Opera, gangsters and swordplay: the rise and fall of Hong Kong cinema
- Once known as the Hollywood of the East, the city’s cinema has taken a hit in recent decades, with imported Hollywood films besting local fare at the box office
It could be the dreamy neon-drenched images that won Wong Kar-wai a Lumière, or maybe it’s the kung fu magistery of Bruce Lee that come to mind when one thinks of Hong Kong movies. Regardless of what precisely it might be, it is undeniable that the city’s cinema once captured hearts worldwide, propelling local idols onto the international stage.
As a British colony, Hong Kong’s political and economic freedoms set it apart from mainland China and Taiwan, allowing it to supplant Shanghai’s cinematic supremacy by World War II, and eventually become the centre of Chinese-language filmmaking.
For decades, Hong Kong was Asia’s movie capital, dubbed time and again as the “Hollywood of the East”. Recently, however, tales of Hong Kong’s once thriving motion picture industry are sombre stories explaining its decline.
This week, City Weekend explores the long and colourful history of cinema in Hong Kong – its birth, its growth, and whether it is really, as suggested by some, a dying industry.
How did it begin?
For centuries, opera was the primary form of dramatic entertainment in the Chinese-speaking world. It is no surprise, then, that the beginnings of Chinese cinema, pioneered in the early 20th century by Liang Shaobo and Lai Man-wai, were intricately tied to this culture.
As sound came to the cinema with the “talkies”, filmmakers had to reckon with differences in language for the first time. In 1932, the Shaw brothers worked with Cantonese opera star Sit Gok-sin to produce the first Cantonese talkie, White Gold Dragon. As political struggles took hold of mainland China, Hong Kong became a place where cinema could develop freely.
The Shaw brothers, who later founded their own studio in 1958, would come to have a lasting impact on Hong Kong cinema.
Who were the powerhouses back in the day?
The post-war growth of Hong Kong was driven by an influx of people fleeing the war-torn mainland. In 1940, Hong Kong’s population stood at around 1 million people. By 1967, that figure had risen to 3.9 million.
