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Planet Hong Kong Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment
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Planet
Hong Kong
Popular Cinema and the
Art of Entertainment

David Bordwell

second edition
 Planet Hong Kong
Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment

David Bordwell

Second edition

Irvington Way Institute Press

Madison, Wisconsin
2011
This e-book is for sale at www.davidbordwell.net.

If you obtained this PDF from a source other than an authorized sales download,
the author would be grateful if you would visit www.davidbordwell.net to purchase your own copy.

Copyright 2010 by David Bordwell

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Edited and designed by Meg Hamel

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-0-9832440-0-4
PN1993.5H6 B63 2010
 For Noël
Once more, the power of movies
 Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
1 | All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Hong Kong and/as/or Hollywood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2| Local Heroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Two Dragons: Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3| The Chinese Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4| Once Upon a Time in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Enough to Make a Strong Man Weep: John Woo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5| Made in Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
A Chinese Feast: Tsui Hark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6| Formula, Form, and Norm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Whatever You Want: Wong Jing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7| Plots, Slack and Stretched . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
8| Motion Emotion: The Art of the Action Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Three Martial Masters: Chang Cheh, Lau Kar-leung, King Hu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
9| Avant-Pop Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Romance on Your Menu: Chungking Express . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
10 | What Price Survival? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Not So Extravagant, Not So Gratuitously Wild: Infernal Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
11 | A Thousand Films Later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Man on a Mission: Johnnie To . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Preface

SOME OF THE best books on Hong Kong start with their passengers, people shouted amiably at one crisscrossed your line of sight. This view may be
the author flying in to the old Kai Tak airport, the another. Occasionally a man would try to pull me Hong Kong’s greatest work of art. I picked up
jumbo jet nearly scraping the rooftops of Kowloon out of the commotion. “Copy watch?” “Sir! Where smells too—the pungent “fragrant harbor” that
City before wheeling around sharply to land. (An are you from, sir? Are you thinking of a suit?” gave the colony its name, the odor of floor wax
Australian pilot is supposed to have described the To cross from Nathan Road to Salisbury Road, from the lobby of the Centre. On the esplanade,
trip as eight hours of sheer boredom followed by the street that runs along the harbor, is to leave couples loitered and tourists snapped photos of
eight minutes of sheer terror.) This magnificent most of the turmoil behind. Among the cool col- the great contrivance shining across the water.
arrival is impressed in my memory too, but the umns of the Cultural Centre, at the tip of the What had brought me here? In the fall of 1973,
real thrill came later, when on a sultry March peninsula, people shift gears. The Centre is less soon after I had started teaching at the University
night I wandered along Nathan Road, staring up popular for its museums and theaters, I suspect, of Wisconsin, I went to see Five Fingers of Death
at a forest of towering neon. Columns of Chinese than for its tranquillity; later I would discover paired with The Chinese Connection in the dilapi-
characters several stories high, blazing crimson that every day families fresh from the Marriage dated Majestic Theatre. Not long afterward I saw
or gold, stretched alongside more familiar names: Registry gather in front of a fountain there for Enter the Dragon. These movies shook me up. A
Toshiba in silver and red, an aqua OK signaling photographs, the bride dazzling in a white gown few years later in Richmond, Virginia, I saw Bruce
karaoke. and perhaps clutching a Snoopy handbag. That Lee’s Game of Death, a film of such surpassing
Drifting with the crowd, I sauntered among old first night, though, I was behind the Centre star- oddness that I screened it for my film theory class.
men walking gravely with hands clasped behind ing at the skyline of Hong Kong Island across the At the same time, during trips to Europe, I caught
their back, executive men and women hollering harbor. up with King Hu’s exhilarating masterworks.
into bricklike cell phones, matrons strolling four As with all legendary views, the postcard version During the 1980s, while writing about Holly-
and five abreast, children trotting along in shorts is too cramped. Here were skyscrapers spread out wood cinema and film theory and the films of
and suspenders, slender boys in white shirts and carefully, as if designed to lead your eye from the Yasujiro Ozu, I occasionally checked in on Hong
blue trousers, girls with dyed auburn hair and spiky profile of the Bank of China to the Neo- Kong cinema. I caught a Jackie Chan here, a Tsui
knapsack purses strapped to their backs. There Deco Central Plaza and soon enough to the gigan- Hark there, and cable TV yielded up oddities like
were plenty of tourists: big German and Aus- tic glowing signs for Citizen and San Miguel. Be- Shaolin Kung-Fu Mystagogue. The films appealed
tralian couples appraised cameras and Discmen hind these, misty green hills rose to the Peak. to me as “pure cinema,” popular fare that, like
in shop windows while American students rum- Everything was reflected in the bay, not in perfect American Westerns and gangster movies of the
maged through a cart of bootleg CDs. The noise outline but in thousands of red, blue, and gold 1930s, seemed to have an intuitive understanding
was overwhelming: buses screeched to discharge highlights broken by the ferries and barges that of the kinetics of movies. Over these years, my old

Planet Hong Kong Preface | v

friend Tony Rayns saw to it that I was sent the this cinema not as an expression of local society, across human cultures. Whatever a film’s country
annual catalogues of the Hong Kong Internation- nor as part of the history of Chinese culture, but of origin, it is likely to tap into widespread physi-
al Film Festival, and so I came to learn something as an example of how popular cinema can pro- cal, social, and psychological predispositions. For
of this cinema’s history. duce movies that are beautiful. instance, audiences can intuitively understand
In the early 1990s I dived in, not least because What follows, then, is an essayistic attempt to many facial expressions of emotion. Many prac-
these movies aroused my students’ passion in a understand the interplay of art and entertainment tices—such as acquiring shelter and caring for
way that I had not seen for a long time. I began in one popular cinema. Because I have felt free to children—are similar in different societies. Cul-
booking Hong Kong films for my courses, sub- choose what interests me, I have left to one side, tures also converge historically, because when
scribing to the fanzines, picking up videotapes for example, the Cantonese Opera films, the social they come into contact, borrowing is inevitable.
and laserdiscs. Soon I was convinced that this was realist tradition of the 1950s, the musicals and The traditions of Hollywood and Japanese cinema
a popular cinema of great vigor. When I gained a comedies and melodramas of the 1960s, and the have powerfully influenced Hong Kong film.
semester’s leave in the spring of 1995, I decided films of Sadean violence. I have also not touched Popular cinema, moreover, is deliberately de-
that it was time to visit the Festival. upon the work of certain directors whose work is signed to cross cultural boundaries. Reliance on
Through the Festival I met Li Cheuk-to, Athena unavailable in good film prints. Selective though pictures and music rather than on words, appeal
Tsui, Stephen Teo, Shu Kei, Michael Campi, and it is, I hope that Planet Hong Kong will serve as to widely felt emotions, easily learned conven-
many others who have become firm friends. I also both an introduction to Hong Kong film and an tions of style and story, and redundancy at many
saw a selection of recent films, a retrospective of exploration of matters not addressed elsewhere— levels all help films travel outside their immediate
postwar movies, and a sample of what was playing industry background, production practices, and context. That audiences all over the world enjoy
at the moment. At the first Hong Kong Critics above all filmic structure and style. Hong Kong movies dramatically illustrates the
Society award ceremony I met Ann Hui, Wong The book also delineates Hong Kong’s signifi- transcultural power of popular cinema.
Kar-wai, and other filmmakers. I managed to slip cance for international popular filmmaking. How Today the Asian financial crisis has driven the
into the Hong Kong Film Awards, where I snapped did cheap movies made in a distant outpost of the crowds from Nathan Road, and the Hong Kong
photos and got autographs of stars and directors I British Empire achieve broad international appeal, film industry is struggling to survive. This book
admired. During my three weeks’ stay I lived in a while European filmmakers bemoan their inabili- portrays a vibrant moment in the history of
fan’s paradise. I even ate at Chungking Mansions. ty to reach even their own national audiences? popular film and shows how it participates in a
I became addicted to visiting Hong Kong. Some- How did Hong Kong filmmakers manage to create vigorous tradition of mass entertainment. That
time after the third trip, at the urgings of my wife, artful movies within the framework of modern tradition is nearly as old as the century that is
Kristin Thompson, and my friend Noël Carroll, I entertainment? What can these films tell us about now ending, and it is becoming, day by day, more
decided to write a book. It was a difficult decision, storytelling in a mass medium—its history and powerful in every land. It is time we understood it
not only because I don’t speak or read Chinese. craft, its design features and emotional effects? better. These films can help us to do so. Along the
For one thing, there is already a lot written about Such questions inevitably lead us back to the way they can show us a splendid time.
this cinema, and there is going to be a lot more. unique achievements of Hong Kong cinema and Madison, Wisconsin
Web pages are sprouting at this moment. Further, to an assessment of the delights and the short- December 1999
I have seen only about three hundred seventy comings of the films themselves.
Hong Kong movies. (If you think that’s a lot, you Some might say that the book risks imposing an
are not yet a hardcore fan.) Still, perhaps out of outsider’s values on a cinema that exists in and
stubborn naïveté, I thought that I had something through unique cultural circumstances. But de-
original to say about the movies produced in this spite many claims to the contrary nowadays,
tiny corner of Asia. I thought that I could explore there are more commonalities than differences

