New Hong Kong Cinema

New Hong Kong Cinema

Transitions to
Becoming Chinese in
21st-Century East Asia

By
Ruby Cheung
Berghahnonfilm
 Published in 2016 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com

© 2016 Ruby Cheung

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages

for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cheung, Ruby.
New Hong Kong Cinema: transitions to becoming Chinese in 21st-century East
Asia / by Ruby Cheung.
pages cm
Includes filmography.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-78238-703-9 (hardback: alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-78238-704-6
(ebook)
1. Motion pictures--China & Hong Kong--History--21st century. 2. Chinese in
motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1993.5.C4C44218 2015
791.43095125--dc23
2015002053

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78238-703-9 (hardback)

ISBN 978-1-78238-704-6 (ebook)
For Mama and Thomas
Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Acknowledgements ix

Notes on Romanization, Terminology and Information Source x

Abbreviations xii

Introduction: The New Hong Kong Cinema, Cinema of Transitions 1

and East Asia

1 Cinematic Journeys and Journeying in New Hong Kong Films 41

2 Outsider Characters: Chineseness, and Hong Kong Screen 74

Imagination and Imageries

3 Hong Kong Filmmakers: Authorial Vision, Self-Inscription and 105

Social Underdogs

4 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences: The Red Cliff Experience in East 138
and South East Asia

5 Film Policies and Transitional Politics: The Newest East Asian Film 176
Business Network

Conclusion 220

Appendix 225

Filmography 233

Bibliography 241

Index 269
Illustrations

Figure. 5.1 The Organization Chart of the CreateHK 198

Table 5.1 East Asian Film Markets 208

Table A.1 Chinese-Language Blockbusters: Top Ten (2000–10) 225

in Terms of Budget

Table A.2 Summary of Online Surveys of Interactive Websites 226

Dedicated to Red Cliff (up until 24 August 2009)

Table A.3 Summary of Online Survey of Interactive Websites 227

Dedicated to Kaneshiro Takeshi (up until 24 August 2009)

Table A.4 Summary of Follow-up Online Survey Related to Red Cliff 230
(Conducted in 2013)

Table A.5 Number of Sellers/Buyers/Visitors at Major East Asian Film 231

Markets (2004–13): A Comparison
Acknowledgements

It has been a long time coming. Now it is here.

Many people have been involved over the course of the years; without their
invaluable input and support there would be no book. Special thanks are due: for
intellectual inspiration – Dina Iordanova, who started all this in the first place, and
has fiercely supported me and my work throughout, David Martin-Jones’ clarity of
thought and advice on my research career; for reading early versions of relevant
research and giving invaluable comments – Robert Burgoyne, Mette Hjort, Robert
A. Rosenstone, Julian Stringer and Belén Vidal; for sharing film industry inside
information at various research stages –Thomas Gerstenmeyer, Chris Harris and
Li Cheuk-to; for language use suggestions at various stages of writing-up: Valerie
Holmes, Alex Marlow-Mann and Vladimir Vladov; for those at or via Berghahn
Books – Adam Capitanio for his editorial support, Mark Stanton, who first showed
interests in my project, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable com-
ments; all my friends for sharing laughs and tears with me; my students at the
United International College (UIC), Zhuhai, China for being truly inspirational
regarding the use of new media in mainland China in the forthright way only young
people can be; all colleagues at universities over the past decade of work on this
project – St Andrews (United Kingdom), Dundee (United Kingdom), Lingnan
(Hong Kong) and UIC (China).
Part of the research I conducted on the Hong Kong International Film Festival
(including the personal interview with its Artistic Director, Li Cheuk-to) was within
the context of the ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ project, spearheaded by Dina
Iordanova at the University of St Andrews and funded by The Leverhulme Trust.
Also, I am grateful to Routledge (publisher) and Robert Burgoyne (editor) for
allowing me to reprint two tables of statistics that are carried in my essay ‘Red Cliff:
The Chinese-language Epic and Diasporic Chinese Spectators’ in The Epic Film in
World Culture (pp. 192–94). A part of Chapter Four in this book is based on the
primary research data listed in these two tables. They are now included here as
Tables A.2 and A.3 (in Appendix) respectively, in a slightly modified format.
I am grateful to my family for being there and for tolerating my long-term
absence – Terence, Vivian, Aunt Helen, Father; ‘the girls’ Ava, Constance, Lynn and
Nina; most importantly – Mama (I would be nowhere without you) and Thomas
(for keeping me on course, fed, watered and warm in all climates and seasons).
Notes on Romanization, Terminology and
Information Source

This book mainly follows the pinyin system of Romanization, the conventional one
for Chinese-language film studies in the English-speaking world. On specific occa-
sions, Cantonese-language terms Romanized according to the general practice
prevailing in Hong Kong (initially employed by the local government) are also pro-
vided. Except for cases when an Anglicized name and/or an English given name is
adopted, in general East and South East Asian names (in particular, Chinese,
including mainland Chinese and Chinese diaspora, Japanese and Korean names)
are Romanized in this book with the surname placed first and the given names
second. This is to reflect the original form and the specific manner of Romanization
of the names when they are used in their places of origin. To be more specific,
names of filmmakers, actors, actresses, other film industry practitioners and so on
are presented as they are widely known, e.g., John Woo where Woo is the surname
(instead of Wu Yusen in pinyin (Mandarin) or Ng Yu-sum in Hong Kong
Cantonese). Authors’ names, if already Romanized when used in publications, are
presented as they are printed in relevant publications, e.g., Yiu-Wai Chu and
Laikwan Pang (the in-text citations of their works in this book are Y-W. Chu and L.
Pang respectively).
Film titles are italicized and are used in their English version in the main text and
notes. Information on film director(s), country(ies) of origin and year of general
release in the main audience market is given in parentheses immediately following
a film title at its first appearance in the text (except in those cases with relevant
information in the text nearby); for example: A Simple Life (Ann Hui, Hong Kong,
2012). A Filmography is included at the end of the book. For Chinese-language
films, information about the pinyin and the Chinese film title (in both traditional
and simplified scripts) is given in the Filmography in addition to the English title of
the films. For each major role in the films under close analysis, the name of the
actor/actress is given in parentheses immediately following the protagonist name
at its first appearance in the text.
Proper names such as the ‘New Hong Kong Cinema’ or ‘New Taiwan Cinema’
are used to refer to specific cinematic traditions, film industries and relevant
 Notes . xi

institutional aspects, and individual films made in the mentioned places. These
proper names are capitalized in this book.
The information on individual films’ country (or countries) of origin, company
credits, release places and dates comes mainly from IMDb (www.imdb.com),
unless referenced otherwise in the text.
Abbreviations

In general, full names of companies/entities in this book will be cited on the first
mention, and in abbreviated form from the second mention onwards. On occa-
sions, the same full names are mentioned again after their first appearance in the
book.

