mainland China, Hollywood, and different Asian countries. Shaolin kung fu films and heroic action movies were produced with memorable characters. Hong Kong movies also became popular globally, famous film stars like Leslie Cheung became particularly loved in Japan. Other significant genres in this period include gangster movies and comedies, the former dominated by actor Chow Yun-Fat, and the latter made popular by Stephen Chow. Hong Kong’s box office receipts blossomed and earned prestigious international status.
After the flourish of Hong Kong’s movie industry, it underwent a decline during the 1990s and didn’t recover for a long time. There were many factors that contributed to the decline, including overproduction of local movies with subpar quality and clichés, the introduction of a large number of Hollywood movies into Hong Kong cinemas, and how ticket prices increased. The industry hit one of its darkest years in 2003 when a SARS virus outbreak caused theatres to close and film productions to terminate.
In the late 1990s and 2000s, the Hong Kong movie industry tried to revive itself by introducing American-style movies with high-tech action pictures, examples include Gen-X Cops (1999) and Purple Storm (1999). Romantic comedies that surround the young urban class such as The Truth About Jane and Sam (1999) were also successful. In recent years, the Hong Kong film industry is still facing a depressed state as Hong Kong cinemas seem to favour foreign films instead of local films. China is also producing increasing numbers of films that appeal to the mass, making the line between Hong Kong and mainland industries opaque. It is difficult to predict whether the Hong Kong film industry can blossom again as it did in the 1980s, though there still is a noticeable number of award-winning and critically acclaimed local film productions in recent years like Beyond the Dream (2019) and Suk Suk (2020).
The Hong Kong film industry had made remarkable results in the past decade and most of the films were great representations of Hong Kong culture. We, the movie-goers, contribute immensely in making the industry alive, thus we should support Hong Kong local films and appreciate the hard work the filmmakers have put into the arts they create.
Sources:
Writer: Jessica Leung
Editor: Joanne Yau
Artist: Ran Zhao
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