Planet Hong Kong Preface | vi

Preface to the Second Edition

THE TEN YEARS SINCE the first publication of this Media conglomerates based in Malaysia, Taiwan, to examine the premises that foster mass-market
book have seen some striking changes in the Japan, and South Korea, as well as in America, entertainment. This analysis remains intact here.
Hong Kong film industry. From the 1970s to the were investing in Chinese-language films, TV The new sections further explore the idea that
mid-1990s, its product carried an intensely local shows, music, and web content. The pressures of popular cinema gains its strength by using film
tang and savor. Filmmakers painted their home as this new era led to changing subjects and themes, form and style in ways both familiar and innova-
the cosmopolitan crossroads of Asia, where south- but the artistic traditions of Hong Kong film per- tive. Innovations are held in check by norms, but
ern Chinese traditions coexisted with a modern sisted along several dimensions. the norms can display an unexpected flexibility
service economy. Film after film proudly put on The additional sections of the book, written in when put under creative pressure. Sometimes the
display an intoxicating lifestyle mixing East and the second half of 2010, attempt to bring the story filmmaker finds a new way to satisfy a long-stand-
West, Lunar New Year and XO brandy, t’ai chi and up to date. Chapter 10, the first new entry, contin- ing norm, as when martial arts filmmakers, under
DKNY fashion. Even films set in the past dis- ues the book’s discussion of the changes in Hong the demand to make combats exciting, discovered
played a distinctively modern, Cantonese take on Kong cinema starting in the mid-1990s. While the pause/burst/pause pattern and plumbed its
things. Wong Fei-hung and Fong Sai-yuk, folk Chapter 3 dealt with the changes principally from potential. Less often, a filmmaker pushes the norms
heroes of southern China, were brought up-to- the Hong Kong point of view, new information into fresh areas, yielding an experience that satis-
date with famous Hong Kong stars and inside ref- allows us a finer-grained understanding of the fies in unpredictable ways. Chungking Express
erences. The classic Journey to the West became dynamics at work in the Mainland at the time. does this, I think, by recasting the norms of young
A Chinese Odyssey, with Stephen Chow turning Chapter 11 considers how the changed context of romance and converging plotlines; the work of
the Monkey King into a Cantonese comic. the 2000s affected mainstream moviemaking and Johnnie To does something similar in the crime
In the 2000s, Hong Kong not only became part some of the territory’s major filmmakers, particu- genre.
of China; it became one node in a network of con- larly Stephen Chow, Wong Kar-wai, and Johnnie Since Planet Hong Kong appeared, there has
temporary Chinese media. With the Mainland To Kei-fung. Two new interludes trace how the been a welcome surge in academic studies of Hong
now financing and distributing films to a vast audi- Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002–2003) presented Kong cinema. A great many have been valuable
ence, local filmmakers confronted new problems. one option for local moviemaking, and how the and informative. Their authors, however, have
Working in what had been something of a cottage crime films of Johnnie To suggest a different path. not asked quite the same sorts of questions that
industry, they had to adjust to high-powered preoccupy me. Speaking broadly, most studies of
competition from all directions—Hollywood, as THE FIRST EDITION TOOK Hong Kong as a case the films have been hermeneutic: They have con-
ever, but also the burgeoning South Korean study in popular cinema. By examining the indus- centrated on assigning implicit or symptomatic
industry and the rapid growth of PRC production. try’s craft routines and artistic options, I wanted meanings to the movies. A body of themes—

Planet Hong Kong Preface | vii

modernity or post-colonialism, diasporan or ing for them. The mechanics of the movie can name for each person. Some names rendered in
nomadic identities, the post-1997 mood, and the encourage a range of interpretations. We can Mandarin transliteration in the original book
like—have been mapped onto the films. This angle focus on the interpretations, but as in the earlier have been replaced by their more familiar Can-
of approach often continues the tradition of version of the book, I want to pay special atten- tonese versions; so Chang Cheh has replaced
reflectionist reading I discuss in Chapter 2. tion to the mechanics. They are primary sources Zhang Che. When I was writing the first version
My concern has been less with hermeneutics of the art of entertainment. of the book, Chow Sing-chi preferred to be known
than poetics. I ask about the principles that gov- as Stephen Chiau, but by 2010 he was universally
ern the making of the films. This frame of refer- FINALLY, BITS OF housekeeping. I have not on the recognized as Stephen Chow, so that’s the version
ence has many advantages, not least among them whole revised the arguments and examples in the I employ here.
that it permits film criticism to mesh to some first edition. I’ve confined myself to making a few The format preserving the digital files of the
degree with the craft practices of filmmaking. stylistic changes and to amending factual errors, original book did not permit me to insert addi-
It’s sometimes thought that studying the prin- typically of historical information. For example, tional endnotes into the flow of the text. In some
ciples of filmic construction ignores meanings, Law Kar and Frank Bren have identified what is cases, I introduced new references into the exist-
but that isn’t the case. A poetics of film, it seems to likely to have been Hong Kong’s first fiction film, ing notes for each chapter. On the whole, howev-
me, gives meanings a new function. We can note and my claim about the title in the initial edition, er, readers interested in following up research on
that the production process may seize upon ideas picked up from previous researchers, has been Hong Kong film since 2000 should consult the
and subjects already in circulation. In both the corrected. Further Reading section at the back of the book.
old and the new sections of the book, I try to show The first edition contained only black-and-white A great many people have assisted me over the last
that filmmakers working in a popular vein can illustrations, all taken from 35mm film prints. decade in my thinking about Hong Kong cinema.
take well-worn themes and larger meanings as I have replaced nearly all of these pictures with I thank them in the acknowledgments. Here I must
material for their craft. The themes can come color illustrations. Many of the new pictures were single out Kristin Thompson and Jim Cortada,
from contemporary concerns, as in the Young and made from 35mm prints, but I drew some from who encouraged me to embark on this e-book
Dangerous series, or from traditional sources. DVDs when I could not get a film print or when adventure, and Meg Hamel, who made the enter-
Chang Cheh drew upon codes of masculinity, the DVD yielded better reproduction. In a very prise easier than I had any right to expect.
Tsui Hark on Chinese Opera’s play upon gender few instances, I have left the illustrations in black Madison, Wisconsin
reversals, Wong Kar-wai on tropes of romantic and white because I had no access to 35mm December 2010
longing. The task of the popular filmmaker is not prints, and available DVD sources were photo-
necessarily “to say something new,” but rather to graphically inferior to the original stills.
give old materials a fresh force. That process I’ve changed some names from the first edition.
works principally through film form and style. The original book referred to individuals by their
The way the parts are designed and coordinated, best-known Anglicized names, such as Andy Lau
the way cinematic narration is deployed, and the and Brigitte Lin. I have retained these because
way film techniques are chosen shape the emer- these are familiar to Western readers, but on the
gent qualities of the film, including its thematic first mention I supply the full Chinese name of
horizons. each person. Spelling can cause further problems.
The main purpose of a popular movie is to offer One choreographer-director calls himself both
us an experience, not to impart an idea. Still, the Yuen Woo-ping and Yuen Wo-ping, and another
way in which the experience is engineered can filmmaker goes by Corey Yuen, Cory Yuen, Yuen
suggest ideas, especially to critics attuned to look- Kwai, and Yuen Kuei. I have had to settle on one