China-related

Beijing Film Academy (BFA)

Beijing Film Market (BFM)
Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF)
Central Academy of Drama (CAD)
China Film Group Corporation (CFGC)
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)
Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA)
National Film Capital Company Limited (NFC)
People’s Republic of China (PRC)
Shanghai Film Group (SFG)
Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF)
Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group (SMEG)
Shanghai Media Group (SMG)
SMEG Special Events Office (SSEO)
State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT)
State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT)

Hong Kong-related

British National (Overseas) (BN(O))

Create Hong Kong (CreateHK)
Film Services Office (FSO)
Home Affairs Department (HAD)
Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF)
 Abbreviations . xiii

Hong Kong Film Development Council (HKFDC)

Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART)
Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF)
Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFFS)
Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC)
Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC)
Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA)
Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration (OFNAA)
Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA)
Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK)
Special Administrative Region (SAR)
Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA)
Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB)

International

Asian Film Commissions Network (AFCNet)

International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF)
World Trade Organization (WTO)

Japan-related

Japan Association for International Promotion of the Moving Image (UNIJAPAN)

Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK)
Japan Film Commission Promotion Council (JFCPC)
Tokyo International Anime Festival (TIAF)
Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF)
Tokyo International Music Market (TIMM)

South Korea-related

Asian Film Market (AFM)

Asian Project Market (APM)
xiv . Abbreviations

Busan International Film Commission & Industry Showcase (BIFCOM)

Busan International Film Festival (BIFF)
Korean Film Council (KOFIC)
Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF)
Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP)

Taiwan-related

Central Motion Picture Company (CMPC)

Central Pictures Corporation (CPC)
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)
Government Information Office (GIO)

United Kingdom-related

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

U.S.-related

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

Introduction
The New Hong Kong Cinema, Cinema of Transitions
and East Asia

Made on a ‘mid budget’ of RMB30 million (£2.8 million or U.S.$4.8 million),1 A

Simple Life (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 2012) does not belong to any Hong Kong
mainstream genres (Bordwell 2000; FILMART 2007). It tells a very simple story
between an elderly, loyal housemaid Tao Jie of a Hong Kong Chinese migrant
family and her young master Roger. Their love and care for each other makes
them no different from any blood-related family. The director Ann Hui acknowl-
edges that one of the main themes of A Simple Life – the sociopolitical issues of
ageing – was rarely explored in Hong Kong films.2 She admits that making this
film was a risky endeavour, for she employed stars to play major roles while
shooting the film like a documentary.3 After Hui and the film’s writer/producer
Roger Lee (whose real-life story was the blueprint of the film) showed the syn-
opsis to Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau and Deanie Ip (playing Tao Jie), the two
actors were not just interested in playing the key roles, but Lau was also willing
to find finances for the film (H. 2012). A Simple Life turned out to be emotionally
touching, garnering multiple important awards (such as the best actress and
best director awards) when it travelled along the international film festival circuit
in 2011 and 2012. The film’s international glory meant it soon became the talk of
the town. It was also one of the highest box-office grossing films (ranked number
five) in Hong Kong in the first half of 2012 (Shackleton 2012b), becoming the
most bankable film Hui had made in decades (Sek 2013: 124). Its mainland China
box-office takings doubled the film’s initial budget.4
Being A Simple Life’s lead actor and executive producer, Lau promotes the
film in its ‘Making of’ programme.5 Upon finishing it, he chants loudly in
Cantonese,6 ‘Hurray, Hong Kong Cinema!’ Lau is internationally famous for his
role as the triad mole inside the Hong Kong Police Force in the Infernal Affairs
trilogy (directed by Hong Kong filmmakers Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, and
released in 2002 and 2003 respectively).7 Much less known outside Hong Kong
is Lau’s active support (in terms of both finances and human resources) for
independent Hong Kong films, especially those made on low budgets. The star
2 . New Hong Kong Cinema

often assumes the role of producer of these films, such as for Fruit Chan’s Made
in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1997). Lau’s wholehearted support for Hong Kong
Cinema is indisputable.
What these filmmakers show us is more than their success and perseverance
in helping Hong Kong films survive. Reading between the lines of their com-
ments on this non-genre Hong Kong film A Simple Life and Hong Kong Cinema
more generally in different media interviews, we can detect a number of con-
cerns that Hong Kong filmmakers are carrying with them. Most notable are the
struggles of the once-prosperous mainstream film industry in Hong Kong. The
filmmakers reveal the limitations of the filmmaking environment within Hong
Kong in recent years and the uncertainty of the future of the Hong Kong film
industry when East Asia moves towards a pan-Asian, China-led co-production
era.8 Lau, for example, could have chanted ‘Hurray, Chinese Cinema!’ instead
of ‘Hurray, Hong Kong Cinema!’ in promoting A Simple Life, which is technically
a China-Hong Kong co-production that has received serious investment from
China. On top of concerns on the industry level, these filmmakers continue to
place themselves at the forefront, fighting for a distinct identity of local Hong
Kong films that help to define the identity of their fellow Hongkongers.9
This book is a treatise on the New Hong Kong Cinema (including the cin-
ematic tradition, film industry and relevant institutional aspects, and individual
films) that has developed over the past three and a half decades from the 1980s
to the mid 2010s. Hong Kong films made during this era often directly or indi-
rectly concern the 1997 sovereignty handover (or just ‘Handover’ in short) of
the city, whether they belong to mainstream genre traditions or lean towards
experimental and non-commercial practice. My main argument is that these
films should be discussed, and can be understood more fully, from the angle of
‘transitions’ in the renewed and continuously changing East Asian regional con-
text in the age of China’s rise. Hence, I highlight three related areas of concern
here: (1) the New Hong Kong Cinema, (2) its relationship to ‘Transitions’, and (3)
its positioning vis-à-vis China and within East Asia. In turn, they will inform my
critical analysis in this book. Situating my argument at the intersection of these
three related angles, this book goes beyond the parameters of other theoretical
paradigms such as transnational, national or local cinema, in which Hong Kong
Cinema is often explored.
 Introduction . 3

