It’s fade out for Hong Kong’s film industry as China moves into the spotlight

Still remember Bruce Lee’s cat calls, Wong Kar-wai’s impressionistic visuals in Chungking Express and Stephen Chow’s “mo-lei-tau” (nonsensical) comedies?

For almost three decades starting in the 1970s, there was nothing like it as Hong Kong’s film industry catapulted a large number of Asian A-listers to international stardom. But the golden days are long gone.

Hong Kong films have had little to no presence in recent years at Europe’s top film festivals – Berlin, Cannes and Venice – contrary to their heyday when the cast and crew of Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love and Happy Together strolled down red carpets while bagging top honours, among them Best Actor and Best Director trophies.

In those days, a sea of Korean fans would chant actor Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing’s name when he visited Seoul, and superstar Maggie Cheung Man-yuk became an instant icon of Asian elegance with her succession of figure-hugging cheongsams worn as costumes in romance hit In the Mood for Love.

It is hard to nail down exactly why Hong Kong, once dubbed “Hollywood of the Far East”, lost its role as Asia’s movie capital starting in the 1990s. Many in the industry point to the brain drain where top talent headed north of the border to work on mainland Chinese productions, while others blamed it on the age gap between the veterans Wang and Chowand their millennial successors who are still struggling to gain a foothold.