Planet Hong Kong Preface | viii

1 | All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild

HONG KONG CINEMA is one of the success stories of until the fateful year 1997 did Hollywood edge out world’s most energetic, imaginative popular
film history. For about twenty years, this city-state the local product, claiming slightly over half the cinema.
of around six million people had one of the most admission receipts—and some would blame that Every fan has favorite examples; here are two of
robust cinema industries in the world. In number outcome on local underproduction and elevated mine. At the climax of the first part of King Hu’s
of films released, it regularly surpassed nearly all ticket prices for Western fare. A Touch of Zen (1971), a swordsman and swords-
Western countries. In export it was second only How did this tiny cinema come to be so suc- woman confront enemy warriors in a bamboo
to the United States. It ruled the East Asian market, cessful? Some answers lie in history and culture, grove. It is no ordinary combat. The fighters leap
eventually obliterating one neighboring country’s but many others are to be found in the films them- twenty feet in the air, pivoting and somersaulting,
film industry. Distributed in the West, Hong Kong selves. Hong Kong’s film industry offered some- sometimes clashing with one another (Fig. 1.1). The
films became a cult phenomenon on an unprece- thing audiences desired. Year in and year out it woman strategically vaults up, then caroms off one
dented scale. Although a typical production cost produced dozens of fresh, lively, and thrilling tree trunk and alights on another, clinging there
about as much as a German or French one, the movies. Since the 1970s it has been arguably the like a spider before swiveling and dive-bombing
industry enjoyed no subsidies of the sort that
keep European cinema alive. Hong Kong movies
were made simply because millions of people
wanted to watch them.
Over the last two decades American film has
devoured the world market. In some countries
Hollywood claims 90% of box office receipts. Yet
over the same years Hollywood movies held a
minority position in Hong Kong, with U.S. market
share sometimes falling to less than 30%. Global
blockbusters often failed in Hong Kong. Raiders
of the Lost Ark (1981) ranked only sixteenth in
local admissions, beaten by The Dead and the
Deadly, Legendary Weapons of China, and Boat
People. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1989) earned
just one-third the grosses of God of Gamblers. Not 1.1 Swordfighters clash in mid-air in A Touch of Zen.

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 1
her prey. Apart from the aerobatics, the sword- Hong Kong films can be sentimental, joyous,
fight is filmed and cut in a daringly opaque way. rip-roaring, silly, bloody, and bizarre. Their audacity,
Although each image is carefully composed, the their slickness, and their unabashed appeal to
editing makes the shots so brief that we merely emotion have won them audiences throughout
glimpse the fighters’ extraordinary feats. Eisen- the world. “It is all too extravagant, too gratu-
stein and Kurosawa might admire the precise itously wild,” a New York Times reviewer com-
force of this sequence. plained of an early kung-fu import; now the
In Tsui Hark’s Peking Opera Blues (1986), a charge looks like a badge of honor.1 These outra-
young woman has allowed several friends to sleep geous entertainments harbor remarkable inven-
overnight in her room, but in the morning her fa- tiveness and careful craftsmanship. They are 1.3 Peking Opera Blues: A hanging basket is
ther bustles in unexpectedly. The friends must Hong Kong’s most important contribution to global knocked away…
hide anywhere they can—crouching under the culture. The best of them are not only crowd-
blanket, scampering around behind the father’s pleasing but also richly and delightfully artful.
back, even clambering up to the rafters (Fig. 1.2). How can mass-produced movies be artful? To
Each shot’s dodges are choreographed in layers answer this question, we must be willing to grant
for maximal comic effect (Figs. 1.3–1.5). As in that the compromises of business do not prevent
A Touch of Zen, an outlandish premise is subject- mass entertainment from achieving genuine art-
ed to a rousing exactitude of execution. istry. We must also grant that there is a distinct

1.4 …and accidentally swings out at the viewer…

1.5 …but is caught on the return by a boy who

1.2 Peking Opera Blues: Bedroom farce becomes silent slapstick. pops into view.

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 2
aesthetic of popular film—a set of principles that acclaim in festivals and foreign exhibition, the films raised production standards while expand-
shape its forms and effects. Finally, we must be most notable success being Ann Hui On-wah’s ing the possibilities of established genres. The
willing to look closely at popular movies, to study Boat People (1982). Although this “new wave” did hugely successful Aces Go Places series, launched
how they tell their stories and deploy film tech- not overturn the mass-production ethos of the in 1982, streamlined Cantonese comedy in farci-
nique; we must be ready to analyze. industry (most of the young directors wound up cal pastiches of James Bond intrigue. Jackie Chan
Hong Kong cinema has been an industry for in the mainstream), its energy reshaped Hong modernized the kung-fu film by recasting it as
more than sixty years. During the war-torn 1930s Kong cinema into a modern and distinctive part adventure saga (Project A, 1983) and urban police
and 1940s Shanghai film companies fled to the of the territory’s mass culture. thriller (Police Story, 1985). In films like Shanghai
relative tranquillity of the British colony. Soon Just as Margaret Thatcher’s government pre- Blues (1984), Tsui Hark updated older formulas
after the triumph of Mao’s 1949 revolution, Hong pared to cede the colony back to China, the Hong through bold style and tongue-in-cheek humor.
Kong began turning out scores of movies in well- Kong film industry was launched upon what He also revived the historical kung-fu movie with
tried genres: comedies, crime movies, family many regard as its golden decade. A flood of lively his nationalistic epic Once upon a Time in China
dramas, swordfight films, and Chinese operas.
Films were made in both Mandarin and Can-
tonese. The highest output came from large com-
panies, most notably that of the Shaw brothers,
who ran their “Movietown” like an old-fashioned
Hollywood studio (Fig. 1.6).
Until the 1970s, Hong Kong movies found dis-
tribution only in Asia and in émigré communities.
Most Westerners learned of this cinema through
the kung-fu film, with its revenge-driven plots and
flamboyant martial arts. The worldwide success
of Bruce Lee Siu-lung’s films guaranteed that
Hong Kong would be forever identified with this
genre. But the world market became glutted with
kung-fu films, and locally other trends emerged,
such as the Cantonese dialect comedy identified
with Michael Hui Koon-man, a former TV star.
Soon afterward Jackie Chan cultivated comic
kung-fu and became the biggest star in Asia.
By the early 1980s virtually all Hong Kong films
were in Cantonese, and a new generation of direc-
tors came to the fore. Often trained in the West
and in television, less tied to Mainland traditions
than older hands, these young filmmakers turned
away from the martial arts and toward gangster
films, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, and dramas of
contemporary life. Many of the films garnered 1.6 Run Run Shaw with some of his 1960s stars.