The New Hong Kong Cinema

I use the term ‘New Hong Kong Cinema’ by building on cultural theorist Ackbar
Abbas’ ideas. Abbas uses this expression to refer to Hong Kong films made since
1982, in order to highlight a special stage of development of Hong Kong Cinema
as a response to a specific sociopolitical, historical situation and a cultural space
of disappearance related to the 1997 political handover (Abbas 1997: 16–17).
Abbas moves on to use this term as the umbrella title of a book series (published
by the Hong Kong University Press) under the general editorship of himself and
his colleague Wimal Dissanayake (they were joined by film scholars Mette Hjort,
Gina Marchetti and Stephen Teo).10 Each volume presents a close analysis by a
scholar or critic of one Hong Kong film (an exception is Marchetti’s (2007) study
on all three films of the Infernal Affairs trilogy in a single book). In the preface of
the books in this publication series, Abbas and Dissanayake (no original date;
see for example Marchetti 2007, E. Cheung 2009 and Yue 2010) identify further
the qualities of the New Hong Kong Cinema:

In the New Hong Kong Cinema … it is neither the subject matter nor a par-
ticular set of generic conventions that is paramount. In fact, many Hong Kong
films begin by following generic conventions but proceed to transform them.
Such transformation of genre is also the transformation of a sense of place
where all the rules have quietly and deceptively changed. It is this shifting
sense of place, often expressed negatively and indirectly – but in the best work
always rendered precisely in (necessarily) innovative images – that is decisive
for the New Hong Kong Cinema.

While Abbas and Dissanayake focus their attention on the cultural and histori-
cal importance of these Hong Kong films (on a par with Italian neorealist films,
French New Wave and New German Cinema) in a disappearing cultural space in
Hong Kong, my usage of the term here in capitals is an extension slightly modi-
fied from their concept. Firstly, I stress the fact that new Hong Kong mainstream
films offer cinematic representations of residents in Hong Kong (especially of
the Hong Kong Chinese). These films are related primarily to a population called
‘Hongkongers’ on screen, off-screen and/or behind the screen. Given the volatil-
ity of different qualifiers that have been applied to the Hongkongers’ sense of
being, it is logical to think that the identities represented in many Hong Kong
4 . New Hong Kong Cinema

films during the Handover transition, which is still ongoing as I will discuss below,
should be better understood on multiple levels. Vantage points of reference may
include the narrative structures, subject matter, visual and audio styles and so on
of these films. Secondly, the commercialism in the Hong Kong mainstream film
industry has pushed the boundaries of the New Hong Kong Cinema. Whereas
new Hong Kong mainstream films cannot be too formulaic and convey their
messages via certain genres only (as Abbas and Dissanayake point out), the
filmmakers cannot be extremely auteurist or artistic, especially in Andrew Sarris’
sense (1981), and ignore the commercial side of their film projects. Moreover,
although most of the films under discussion in this book are considered compo-
nents of the commercial Hong Kong mainstream film industry, many of them in
fact are not indigenous Hong Kong films, because they have significant financial
investments and human resources coming from outside Hong Kong. Depending
on the contexts in which they are mentioned and explored, these films can be
classified as ‘Hong Kong films’, ‘China-Hong Kong co-productions’, ‘pan-East
Asian films’ or all of the above at the same time. Prime examples are John Woo’s
Red Cliff and Red Cliff II (China/Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/United
States), released in 2008 and 2009 respectively (they are in fact two instalments
of a single film; I will thus refer them to as Part I and Part II of Red Cliff hereafter)
(see my discussion in Chapter Four of this book). To avoid confusion over the
origin of these co-produced Hong Kong films, in this text I call them Hong Kong-
related Chinese-language films.
To maintain these two characteristics, the New Hong Kong Cinema must
engage with (and in) the empirical environs and people of Hong Kong. My first
experience of Hong Kong films, unlike that of many of their admirers, did not occur
in a movie theatre but at home in Hong Kong when I watched television reruns of
small-budget old Cantonese films made within relatively short production periods
in the late 1950s and the 1960s.11 These were a major source of enjoyment in my
childhood, but I should admit that these Hong Kong films meant more than pure
entertainment to me when I was growing up in my native Hong Kong. Through
them, I acquired some snapshot knowledge of the city and people’s lives in a
recent past of Hong Kong. The more I understand this place and the more Hong
Kong-made or Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films from different periods
I see, the more I feel these films should be watched and understood not just for
the sake of their aesthetic or industrial value, but as a combination of various fac-
tors intrinsic and extrinsic to them and to the place they are concerned with.
 Introduction . 5

Therefore, besides being a critical study of recent Hong Kong-related

Chinese-language films, this monograph is based on a particular take of how
Hong Kong has developed as a city newly under Chinese rule amid new regional-
ization in East Asia. Those films belonging to the New Hong Kong Cinema I scru-
tinize here are not only treated as parts of the mass media, nor do they only serve
as a sort of lens through which Hong Kong society can be explored. They are
also viewed and critically examined as channels, facilitators, catalysts (in some
cases), meaning producers and redevelopers influencing the social, cultural,
economic, political and historical spheres of Hong Kong. Moreover, in exerting
influences on these spheres of Hong Kong, the New Hong Kong Cinema (espe-
cially in the senses of film industry and cinematic tradition) has transcended, is
transcending and will most likely continue to transcend the interfaces between
Hong Kong, China, East Asia and the rest of the world. In particular, I would like
to ask throughout this book: (1) Over the past three and a half decades, have
Hong Kong films made use of any specific subject matter, plots, aesthetics, char-
acterization, etc., to construct an on-screen world that would reflect the impact
of the sovereignty change in real life? (2) How have the target audiences of these
films (especially those in East and South East Asia) responded to changes – if
such there are – to these filmic elements (in question 1) in Hong Kong-related
Chinese-language films? (3) Has the Handover had any direct or indirect polit-
ical-economic effects on the changes taking place in Hong Kong’s mainstream
film industry in the context of the rise of China and the rearrangement of East
Asia’s international relations after the Asian Financial Crisis (1997–98)? (4) How
have these changes, as mentioned in the above questions, interplayed with one
another, and what lessons might other parts of the globalized world learn from
the developments in contemporary Hong Kong Cinema? In the following I will
first discuss some special times, places and people, which I believe are so sig-
nificant to the development of the New Hong Kong Cinema that my analysis of
these films would be incomplete without them.

Hong Kong: A Revisit to the ‘Borrowed Time’ and the ‘Borrowed Place’
Firstly, the time. The period from the late 1960s to the late 1970s marked the
penultimate stage of the 151-year-old British colonial governance of Hong Kong
(excluding the three years and eight months of Japanese occupation of Hong
Kong during the Second World War). As Richard Hughes opens his famous
book Hong Kong: Borrowed Place – Borrowed Time (1968: 9) with a snapshot of
6 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Hong Kong in the postwar period: ‘A borrowed place living on borrowed time,
Hong Kong is an impudent capitalist survival on China’s communist derriere, an
anachronistic mixture of British colonialism and the Chinese way of life, a jumble
of millionaires’ mansions and horrible slums, a teeming mass of hard-working
humans, a well-ordered autocracy’ (italics in original). The very same period
also saw some of the major incidents elsewhere that are still having repercus-
sions and lingering consequences today: the Cold War (1947–89), the Vietnam
War (1956–75), China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the 1973 oil crisis … None
of these seemed to have any lasting negative impacts on the island in the grand
scheme of things. Contrary to the trend in the world’s major events, the British
Crown Colony as a whole enjoyed a prosperous period in the late 1970s and the
1980s, and would even become one of the Four Asian Tigers.12 Stock exchanges
repeatedly hit historic highs of transactions. The properties and real estate sec-
tors of the city’s economy soared to incredible levels. Banking, finances and
other service industries also enjoyed their heydays. The whole society followed
suit at a rapid pace. Wealth was being seriously accumulated, while the gap
between the rich and the poor began to widen quickly. Starting from that period,
the Hong Kong Chinese saw they might be quite different from other Chinese
communities. They began to explore in other sectors as well, most notably in
political and cultural areas, their identity as ‘Hongkongers’ – an identification
that distinguished them from their British colonizers and definitely from their
still backward and poor mainland Chinese neighbours.
The place itself indeed helps to create this kind of hope and mentality.
Geographically Hong Kong is located at the south-eastern tip of China’s ter-
ritory. This location had been doing the place a huge injustice throughout the
long history of development of the Chinese governance system, dating back to
around 1700 bc. As journalist and historian Martin Jacques (2012) argues in his
book When China Rules the World, China is in itself a civilization-state, whose
central governance operates somewhere in the middle of its vast territory. Thus,
Beijing, Nanjing, Louyang and Xian were chosen to be the country’s capitals
in different periods. The physical location of the governance centre suggests
that the Chinese territories located along the country’s geographical borders
might not have enjoyed the same importance as regards the governance of the
whole nation. Located on the country’s geographical periphery, Hong Kong has
never fallen under the strict and direct administration of the central authorities
ever since China was officially united as one nation by Qin Shihuang (the First
 Introduction . 7

Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, 221–206 bc).13 Arguably, this was also one of the
reasons why Qing China (under the Qing Dynasty, which ruled from 1644 to 1912,
and was the last in the country’s history) ceded Hong Kong, albeit reluctantly,
to the British as part of the compensation after the country’s defeat in the two
Opium Wars (in 1842 and 1860 respectively). Towards the end of the British
colonial empire in the late 1960s, Hong Kong as a British Crown Colony ben-
efited from the non-interventionist policy of the Hong Kong British government,
which enabled the city to utilize its natural strengths to develop as an entrepôt
and a bridge between China and the outside world. It has gradually consolidated
its indispensable position as a global city transcending the national and geopo-
litical confines of its hinterland (Sassen 2001).

Towards Identification with Hong Kong and the Hongkongers’ Identity

Finally, the people. The specific history and geographical location of Hong Kong
have strongly contributed to what makes up the community living there over
the years. According to the 2011 Hong Kong government census (released on 4
May 2012), ethnic Chinese residents in Hong Kong stood at a total of 6.6 mil-
lion, accounting for 93.6 per cent of the territory’s entire population of 7.07 mil-
lion.14 The majority of the Hong Kong Chinese residents were immigrants or
descendants of immigrants from mainland China. They had been regarded by
their mainland counterparts and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) authori-
ties as members of the overseas Chinese communities (known as hai wai qiao
bao in Mandarin) before Hong Kong reunited with China politically. In studying
the sojourn patterns of overseas Chinese over the past 200 years, Chinese immi-
gration scholar Wang Gungwu (1991a) classifies Chinese emigrants into several
categories, including ‘trader’, ‘coolie’, ‘sojourner’ and ‘descent or re-migrant’;
these categories are based mainly on the various primary reasons for people
leaving China. Although Wang arranges these migration patterns chronologi-
cally, in reality these kinds of migrations could also be found in periods other
than the ones in which they were the predominant kinds.
Due to the convenient geographical proximity, many Chinese emigrants from
the south of China might find themselves residing in Hong Kong at some point
without the initial intention of staying there forever. During the post-Second
World War period, these previous refugees or emigrants witnessed the nega-
tive changes in China after the establishment of the PRC. They also saw how
the colonial government began a series of beneficial sociocultural policies that
8 . New Hong Kong Cinema

turned out to be useful for the Hong Kong residents to build their local con-
sciousness after the 1967 pro-communist riots and anti-colonialism demon-
strations. With other locals, they have begun to enjoy the effects of economic
prosperity in Hong Kong since the 1970s. They realized their stay in Hong Kong
might be much longer than originally envisaged (Curtin 2003: 215–16; Y-W. Chu
2013: 125). Economically, if not necessarily culturally, they began to identify with
Hong Kong more than with their places of origin in mainland China.
Hence, although many Hongkongers are ethnic Chinese and culturally also
very Chinese,15 their Chineseness – itself a problematic, controversial, cultural
essentialist and ethnic deterministic concept (Tu 1994; Chun 1996; Ang 1998,
2001; R. Chow 1998: 17) – is inevitably different from that of their co-nationals
in mainland China (see further discussion on ‘Chineseness’ in Chapter Two).
Cultural critics have found various stages of change taking place in the iden-
tification, mentality and worldview of the Hong Kong Chinese throughout the
years (Skeldon 1994c; Tu 1994; Wang G. and J. Wong 1999; Jacques 2012). Over
the colonial history and the post-reunification period, the sentiments and
ways of thinking of the Hong Kong Chinese have been closer to those of the
Chinese descendants settled far from Chinese soil. Theirs can be regarded as
the direct effect of exposure to colonial and postcolonial influences, although it
may depend on individuals how deep such influences can go. The postcolonial
effects they undergo, however, may not necessarily result in nationalist senti-
ments, as film scholar Laikwan Pang (2007) observes when writing about post-
colonial Hong Kong Cinema. The author argues that it is more and more difficult
for the recent Hong Kong Cinema to fit into the postcolonial model, in which
local films are supposed to be employed to assert the newly gained national
status (2007: 423–24). Such ethno-centric nationalist sentiments, nonetheless,
are lacking in many Hong Kong Chinese. Likewise, Hong Kong as a society does
not display such sentiments often.
One might even say that the Chineseness that the Hongkongers display often
changes depending on circumstances. Many Hong Kong Chinese may choose
to align with the mainland Chinese and the Chinese living in other territories (or
countries) when a suitable political, cultural or economic environment prevails.
Recent incidents, such as the fighting for territorial rights over Diaoyu Island,
show that the ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong do align themselves with China on
international relations issues. Yet, many of them also feel uneasy about their
own status as ‘Chinese nationals’ after the political handover. They fight hard for
 Introduction . 9