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 3
(1991). The gangster film returned with a hyper- often specified subject, composition, materials, for non-mainstream fare of all kinds.4 If a festival
bolic romanticism in the “heroes” films of John coloring, and iconography. In the nineteenth cen- entry wins acclaim, perhaps an award, the spon-
Woo (A Better Tomorrow, 1986; The Killer, 1989), tury the collapse of academic painting led to the soring agency is confirmed in its decision to back
as well as in movies by Kirk Wong Chi-keung rise of genre painting and the impressionist style, the project, with honor flowing to national cul-
(Gun Men, 1988) and Ringo Lam Ting-lung (Full both shaped to the tastes of new customers, while ture. For such reasons, the festival network has
Contact, 1992). In the early 1990s the resurgent composers were urged to court a comparatively become a circuit of production, distribution, and
Hong Kong cinema finally came to public notice untutored public by writing program music and exhibition parallel to that of mass-market cinema.
in the West. Jackie Chan and John Woo became overtly nationalistic pieces. Art cinema is not always profit-driven, but it
American celebrities, and Tsui, Lam, Wong, and We need not go quite so far as Virgil Thomson, remains market-oriented, and this pressure has
others finished films in Hollywood. Ironically, as who once suggested that a composer’s musical affected its traditions, genres, and conventions.5
local films gained respect, the industry went into style changes in accord with the funding source.2 Hong Kong has a few “art films” that feed into
a tailspin, losing its regional markets and falling It is just that in any art, form tends to follow for- festivals. Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994)
prey to video piracy and the Asian financial crisis. mat, and format is often shaped by business pres- became a cult hit, and his Happy Together (1997)
Yet even as journalists were writing finis to this sures. After Beethoven, composers increased the won the Best Director prize at Cannes. Until very
cinema, remarkable films continued to be made, size and varied the instrumentation of the orches-
recently, though, local moviemaking has been
and a new generation maintained Hong Kong’s tra, partly in order to mount a massive sound that
unsubsidized, so internationally prestigious direc-
lively traditions. would fill the bigger auditoria built for general
tors like Clara Law Cheuk-yiu, Ann Hui, and Stan-
How did such a frankly commercial filmmaking audiences. In eighteenth-century England, as writ-
ley Kwan Kam-pang depend upon mainstream
tradition manage to create the conditions for ers lost their patrons, they came to depend upon
styles, stars, and genres. In comparison to their
something we might recognize as artistry? Posing booksellers, who demanded long pieces of prose
contemporaries—say, the more austere Taiwanese
the question this way presumes that art suffers fiction. Commercial demands mold styles and
directors Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang De-
when it is bound up by commerce. Yet many of the forms, in both elite art and popular art. That a
chang—Hong Kong’s “festival” filmmakers look
fine-art traditions we honor sprang from the mar- work of art is financed and marketed does not
decidedly pop.
ket. Italian Renaissance painting was an intensely make it any less a work of art.
Popular cinema begins in business—the impulse
economic enterprise, responding to demands for In popular cinema, highly personal films may
portraits, frescoes, altarpieces, and decorated fur- be produced for an entertainment industry— to turn out pictures regularly to satisfy a mass
niture. Artists were artisans, like the shoemaker, witness those of Buster Keaton, Alfred Hitchcock, audience’s appetite. What, then, would an aes-
organizing their shops for efficiency and maxi- John Ford, Howard Hawks, and other distinctive thetic of popular film look like? Unsurprisingly, it
mum profitability. Today, sculpture, painting, and filmmakers. But “art films” are a business as well. is founded on mass tastes, and these often favor
orchestral music, along with virtually all architec- Granted, many are not the products of profit- force over finesse. A mass-market movie from any
tural projects, result from commissions, in which driven local industries or entrepreneurs; they culture tends to highlight pratfalls, spills, bodily
market forces reveal themselves nakedly. receive public funding. (In the late 1990s, the functions, ladder accidents, and other base con-
But in high art, some might argue, economic average European film was 70% state-financed.) stants of human life. Since the 1930s Hollywood
demand doesn’t shape the specific outcome: Few of these subsidized films attract a local audi- has been constrained by some lower-middle-class
whereas the elite artist expresses a singular vision, ence or overseas distribution, so as purely eco- canons of taste, so we often forget how the silent
the popular artist must compromise in order to nomic investments they are disastrous.3 Instead clowns (even Chaplin’s romanticized Little Tramp)
satisfy the audience. Yet this claim is an exagger- payback shifts to another level. The subsidized dwell on the ugly tactility of motor oil on spats,
ation. The Renaissance painter often had to fulfill film competes to win places in the world’s four pie dripping from eyelashes, thumbtacks fished
a program laid down in the commission, which hundred annual film festivals, which are hungry out of the soup. Abbott and Costello, Jerry Lewis,

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 4
Rodney Dangerfield, John Belushi, and Jim Car- age and penile bulges, comic warts and farts, Peking Opera Blues and the aerobatics of A Touch
rey have maintained this tradition. mold-blotched vampires, greedy faces smeared of Zen. In many movies, the chief pleasures are
The vulgarity of popular cinema reaches parox- with sauce and fat, and creatures with gigantic pictorial.
ysmic extremes in Hong Kong. Here a typical tongues. Nothing gorgeous or hideous is alien to Which is to say that popular filmmakers have
movie will feature spitting, vomiting, nose-pick- this cinema. refined techniques of vivid visual storytelling.
ing, and vistas of toilets and people’s mouths. In Vulgarity offers one kind of forcefulness; strik- The foundations of “film language” were laid by
Fight Back to School (1991) Stephen Chow Sing- ing images yield another. Hong Kong director the entertainment cinema of the 1900s and 1910s,
chi pretends a condom is chewing gum and blows Ringo Lam speaks for many of his peers: “I like when directors had to get stories across fast and
a bubble with it. In the farce All’s Well End’s Well visuals and simple stories. I would prefer my vividly. D. W. Griffith, Victor Sjöström, and Louis
(1992), offscreen a masseuse whacks a man’s feet movies to have very little dialogue.”6 When Robert Feuillade, the three finest directors of the period
with a baseball bat while a school official squats Parrish asked how he could learn to direct actors, before 1918, were all churning out films for mass
on a toilet; as the bat cracks, the official groans John Ford suggested he watch Stagecoach. Par- audiences. Today’s popular cinema preserves many
with bowel strain. Later in a hospital the film’s rish returned from the screening protesting that devices from the medium’s earliest years—the
amnesiac protagonist begins his day by gargling John Wayne had scarcely a dozen lines. “That’s chase, the hairbreadth escape, the cliff-hanging
with the urine from his bedpan. Gags like these the way to direct actors,” Ford replied. “Don’t let hero, the struggle with storms or gravity or loco-
indicate that the spectacle of kung-fu is only one ’em talk.” Intellectuals often quote lame dialogue motives. Hong Kong cinema, in its drive for clari-
side of a cinema thoroughly fascinated with to show the callowness of popular cinema, but ty and impact, has revitalized silent-film tech-
bodies in extremis. Hong Kong film celebrates they miss what lies in the images. It’s hard to find niques. Slow-and fast-motion, dynamic editing,
voluptuousness and grotesquerie; it savors cleav- weighty significance in the bedroom feints of striking camera angles, and other devices that the
avant-garde of the 1920s declared to be “purely
cinematic” became stock in trade in this popular
cinema. Its makers have intuitively rediscovered
the short, sharp flashback that serves to remind
the audience of an earlier scene, as well as the
“symbolic insert” beloved of early filmic story-
telling (Fig. 1.7).
But doesn’t all cinema exploit the power of
moving images? Again we come to the trade-off
between fastidiousness and force. Since the late
1950s, much Western art cinema has dwelt on
static compositions and ambivalent moods (Fig.
1.8). Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Fassbinder, Wenders,
and other outstanding directors have created a
cinema of suggestive atmosphere.7 The mass-
entertainment filmmaker, committed to story-
telling, anxious to rivet the audience’s attention,
strives for clear and dynamic images rather than
contemplative ones. Style will tend toward func-
1.7 The Killer: Jenny’s memory of John, treated as an emblematic image of his trade. tional economy. It favors the graceful behavior of