their own local distinctiveness, something that might not be deemed appropri-
ate elsewhere on the mainland under the PRC rule.
The identity complex of many Hong Kong Chinese comes to a certain extent
from their self-awareness of being ‘overseas Chinese’ or themselves once being
part of the Chinese diaspora (Safran 1991; R. Chow 1993; Ang 2001; W. Cheung
2007: 66–69). As diaspora scholar William Safran (1991: 87) regards, ‘diasporic
consciousness’ is ‘an intellectualization of an existential condition’. Seen in the
above context, I argue that ideas related to the ‘diaspora’ paradigm can provide
us with an informative starting point for understanding the complicated identi-
fication issues of the Hong Kong Chinese, and the pre- and post-reunification
Hong Kong. It allows us to be better informed with regard to Hong Kong’s rela-
tionship with a ‘China’ that tends to exert its deeply rooted civilization-state
posture, to revive its position as a regional big brother in East Asia, and to behave
as a country that will become a true world power in the foreseeable future
(Katzenstein 2000; Jacques 2012).
Yet, I also believe there are limitations to deploying the strict ideas of this
paradigm when analysing the Hongkongers’ ever-changing identity negotiations.
Media historian and social theorist John Durham Peters (1999: 39) defines dias-
pora as those people who have to be tolerant of the ‘perpetual postponement
of homecoming and the necessity … of living among strange lands and peoples’.
In writing about exilic and diasporic filmmakers from Third World countries now
residing in the West, diaspora and film scholar Hamid Naficy (2001: 14) defines
‘diaspora’ as follows:

People in diaspora have an identity in their homeland before their departure,

and their diasporic identity is constructed in resonance with this prior identity.
However … diaspora is necessarily collective, in both its origination and its
destination. As a result, the nurturing of a collective memory, often of an ide-
alized homeland, is constitutive of the diasporic identity … People in diaspora,
moreover, maintain a long-term sense of ethnic consciousness and distinc-
tiveness. (emphasis in original)

If the original idea of homeland and home country is not very clear and has at
times become a hegemonic ‘other’, as in the case of many Hong Kong Chinese
with their love-hate relationship with ‘China’,16 with the current Chinese authori-
ties and with their mainland Chinese counterparts, then perhaps ‘diaspora’ as a
10 . New Hong Kong Cinema

concept does not work perfectly. Still, there is no reason to believe the diasporic
paradigm is completely inappropriate here. As cultural theorist Ien Ang (1998:
225) puts it concisely:

Central to the diasporic paradigm is the theoretical axiom that Chineseness

is not a category with a fixed content – be it racial, cultural, or geographical
– but operates as an open and indeterminate signifier whose meanings are
constantly renegotiated and rearticulated in different sections of the Chinese
diaspora … There are, in this paradigm, many different Chinese identities, not
one.

Therefore, we must and should be prepared to use this concept open-mindedly

in order to interrogate the very nature of the centre-prone, vertically integrated
‘China’ influences and ‘China’ factor when studying the identity issues of the
Hong Kong Chinese. At the same time, we can appreciate and highlight the ten-
dency towards a hybridity that diasporic dispersal might result in (Ang 1998:
236).

From People to Films: Local Chinese, Ex-British Subjects, or East Asians?

Understanding how the Hong Kong Chinese perceive themselves and are per-
ceived by others (other Chinese communities and the non-Chinese) is impor-
tant for us to construct a comprehensive picture of the roles Hong Kong as a
society plays in a complex system of international relations, in which China is
emerging as a world power. This background also helps me examine the func-
tions and dimensions of Hong Kong films made recently, especially in an era in
which the Hong Kong film industry has been declining continuously. For most of
its history, the local film industry has operated without assistance from the Hong
Kong government (see Chapter Five for an analysis of Hong Kong’s film policy).
The demise of the studio system that supported most of the film outputs in
Hong Kong from the 1960s to the mid 1980s further aggravated the difficulties
in filmmaking there. After the last Hong Kong-based production studio Shaw
Brothers stopped financing and producing film projects in 1986 and concen-
trated its investments on its television station, Television Broadcasts Limited
(TVB), film productions in Hong Kong have been typically run by small compa-
nies with limited investment capital in a form not much different from a cottage
industry (except for a few larger independent companies including Cinema City
 Introduction . 11

(1980–91), D&B Films (1984–92) and Golden Harvest (since 1970)17) (Bordwell
2000: 1, 70; Chan C. 2000: 9–10, 599–606; S. Chung 2003: 13–14). Hong Kong
Cinema enjoyed its heyday in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Domestic box-
office earnings and overseas revenue from Hong Kong-made films reached the
highest record of HK$3.1 billion in 1992 (£246 million or U.S.$400 million) (J.
Chan, Fung and C. Ng 2010: 13). The film industry turned out 239 films in 1993
at its apex (Chan C. 2000: 457), selling films to the domestic as well as overseas
markets in East/South East Asia and North America. Hong Kong films had a
close to 80 per cent gross local market share in the early 1990s. There were
about 15,000 people working in film production in Hong Kong during that period
(Szeto and Y. Chen 2013).
Small companies were able to enjoy the film industry pinnacle throughout
the late 1980s and in the early 1990s when the economy of Hong Kong was
booming. However, in 1994 a recession of the whole film industry began. Critics
blame the recession of Hong Kong’s film sector on a combination of causes,
which occurred at around the same time, such as piracy, overproduction of
low quality films, threatening rivalry of Hollywood blockbusters, brain drain of
creative labour from the local film industry to the West (mainly Hollywood),
changing consumption habit of film audiences and shrinking of both local and
traditional overseas markets, e.g., Taiwan (Chung H. 1999: 21–23). It was noted
that between 1992 and 1998 overseas revenue of Hong Kong film production
dropped 85 per cent. Many small, local film companies in Hong Kong suffered
as a result of this recession that turned out to be long term (G. Leung and J.
Chan 1997: 147–48). After the local film industry representatives had lobbied
for governmental help, it was only in the post-Handover period that the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government set up two funds
(the Film Development Fund and the Film Guarantee Fund in 1999 and 2003
respectively) to help the ailing film industry (see discussion on these funding
schemes in Chapter Five).18 And it was as late as 2007 that the local government
officially established the Hong Kong Film Development Council (HKFDC) to
administer these two film funds, which are notoriously difficult to apply for due
to the specific requirements of the funding schemes. On the other hand, the
‘return’ to Chinese rule, and the signing of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer
Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) in 2003 between Hong Kong and
the mainland authorities gave the Hong Kong film industry in the new millen-
nium a hope of penetrating the vast mainland Chinese audience market, which
12 . New Hong Kong Cinema