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 5
performers, such as John Wayne’s strides and In the art of popular cinema, vivid visuals are to make you laugh through your tears, to give you
pauses at the rocky stream at the close of The shot through with emotion. In order to attract a a smile and a lump in your throat. In The Chinese
Quiet Man (1952) or Bruce Lee’s soaring kicks in mass audience, popular art deals in emotions like Feast (1995), Ka-fai (Anita Yuen Wing-yee) has
Fist of Fury (1971). Filmmakers will take pride in anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and indig- taken off her chef’s hat, but her hair stays erect in
the subtle precision of certain camera move- nation.9 Since these feelings evidently operate in a Woody Woodpecker topknot. This adds an exu-
ments, or in editing tactics that convey stupen- all cultures, a film that appeals to them travels berant zaniness to the romantic climax, when Sun
dous agility. well. Entertainment mobilizes playground pas- (Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing) confesses his love
A few filmmakers will prolong certain grace sions, direct responses to blatant aggression, (Fig. 1.9).
notes, spinning stylistic cadenzas around the nar- kindness, or selfishness. Cinema is particularly Still, popular plotting does exploit manichean
rative core. King Hu, doyen of the Hong Kong good at arousing emotions kinesthetically, through opposites: self-sacrifice is sharpened by contrast
swordplay film, realized early in his career that “if action and music. Bruce Lee asked his students to with cruelty, generosity by contrast with greed. In
the plots are simple, the stylistic delivery will be give their fighting techniques “emotional con- Task Force (1997), the policewoman Shirley
even richer.”8 What Western fans consider “over tent,” such as purposefully directed anger.10 (Karen Mok man-wai) returns to the apartment
the top” in Hong Kong movies is partly that rich- When this quality is captured in vigorous, strictly she shares with her boyfriend, Kelvin. He has
ness of stylistic delivery—an effort to see how patterned movement, in nicely judged framings ignored her voice messages, dodged appoint-
delightful or thrilling one can make the mix of and crackling cutting, with overwhelming music ments, and skipped her father’s funeral. Every-
music, sound effects, light, color, and movement. and sound effects, you can feel yourself tensing thing has aroused our indignation at Kelvin’s cal-
Realism is less important than a bold expressive- and twitching to the rhythms of the fight. This is lousness. Now Shirley has decided to leave him.
ness in every dimension. In particular, physical filmic emotion at its most sheerly physical. She comes to claim her things while her partner,
activity can achieve a real magnificence when it is We are told that mass entertainment favors Rod, waits outside in the car. The scene dwells on
sustained and embellished. This delight in expres- simple, pure states of feeling, but plainly it works Shirley drifting wistfully around the apartment.
sive technique is a local elaboration of the sensu- with mixed emotions too. One aim of mass art is Suddenly, cut outside to show her returning to
ous abundance sought by popular filmmakers
everywhere.

1.8 A moment in the odyssey of two children in 1.9 The Chinese Feast: Ka-fai checks Sun’s sincerity by seeing if her picture has the privileged place
Theo Angelopoulos’ Landscape in the Mist (1988). in his wallet.

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 6
Rod, telling him she’s decided to take away none exchange gifts. As she drives off he runs tentative- eating a dog biscuit or Joe Pesci’s character.
of her things after all. The abruptness of the tran- ly after her, arousing our hope that he will catch So you have this kind of Mulligan stew that
sition seems to mark her sharp decision to accept up with her for a happier resolution, but he gives never slows down: that keeps jumping
the breakup with Kelvin. The two drive off, and a up the chase. from pathos to sentimentality to deep
tear trickles down from behind Shirley’s sun- The scene of separation fills nearly ten minutes. emotion to pure action.13
glasses. But then we realize that the sudden cut to Yet the movie is not over. In an epilogue, Jenny
and her charge Anna are strolling on a Long This urge for kaleidoscopic variety prizes mo-
her entering the car omitted a piece of action. We
Island beach. Jenny says that she once had a mentary vividness above broad dramatic form. A
now get a mini-flashback showing her angrily
friend who dreamed of owning a café on the pier. Hong Kong film can dump a cornucopia at your
pulling down bookshelves, knocking over the
Suddenly they find that a café is there. “Table for feet. Forty-three seconds into Wong Jing’s Boys
stereo, and generally laying waste to Kelvin’s life.
two?” Sam beams at them as the film ends. We Are Easy (1993) we get a gun battle and car chase,
Shirley’s surge of righteous anger stands out more
have no idea how much time has elapsed since followed by a procession of beautiful young men
strongly against the suggestion that she took his
Jenny left Manhattan, no clue as to how Sam has and women entangled in a comedy of mistaken
indifference passively. Thanks to the shrewd
earned enough money to set up his business. In identity. We get a male striptease, a satire of tri-
order of presentation, we get to feel both pity for
defiance of probability, an abrupt two-minute epi- ads, a farcical game of poker, an animated demon
her and satisfaction at her retribution.
logue offers the audience a second ending, a casu- representing one character’s weak side, a musical
The opponent of mass culture objects that this
ally miraculous reunion proving Sam’s reforma- number in praise of bowling, LSD hallucinations,
tactic indulges the audience, letting it “have
tion. Cheung has remarked: “I know that in real a necktie that pops upright à la Tex Avery, and a
things both ways.” But popular film strives for a scene in which a woman records a night’s orgasms
wide-open emotional range, and having things life the heroine and the hero are bound to go
separate ways. But in the film, I am free to write by notching her bedroom wall. Boys Are Easy is an
both ways perfectly suits that purpose. Entertain- extreme case, but Hong Kong films do not gener-
ment aims to chart the highest highs and the low- the ending as I wish...I wanted [Sam] still to have
hope, so I added the fairytale element.”11 ally aspire to the Hollywood tradition of tight
est lows. The tactic is seen most strikingly in the plotting that runs from, say, Keaton’s Our Hospi-
Taken to the extreme, the switches in emotion-
“double ending,” which allows the characters’ tality (1923) and Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle
al register seen in Task Force and An Autumn’s
fortunes to sink abysmally before the plot swerves (1924) to Die Hard (1988) and Groundhog Day
Tale can become a reckless mix of moods. Popular
into a happy ending, sometimes one of stunning (1993).14 Hong Kong plots tend to be organized
cinema delights in jamming together very diverse
implausibility. Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting’s Autumn’s around vivid moments—fights or chases or comic
splendors.12 One of the screenwriters for Holly-
Tale (1987) centers on Jenny (Cherie Chung Cha- turns or melodramatic catastrophes. The cre-
wood’s Lethal Weapon series explains:
hung) and Samuel (Chow Yun-fat), both Hong ators’ skill lies in making each set piece powerful
Kong émigrés living in Manhattan. Jenny tries to A lot of it I recognize as pure sentimentality, and in livening up the connecting passages.
reform Sam, a happy-go-lucky wastrel working at but people love it. All of that bonding stuff An emphasis on striking moments leads natu-
menial jobs and overfond of drinking and brawl- between Mel and Danny is corny, but rally to a scavenger aesthetic. In today’s Hong
ing. When he seems to have fallen into his old people love it—Mel kind of crying and Kong thrillers you cannot escape scenes lifted from
ways again, Jenny accepts a job as an au pair on spitting and telling Danny that he loves Die Hard and Speed (1994), complete with snatch-
Long Island. While she prepares to leave her him and he’s like a brother, Danny kind of es of the original scores. For The Chinese Feast
apartment, Sam races to bring her a present, for cradling Mel in his arms. That stuff is so Tsui Hark swipes the plot from kung-fu movies,
which he has traded his beloved wreck of a car. hokey and so corny, but it works. They the theme of food from the Taiwanese movie Eat
He catches up with her just as she prepares to make it work. Then you throw in, out of Drink Man Woman (1994), and the premise of a
drive off to Long Island with her old boyfriend. nowhere, the most unexpected kind of cooking contest from a Japanese TV show. For
Sam and Jenny say an awkward good-bye and humor, whether it’s the silly gags of Mel good measure Tsui recycles (and improves) ideas

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 7
from a previous film of his own, The Banquet fu combat, if blood trickles from a character’s tions often suggest that to be grown up is to be
(1991). If popular cinema often seems shameless, mouth, death is usually at hand. Yet certain aggressive, and the only way to be gentle is to
it is partly because its commitment to vivacious wounds heal miraculously: a bullet smacks into regress into childhood.15
moments encourages filmmakers to grab any- the hero’s leg, and he cries in agony; a few shots Often, too, the films simply invoke conventions
thing that has already proved alluring. later he is limping; a few shots later the leg is as without vital commitment or revivification. There
The same impulse governs the reliance on con- good as new, though stained a bit red. is too much facetious music during comic scenes.
ventions, unkindly called formulas and clichés— Vulgarity, pictorial storytelling, the pull of There is a lot of visual bombast, especially slow
all those laughable, taken-for-granted devices sensuous wonders and emotional intensity, the motion and exaggerated angles. The urge to grip
that communicate instantly. Conventions are the mélange of tonal switches and vivid moments and the audience has created a cinema that is often
lifeblood of popular art. Cowboys can dodge bul- tested conventions: these are essential ingredi- overbusy, with little room for the contemplative
lets, boy and girl “meet cute,” and endings are ents of popular cinema. But their power comes at moments that make other popular cinemas rich.
usually happy. Villains have bad aim, except when a price. Because entertainment favors forceful- Having mastered certain skills supremely, par-
it comes to wounding the hero’s friends. Hong ness, and because it strives to offer a grab-bag of ticularly the power to generate excitement through
Kong cinema relies shamelessly on the oldest attractions, we shouldn’t be surprised that it har- vigorous action, Hong Kong directors have not
contrivances of entertainment: eavesdropping, bors some questionable impulses. For example, generally sought to stretch themselves in other
mistaken identity, confusion of twins or acciden- Hong Kong cinema is very brutal. Women suffer directions. By training their audience to expect
tal lookalikes, wretchedly inadequate disguise, terribly in most action films, a circumstance not ever more rapid-fire gratification, they have too
and coincidental encounters that complicate or offset by the woman-warrior tradition. Although often cramped their craft.
resolve the plot. If a woman dresses as a man, one can argue that the territory’s low crime rate Still, despite these faults, many Hong Kong
everyone takes her as one; when she returns to suggests that viewers aren’t imitating what they films display qualities that we value in any art,
woman’s costume, no one recognizes her resem- see, the casual acceptance of rapes, beatings, and high or low, modern or classic. They have struc-
blance to the man. When you are angry with your bloodshed may have more pervasive social effects. tural ingenuity (echoic motifs, contrapuntal story
lover, you tear up his or her photo. In Hong Kong The films also put prejudices on display. Non- parallels), functional beauty of style (for example,
night is not black but blue, and terribly bright. Asians, particularly blacks, are almost always cor- bold cutting and dynamic composition), expres-
Caucasians usually look large and Australian, and rupt and rapacious, while some Asians, such as sive intensity (through the manipulation of tone,
they speak English with an accent known no- the colony’s ubiquitous Filipinas, become virtual- color, and rousing physicality), appeal to common
where on the planet. ly invisible. Attitudes toward law and justice seem feelings and experiences (loneliness, injustice,
Hong Kong action films are rich in such artifice. particularly blinkered: again and again, it is taken the loss that triggers revenge, the hunger for
Even the harmless-looking citizen knows kung- for granted that police—even our heroes—will love), and originality (for example, the constant
fu. A half-frozen man can suddenly recover and torture suspects. In a search for powerful sensa- reworking of conventions in directors as various
somersault over a car. Immediately after a sting- tions, this cinema becomes sensationalistic. as King Hu, John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Wong Kar-
ing blow, the victim bruises horribly. If someone At the same time, like much Asian popular cul- wai). Most of these virtues are tied to the mass
has a pistol, somebody else will become a hostage, ture, it can be blandly infantile. A cop in Chung- nature of the enterprise: they make it more likely
with that pistol pointed to his or her head. During king Express lives surrounded by big stuffed kit- that the film will provide an arresting experience
a gunfight, someone is sure to run out of ammuni- ties. Anita Yuen, a reigning ingenue star, takes for a wide range of viewers.16 These qualities don’t
tion at a crucial moment. A cop wounded in a pride in her Mickey Mouse collectibles. Hong negate what is socially or morally objectionable in
firefight will show up later with a bit of gauze Kong film does not oscillate quite as startlingly the films, but because of its need to capitalize on
taped to his forehead. A man can have an arm between scalding violence and cloying cuteness current trends, to repeat tried forms and turn
hacked off and still fight, and win. During a kung- as Japanese entertainment does, but both tradi- them in fresh but not alienating directions, any