was not available to Hong Kong in the colonial period. The CEPA, in particular,
allows Hong Kong film projects to bypass China’s strict quota on foreign film
import and enter China by way of co-producing films with China-based compa-
nies and/or film talent. Working in the discipline of comparative literature, Yiu-
Wai Chu (2013: 100–1) notes the difference between contemporary China-Hong
Kong co-productions that started to appear in the 1990s, and the ‘Mainland-
Hong Kong cooperative films’ made before the Cultural Revolution and after
the open-door policy in communist China. The latter often involved left-wing,
pro-communist film companies in Hong Kong and their special relationship with
mainland Chinese organizations. These ‘cooperative films’ are mostly period
dramas and were produced outside Hong Kong’s mainstream film industry. The
more recent China-Hong Kong film co-productions came into being when the
mainland Chinese filmmakers began to work with the commercial Hong Kong
film industry to produce such critical successes as Chen Kaige’s Farewell My
Concubine (China/Hong Kong, 1993). Their birth coincided with the start of the
decline of the Hong Kong film industry.
Lamenting the difficult situation of Hong Kong film professionals, Hong Kong
actor Chapman To comments that previously Hong Kong filmmakers might only
have cared about how to make good Hong Kong films; now, since 1997, because
of the co-productions with the mainland Chinese filmmakers and the gradual
integration of Hong Kong cinematic practice into the mainland Chinese one,
Hong Kong filmmakers have to care about whether a film can pass China’s cen-
sorship mechanism.19 His comments echo Pang’s remarks (2007: 424): ‘If we
consider 1997 the moment when Hong Kong merged back into China to become
a city of a nation, the nation is welcomed most wholeheartedly by Hong Kong
people on economic grounds, but, culturally, Hong Kong filmmakers continue
to see the mainland market as a foreign one’. Like many other film scholars who
focus on Hong Kong Cinema and how its functions are going to play out when
China’s influences are indeed becoming stronger and stronger, Pang’s observa-
tion has a certain truth (and also hidden worries) in it. Pang is confident enough
to say that Hong Kong Cinema will continue to retain its certain place-based
local characteristics, as she sees that ‘the local is at the core of the transnational’
(L. Pang 2007: 427). Yet, like many other film scholars, Pang mobilizes the binary
enquiries of local/transnational to study the situation of Hong Kong Cinema.
We can find other similar binaries such as local/national, national/trans-
national, local/global, colonial/postcolonial presented in scholarly literature
 Introduction . 13

on Hong Kong films by other film scholars. For example, Stephen Teo’s Hong
Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions (1997) gives a thorough record of how Hong
Kong Cinema has developed in both historical and local/national filmmaking
respects. Similarly, Yingchi Chu’s Hong Kong Cinema (2003) uses the national
cinema paradigm (see Higson 1989, 1997) to discuss locally made Hong Kong
films in relation to China and the United Kingdom. Vivian P.Y. Lee’s Hong Kong
Cinema since 1997 (2009) gives an update on Hong Kong films from a cultural
studies perspective. Her analysis also emphasizes heavily the ‘local’ and ‘global’
(see also Fu and Desser 2000). In light of the ever-changing filmmaking and film
consumption contexts of Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films, employ-
ing only binary sets of concepts for enquiry will not be sufficient for us to fill in
the blanks that might be left as we try to understand Hong Kong’s cinematic
practice and what it might mean to those who regularly produce and consume
the relevant films.
Moreover, being a global city that has been regarded by some as more suc-
cessful economically than its former colonizer, Hong Kong and its film indus-
try do enjoy a status that cannot fit comfortably within the ‘local’ category.
Grouping Hong Kong Cinema under the category of postcolonial or even global
does not work perfectly either. I should also note that for most of these Hong
Kong-related films made recently, the national cinema paradigm is not appro-
priate. As Pang (2010: 140) points out rightly, Hong Kong Cinema has never
been ‘national’ in any direct sense, although other media or film scholars argue
otherwise that Hong Kong Cinema ‘practically’ functions ‘as a national cinema
in quantity, quality, and stylistic distinctiveness’ (Shih 2007: 14). The variety of
views among different researchers of Hong Kong Cinema stems partially from
the personal theoretical underpinnings of the scholars and partially from the
versatile yet ambiguous nature of the distinct Hong Kong cinematic tradition.
Hong Kong Cinema never really contributed to the British national cinema when
Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony. It had a more intriguing relationship with
the cinematic practice in mainland China before the establishment of the PRC
in 1949, and later with Taiwan Cinema during the 1960s to the early 1980s.20 The
recent contributions of Hong Kong Cinema to the Mandarin-speaking national
cinema of the PRC can best be regarded as a form of commercial partnership
and by no means a hard-core ‘nationalist’ move.
Other existing studies on Hong Kong Cinema, individual Hong Kong film-
makers or films tend to focus on a single area of concern to explore critically,
14 . New Hong Kong Cinema

such as the formalistic appreciation, the search for identity, philosophical and
literary interpretation, or industrial aspects. Film scholar David Bordwell’s Planet
Hong Kong (2000), for instance, emphasizes the formal techniques used in
mainstream Hong Kong films, making a hidden comparison of these films with
Hollywood products. For those scholars who deal with the identity and cultural
issues in film, they characterize contemporary Hong Kong Cinema as a ‘crisis
cinema’ or as a major part of a ‘disappearing culture’ right before and/or imme-
diately after the 1997 Handover (Abbas 1997; E. Cheung and Chu Y-w. 2004).
When the use of these terms is confined to a specific time frame, they seem
to be correct. There is, however, doubt as to using these terms to acknowledge
Hong Kong Cinema appropriately when the latter continues to evolve beyond
that specific time frame.
While these perspectives may be useful in initiating analysis of Hong Kong
Cinema as part of world cinemas,21 we should be alert to the subtleties of Hong
Kong Cinema and the ways different Hong Kong films are produced, distributed,
exhibited and received in different highly politicized, spatial-temporal environ-
ments. Analysing contemporary Hong Kong films, especially those made after
the 1990s, in terms of the above-mentioned paradigms is thus too easy a way of
shying away from more in-depth interrogation of the complexity of transnational,
(trans-)cultural, political and economic relationships that are still emerging
within the geopolitical boundary of East Asia. The latter is a geopolitical context
that is still under-studied in existing research of Hong Kong films. Hong Kong
Cinema has been playing a paramount role in the region’s mediascapes, a role far
better recognized in East Asia than in other parts of the world (Appadurai 1990,
1996). This is the reason why this book aims to fill in this gap to understand the
New Hong Kong Cinema from the East Asian regional perspective.

The Model of ‘Cinema of Transitions’

With the benefit of hindsight, and after years of observing the dramatic evolu-
tion of the New Hong Kong Cinema since 1997, I argue for and choose to use
the model of ‘Cinema of Transitions’ instead in this book. I seek to obtain better
understanding of the most recent developments in Hong Kong Cinema and film
culture in multiple areas of concern, and in relation to Hong Kong’s transitions
over the past few decades in an East Asian setting (Abbas 1997; Y. Chu 2003; L.
 Introduction . 15

Pang 2007: 424, 2009: 84). The term ‘Cinema of Transitions’ is defined here as
any cinema practice, tradition or film industry that demonstrates the ability to
reflexively adjust and continuously readjust itself in proactive response to multi-
ple types of transitions taking place in the surrounding world, whether they be
cultural, social, political, economic, historical or religious. The cinematic adjust-
ment could result in a change in the messages films convey, in the quest for
human identity the films present, or even just in the transitional restructuring of
the film industry of concern.
The manner in which I use the concept thus allows our discussion to embrace
more aspects and kinds of transitions than how ‘transition’ in singular (or as a
mass noun) is often used, for example, in denoting newly emerged national cin-
emas of the post-socialist nations in Europe. Eastern European cinemas, such as
the Polish and Slovenian ones, are considered to be ‘cinemas in transition’ (my
emphasis) predominantly within the national cinema paradigm or its variants
(Sosnowski 1996; Mazaj 2011). Naficy (2008) uses the term ‘cinema of transition’
(i.e., transition without plural form) to depict those Iranians in film who are in
transit in third spaces or third countries. On the other hand, cultural historian
Jessica Stites Mor (2012: 9) uses ‘transition cinema’ to identify those Argentine
political films that reflect the transition (to democracy) culture in Argentina.
‘Transition’ in their cases is mainly related to the change of the political-eco-
nomic system in the countries concerned and how such change is imprinted on
the cultural imagination in films.
Many contemporary Hong Kong mainstream films do depict in their diegetic
scenarios the multitude of sociocultural and political transitions in the wider
context. First and foremost, part of the society’s transition is related to Hong
Kong’s status change from being a British Crown Colony to a Chinese special
administrative region. There are numerous scholarly volumes and monographs
devoted to Hong Kong’s political transition from British to Chinese rule. Many of
them are aligned closely with the perspectives of law and sociology. Not surpris-
ingly, most of these publications came out right before or in the year 1997, during
which the actual political handover took place.22 A few of them were published
after 1997.23 What is particularly interesting is not the fact that these publica-
tions were written by scholars studying politics and have a strong focus on the
political effects of the city’s sovereignty shift, but how these authors regard the
1997-related transition of Hong Kong as something that stopped right at the
point when Hong Kong became a Chinese special administrative region.
16 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Transitions
I prefer to adopt a broader and pluralistic understanding of transitions. Hong
Kong society had undergone a prolonged process of transitions before and after
1997 that have had multilayered, lingering effects. We have to understand what
these ‘transitions’ actually mean to Hong Kong economically, politically and soci-
oculturally. From an economic perspective, Wang Gungwu and John Wong (1999:
8) point out that, due to China’s open-door policy, Hong Kong in its last stage
as a British Crown Colony had already started to build a closely knit economic
relationship with China. Hence, even though there was no formal economic
integration arrangement in place before the political handover, the economic
transition from the colonial into the postcolonial period has, on the whole, been
a smooth one. With China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
in 2001 and its skyrocketing gross domestic product (GDP) in the first ten years
after the accession,24 Hong Kong is one of those China-administrated cities that
have harvested economic benefits. For example, it has weathered the effects of
the Asian Financial Crisis much better than other South East Asian territories,
and is enjoying stronger protection against the Global Financial Crisis that began
in 2007. Yiu-Wai Chu (2013), however, expresses his worries for Hong Kong in
transition in the age of China’s rise as one of the superpowers in a globalized
world. The author builds his opinion on Abbas’ idea about the ‘disappearance’
of Hong Kong culture and explores it from a different perspective, highlighting
the negative aspects of the changes Hong Kong has been experiencing since the
Handover. There was, for example, an overemphasis on the top-down ‘Central
District Values’ (Y-W. Chu 2013: 43–68) caring for ‘profitability’, ‘efficiency’,
rather than other human aspects of the population during Donald Tsang’s
administration (the successor of Tung Chee-hwa as the head of the Hong Kong
SAR government). In 2001, the local government launched the ‘Brand Hong
Kong’ marketing programme to promote Hong Kong as ‘Asia’s World City’ on
a par with London and New York. The programme was updated in 2010. This
move, however, ended up marginalizing other core values that truly define the
Hongkongers, especially those struggling in the grass-roots social stratum (Y-W.
Chu 2013: 70, 74). To Chu, Hong Kong has been ‘lost in transition’– the title of his
book, in part due to the incompetence of the newly established SAR government
(Y-W. Chu 2013: 12–14). In Chu’s opinion, Hong Kong can no longer maintain its
uniqueness as a capitalist city on Chinese soil after the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003. Many mainland Chinese cities have since
 Introduction . 17