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 8
popular cinema is unlikely to be wholly on the may be one equivalent in popular cinema for the value too. The filmmaker can save time by filming
side of the angels. experimental daring we find in the avant-garde. all the shots from setup A—say, all the medium-
To orchestrate an abundance of appeals you If we want to understand how a popular cinema’s shots of Neil McCauley—in succession. Then the
need craft. Intellectuals who expatiate on the artisans mobilize a range of appeals, we cannot camera can be shifted, and all the shots of Kelso
cultural significance of a movie or pop song pay neglect form and style. We must learn to look from position B can be made. In the editing
virtually no attention to the ways in which the closely. We must examine popular films as wholes, process, the shots from setups A and B are
artisan has used the medium. Perhaps they think seeking out what makes them cohere (or not). We intercut. Or the filmmaker can use two cameras at
it’s easy to make amusing, exciting, tear-jerking must probe their moment-by-moment texture. once, as Michael Mann did in our scene from
movies. Let them try. Mass entertainment looks We should scrutinize climaxes, like Shirley’s leav- Heat.19 Stylistic patterning meshes with craft
easy only to those who have not struggled to ing Kelvin in Task Force, as well as low-key pas- practice: artistic economy has arisen from pro-
shoot a coherent scene, write a passable song, or sages, always trying—though it’s hard, especially duction economies.
draw a decent cartoon. The most minimal com- in a kinetic cinema like Hong Kong’s—to suggest Paying attention to craft also allows us to con-
petence in filmmaking is an achievement to be through words and photos what a sequence looks front one last objection to popular film’s mass-
prized; many of today’s young directors could like.18 production origins. Bulk filmmaking is that Sys-
profitably study the Roy Del Ruths of the Golden Just as analyzing Beethoven involves acknowl-
tem which screenwriters and critics have been
Age. “A great director,” Andrew Sarris once noted, edging the formal traditions that developed with-
railing against for eighty years; it is, we are told,
“has to be at least a good director.”17 And expert in Viennese classicism, understanding popular art
what keeps movies meretricious and clichéd. Yet
filmmaking cannot consist in merely following requires awareness of its craft practices. We can
there is much to be said for it. At the least, mass-
rules by rote, for no two creative problems are usefully trace out the proximate conditions of
market filmmaking has imposed a discipline on
exactly the same. The old hand knows the routine production—the filmmaking institutions, shaped
its makers, fostering a commitment to profession-
practices, the standard solutions, and then adapts by the customs that govern the filmmaker’s tacit
al responsibility. One motto of mass filmmaking
them to fresh situations—perhaps setting up tech- assumptions about everything from running times
might well be that of Steve Jobs hurrying his staff
nical problems to be ingeniously overcome. Craft and character development to lighting patterns
to finish the Macintosh: “Real artists ship.” Indus-
demands flexibility, ingenuity, and no small amount and the musical score. To become a proficient
trialized filmmaking also has creative dimensions.
of imagination. The direct, forceful effects prized filmmaker is to learn a repertoire of skills, and
by the popular aesthetic are often the product of often those skills are routinized in order to It obliges filmmakers to become expert in some
subtle shaping. benefit the mode of production. quite unusual human accomplishments. It’s no
In entertainment film, the artisan’s imagination For example, in a typical Hollywood scene small matter to tell a story forcefully or to lead a
goes to work upon well-defined norms. “Polish- many shots simply repeat camera positions in jaundiced audience to feel deep emotions. The
ing the jade,” the Chinese call it. Seeking original- ABAB alternation. (See Figs. 1.10–1.16.) Thanks to mode of production encourages filmmakers to
ity at all costs can lead to chaos, but quietly this technique, the viewer can take an already- explore and refine material that has proven
refining the tradition enriches the art and refines seen view as read and concentrate on the slight appealing. In asking creators to master formula,
the perceiver’s sensibility. Yet popular filmmakers changes that occur in the actor’s performance—a the mode of production also expects them to
innovate as well: King Hu cut Touch of Zen’s air- shift of glance, a tiny movement (Figs. 1.11–1.14). exploit it skillfully, as when Peking Opera Blues
borne combat in a way that eliminated normal In addition, after an ABABA series of repeated builds an engaging piece of cinema out of bed-
cues for position and trajectory, and thereby setups, a change to setup C can carry a greater room farce. The filmmaker who can make clichés
recast the conventions he had inherited. Setting emphasis than it would in a constantly varying sing will often be rewarded. And sometimes the
oneself a craft problem and solving it in a fresh, string of setups (say, ABCDE). (See Figs. 1.15– mode of production rewards filmmakers for turn-
virtuosic, but absolutely comprehensible way 1.16.) Alternating repeated setups has practical ing cliché on its head.

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 9
1.10 A dialogue scene in Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) begins with a master shot.

1.11 An analytical cut highlights McCauley. 1.13 The cutting shifts back and forth across 1.15 The camera shows McCauley from a new
several shots, always presenting each man from angle in order to bring in new information: the
the same camera position. reflection of Nate in the distance.

1.12 A reverse-angle shot on Kelso allows us to 1.14 After several replays of the same camera 1.16 A fresh setup shows Nate more clearly,
see his reaction. setup on Kelso, the turning of his head becomes and a new phase of the scene begins.
a significant action.

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 10
 It is therefore misleading to call a mass-output Chapter 2 considers how the film industry has
film industry an assembly-line system. Two films functioned in its local circumstances, while Chap-
produced by MGM were never analogous to two ters 3 and 4 spiral outward, examining how this
Thunderbirds rolling out of Dearborn. Movies are cinema gained a regional audience, and then a
made by what Karl Marx called “serial manufac- Western one. Chapter 5 surveys local production
ture,” whereby a group of artisans collaborate in methods and craft traditions, the ways in which a
planning and producing a unique object.20 Popular movie gets made in Hong Kong. Chapters 6 and 7
filmmaking is a collective effort, but the result is go on to examine norms of genre, stars, stories,
no more uniform than the plays mounted by a and style. Chapter 8 focuses on some ways in
repertory troupe. It is deplorable that Hollywood which Hong Kong action movies achieve their
had no room for a Dreyer or a Tati, but it did have overwhelming force. Chapter 9 moves to the
room for many other artists whose gifts meshed fringes to suggest how experimental tendencies
with the demands of the industry. Japan, with a can emerge from an unabashedly commercial film
system as vertically integrated as Hollywood’s, industry. Chapter 10, added ten years after the
nourished such diverse talents as Ozu, Mizoguchi, earlier portions were published, surveys business
and Kurosawa. Far from outlawing imaginative development in the filmmaking community since
innovation, the System often encourages it. Prod- 1997, and the last chapter examines artistic trends
ucts must be differentiated, and originality (as in over the same period. Sandwiched between most
the case of Hitchcock, Ford, and others) can be chapters are interludes, analytical appreciations
good business. that expand on an issue, an important filmmaker,
Still, we should not confine ourselves to the or a representative film.
exceptional works. To appreciate how King Hu’s Making a case for entertainment doesn’t oblige
bamboo-grove sequence gives flying swordsmen a us to believe that popular cinema is the only kind
new élan, we need to examine the more common worth discussing. While some people await the
ways of staging and cutting action sequences. If replacement of movies by cyberspace and Virtual
we want to know how films work and work upon Reality, I think that we ought to search out those
us, we must try to understand the most banal artists who still create extraordinary films in the
protocols of craft. Web age. Some are “art-cinema” directors like
In any mode of film practice, innovation is Abbas Kiarostami, Jean-Luc Godard, Theo
bounded by certain limits, but only the wildest Angelopoulos, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and Kitano
romantics think that artistic creativity occurs Takeshi. Others, giving large audiences some-
without any constraints. And the System, fearsome thing extravagant and gratuitously wild, are to be
as it is, doesn’t know in advance exactly what all found in Hong Kong.
the limits are. Creation, in a popular cinema as in
any other circumstances, is an open-ended explo-
ration. It’s just that here the exploration starts
from the well-honed routines of craft.
The rest of this book explores the art of Hong
Kong popular cinema since the early 1970s.

Planet Hong Kong | Chapter 1 All Too Extravagant, Too Gratuitously Wild | 11
Hong Kong and/as/or Hollywood

FROM THE START Hong Kong film was indebted to The new cosmopolitan style of the 1980s was Chang Gi-jan: “A lot of Hong Kong films have
America. In the silent era several Chinese film- created by directors who took notice of what Holly- things that I think American audiences can’t
makers worked in Hollywood. Mon Kwan Man- wood was doing. Inspired by Raiders of the Lost accept.”2 As popular cinemas go, Hollywood is
ching, one of the founders of the Daguan (Grand- Ark (1981) and 48 HRS (1982), young filmmakers unusually fastidious about realism of detail,
view) company had been a consultant on Griffith’s turned out action pictures bursting with pyro- restraint of emotion, and plausibility of plot. By
Broken Blossoms (1919).1 Hollywood films played technics and gunplay. The 1980s crime cycle was Hollywood standards, Sam’s fairytale success at
in Hong Kong from the 1920s on, and The Love launched by Leone’s Once upon a Time in America the end of An Autumn’s Tale (1987) is recklessly
Parade (1929) and Camille (1937) were adapted (1984). Like their 1930s predecessors, directors unmotivated. In Hong Kong movies any charac-
into Cantonese plays and operas, which in turn swiped plots with abandon: Top Gun (1986) ter, female or male, may cry, and in comedies the
were filmed. American production methods and became Proud and Confident (1989), Witness (1985) actors cross their eyes. Then there is the gore.
lighting styles strongly influenced the colony’s was recast as Wild Search (1989). Today Holly- Hong Kong’s cinema is a deeply carnal one. Since
cinema for decades after World War II. Whereas wood remains the reference point. A cop in The the 1970s, local filmmakers capitalized on the rising
the Japanese studios encouraged experimenta- Big Bullet (1996) is a gun collector, proudly show- international tolerance for mayhem by making
tion, Hong Kong filmmakers stuck fairly closely to ing off his Beretta, “same as Mel Gibson used in thrashings, torture, and sudden, almost offhand
those guidelines for shot design and continuity Lethal Weapon.” All’s Well End’s Well (1992) refers death central ingredients. The gruesomeness is
editing first formulated in Hollywood. to Ghost, Fatal Attraction, Terminator 2, Pretty unredeemed by the solemn elegance of the Japan-
By studying foreign films, Hong Kong film- Woman, and Wolf, as well as Casablanca and ET. ese jidai-geki, and even Hollywood is far more
makers have been able to produce work aspiring As Hong Kong cinema became part of world film restrained in showing fights. When a Hong Kong
to an international standard. In trying to catch up, culture, American filmmakers returned the com- filmmaker swipes from Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
though, the films sometimes seem stuck in a time pliment of plagiarism. Tango and Cash (1989) the notion that a carpenter’s nail-gun makes a nifty
warp. The standard score for a chase, synthesizers restages two sequences from Jackie Chan’s Police weapon, prepare for the worst: a nail to the crotch
cranking out a soft pop/rock/jazz pulse, evokes Story (1985). Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado (1995), (Fight Back to School, 1991), a nail through the
1970s Hollywood. Stephen Chow’s From Beijing Michael Bay’s Bad Boys (1995), and Antoine brain (Pom Pom and Hot Hot, 1992). Hollywood
with Love (1994) can raise laughs with James Fuqua’s Replacement Killers (1998) signal the pours its energies into endless script rewrites and
Bond parodies. Eastern Condors (1987) lifts ele- Hongkongification of American cinema. lavish sets and costumes. Hong Kong filmmakers
ments not only from The Deer Hunter (1978) and Yet Hong Kong is not Hollywood; local tastes devote much of theirs to furious, prolonged, elab-
Rambo (1985) but also from The Dirty Dozen (1967). are too idiosyncratic. Says producer Terence orate, often massively implausible violence.

Planet Hong Kong Hong Kong and/as/or Hollywood | 12

KIRK WONG’S Gun Men (1988) is a barefaced steal devoted to fights and chases. So Gun Men has of Haye; he and his pals are saved only when a
from Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987). sacrificed something. What? bombardment throws Haye’s men into disarray.
In Shanghai during the late 1920s, Ding Chun-bee, Most obviously, characterization and psycho- After Ding is reunited with his wife, Chu-chiao,
an honest policeman working in the French Con- logical change. Contrary to what many critics and his daughter Sze-sze, the credits cover an
cession, becomes frustrated by the corruption in believe, the plot of an American movie often cen- ellipsis. Now he is in Shanghai and enlisting in the
the force and recruits a team of scruffy war bud- ters upon character development. The Holly- police. No reason is supplied for his decision. He
dies to help him defeat Haye, a powerful gangster. wood hero or heroine, far from being a perfect is given no traits akin to Ness’s stiff-necked ideal-
The milieu corresponds to the Chicago of the specimen, has faults—shyness (While You Were ism. Ding is simply a country-boy soldier who
American film, and opium smuggling stands in for Sleeping), manipulativeness (Tootsie), lack of would naturally be repelled by urban corruption.
bootlegging. Like Elliot Ness, Ding has a wife and confidence (Back to the Future, Sleepless in Seattle), When he invades a mahjong parlor thinking that
daughter he strives to protect; he is misled into rash overconfidence (Speed), even selfishness and it’s an opium den, he suffers no public humilia-
making raids that yield nothing; he cherishes a arrogance (Groundhog Day). The plot arranges tion, and his failure does not lower his morale.
token from a friend killed in the line of duty (a events so that the character improves, perhaps (Compare the mockery that greets Ness’s failed
scarf left behind by his captain). Even the score also coming to understand his or her frailty. The raid on the bootleggers’ warehouse, and his
Untouchables’ “character arc,” as Hollywood screen- despondency when he realizes the obstacles he
borrows from Ennio Morricone’s Untouchables
writers call it, traces Ness’s development from a faces.) Similarly, whereas The Untouchables devotes
quick march. As in many crime films, alternating
by-the-book crusader into a tough, resourceful scenes to characterizing each member of the
scenes underscore parallels between the protago-
warrior. Ness learns from the hardheaded cop team as Ness recruits them, Gun Men’s prologue
nist and his adversary. While Haye vows ven-
Malone that he must raise the stakes (“Capone introduces Ding’s pals en masse, and thereafter
geance for the death of his superior, Ding pays
comes at you with a knife, you come at him with a the three men’s personalities remain largely
homage at the grave of the murdered captain. And
gun”) and break the rules—partly because “This is indistinguishable.
in both films the hero’s ideal of cleaning up
Chicago,” partly because Ness is up against men As if to compensate for the thinner characteri-
corruption becomes intensified by the drive for
who know no morality. At the climax Ness hesi- zation, Gun Men piles up plot twists. A decision
revenge. Yet a closer look at the two films allows
tates before shooting Frank Nitti, the murderer of will immediately trigger a fight or pursuit. In
us to pick out some significant variations within
his friends; duty to law wins out briefly and Ness Haye’s first shootout with Ding, the captain is
two major traditions of popular cinema. arrests Nitti. But when Nitti assures him he will killed; Haye is next seen planning revenge on his
Gun Men squeezes its busy plot into about ninety not be convicted and smirkingly adds that Malone rival gang; immediately that gang bursts into
minutes, while The Untouchables takes two hours. died “squealing like a pig,” Ness frogmarches Nitti Haye’s headquarters, and another gun battle
Gun Men’s credits fly by in forty seconds, as across the rooftop and shoves him off, calling ensues. The quick reversals give the film a breath-
opposed to about two and a half minutes in after the howling killer: “Did he sound anything less pace. Ding trails Haye’s lieutenant, Tsou, and
De Palma’s film. The Untouchables has a four- like that?” At the end, as if purged, Ness can muse Mona to her apartment, where he hides in a
minute epilogue that shows Ness leaving his over the photo of his squad, murmuring, “So wardrobe. Then Tsou’s wife breaks in, Tsou flees,
office, bidding good-bye to his surviving partner, much violence,” and declare that if indeed Prohi- and the women fight. Ding steps in to protect
and heading home. Gun Men has virtually no epi- bition is repealed—well, then he will have a drink. Mona, and after her rival is gone she asks for his
logue, following the resolution of the climactic He has moved toward Malone’s leathery pragma- sympathy. When he offers it, she suddenly pulls
gun battle with a paltry seven-second montage of tism without forswearing his adherence to the law. away and leaves. The next thing we know, she has
photographs before the final credits roll. Gun Men Wong’s Gun Men traces no such arc. Ding is become Ding’s informer in the underworld.
has far more physical action, whether you meas- first seen as a frightened soldier during the civil At the climax, Ding needs to force his wife and
ure by screen time or by the number of scenes war of 1926, about to undergo torture at the hands child to flee Shanghai, so he announces that he

Planet Hong Kong Hong Kong and/as/or Hollywood | 13

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