been striving to become as ‘capitalist’ as Hong Kong (or ‘Hong Kong-ized’ in

Chu’s words), while Hong Kong has been relying more and more on mainland
Chinese capital to sustain its economic well-being (Y-W. Chu 2013: 9–12). Hong
Kong’s economic transition from being the only capitalist city under Chinese
rule to becoming heavily reliant on the huge capital support from the suppos-
edly socialist China has in turn tremendously influenced Hong Kong’s political
and sociocultural spaces.
Politically, Hong Kong’s transitions are manifest in at least two different ways.
On the one hand, both the British and Chinese authorities see the Handover as
the point when the British transferred Hong Kong’s sovereignty to the Chinese
at midnight on 30 June 1997. Hence, the official transition was the period that
started when both countries signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984,
thereby nailing the destiny of Hong Kong up to the point when the Handover
would be completed, that is, 1 July 1997. Yet, on the other hand, we also need to
bear in mind that Deng Xiaoping, who was the chief engineer on the Chinese
side behind the sovereignty change, advocated an as yet unheard of ‘one coun-
try, two systems’ principle for Hong Kong’s supposedly smooth political reunifi-
cation with China.25 Under this principle, Hong Kong would be allowed to enjoy
a high degree of autonomy to continue having the capitalist system in place, and
to have its own political framework and institutional structure for fifty years after
1997, without the interference by the socialist system of the PRC. Operating
institutions from colonial years, such as the legal and educational systems,
have continued to function in Hong Kong after the Handover. Wang Gungwu
and John Wong (1999: 8) emphasize that ‘there is neither a clear-cut institu-
tional mechanism nor a firm timetable’ for how the ‘two systems’ will eventually
become one. There is also no institutional arrangement for any conflicts that
might arise between the two systems (Kuan 1999: 24).26 Giving the impression
of playing it by ear, the political transition (and uncertainty) of Hong Kong is de
facto still going on; Wang and Wong (1999: 10) call it ‘limbo’.
Socioculturally, as noted by well-known government officials and scholars
as well as by ordinary citizens of Hong Kong, the ‘real transition’ is not about
sovereignty but about the identity of the people involved (Wong S. 1999: 182).
And to this note I would add that many Hong Kong Chinese have some sort of
diasporic experience (first-hand experience or learned knowledge from their
parents and grandparents), which further complicates the Hongkongers’ identity
negotiations at any given time.27 The Hongkongers’ identity transitions thus have
18 . New Hong Kong Cinema

countless dimensions and directions. Sociologist Wong Siu-lun (1999: 186–88)

in a longitudinal survey (1991–97) identifies four identity transitions: Loyalists
(to China), Locals (focusing on Hong Kong), Waverers (wanting to emigrate but
being rejected by the countries they are aiming at), and Cosmopolitans (plan-
ning and having the resources to emigrate). Irrespective of how much money
they earn, how much education they have had and what social class they are in,
those who undergo identity transitions from British subjects or stateless Chinese
to (involuntary) Chinese nationals28 are often inarticulate when it comes to
expressing the intense emotional complexities that they have to deal with. Not
to mention that such emotional conditions often range from cultural embracing
or resistance, to psychological readjustment. Constantly changing with situa-
tions and circumstances, this identity complex is also interrelated with how a
unit of individuals (family or community) feel about themselves and how others
perceive who and what they are (Wong S. 1999: 186).
As an example of Cinema of Transitions, the New Hong Kong Cinema entails
another level of transition in the society, especially in the commercial film indus-
trial practice that is concerned with film finance, production, distribution, exhi-
bition and reception. There have been several stages of structural adjustment in
the mainstream Hong Kong film industry since the late 1970s when a clearer direc-
tion of genuine local productions addressing concerns of local Hongkongers
(and not the ‘Chinese nationals’ living in Hong Kong) was introduced into the
field. In brief, we can characterize contemporary Hong Kong film industry as
having started as a local and global-oriented one in the late 1970s and the 1980s.
This was the time when the first Hong Kong New Wave directors began their
filmmaking career, often using international film festivals as their première plat-
forms. Cultural studies scholars Mirana M. Szeto and Yun-chung Chen (2013)
observe that there was a ‘mixed system’ going on in the film sector of Hong Kong
during that period. The system was characterized by ‘satellite systems, director
subcontracting, and major-minor relations that reflect different power relations
between the studios and the independents’ (Szeto and Y. Chen 2013). The local
film industry then went through shrinkage in the input (finances and human
resources in particular), and the amount and quality of output in the 1990s.
The ‘mixed system’ of film production was giving way to a flexible ‘independent
system’, characterized by highly networked, non-contracted film labourers and
small companies of less than ten staff members. It then passed to a stage of
polarization in terms of types of films (blockbusters versus small-budget indies)
 Introduction . 19

in the 2000s and the 2010s. Since the late 2000s, the industry has landed on
another mode, where East Asia is both the input source and the output channel.
Not only have the types of film output changed rapidly over the last few dec-
ades, but likewise the ways of production, distribution, exhibition and reception
of Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films. It is expected that Hong Kong
Cinema (if this term is to be in use continuously to describe the cinematic prac-
tice of films made in Hong Kong) will undergo further transformation again in
the near future in order to find a niche of its own in the larger screen industry
environments, whether those of China, East Asia or the world. Through stages of
structural adjustment of the Hong Kong film industry, we can see that external
transitions have not bogged down or worsened the cinematic practice. At times
they even become a driving force that impels the constant reinventions, growth
and prospering of the cinema of concern. External transitions and the Cinema of
Transitions, as in the case of the New Hong Kong Cinema, are therefore working
partners (metaphorically speaking) that mutually sustain each other. As long as
there are external transitions, the Cinema of Transitions will reflect and respond
to these changes internally.
In addition, within the model of Cinema of Transitions, the cinema of con-
cern may itself become a factor intervening in the external transitions. There
are numbers of instances of recently made Hong Kong films attempting to
intervene in the changes of the city’s sociopolitical arena. For example, Herman
Yau’s From the Queen to the Chief Executive (Hong Kong, 2001) questions the
hypocrisy of the local law system in handling the cases of twenty-three juve-
nile delinquents who committed serious crimes (e.g., murder) before 1997 (B.
Lee 2002: 26). In real life, these delinquents were supposed to be ‘detained at
Her Majesty’s pleasure’ during the colonial era due to their young age, and to
wait for the British monarch’s final decision on their sentences. However, these
young criminals were completely forgotten by the British colonizers when the
latter left after Hong Kong’s sovereignty change. The new chief executive of
the Hong Kong SAR government did not show much concern for these juvenile
delinquents either. Ultimately, these young criminals might have to spend an
even longer, indeterminate period in prison as opposed to what adult criminals
committing similar crimes would have to undergo.
The Cinema of Transitions may even proactively extend its influences to
other cultural forms, such as television, animation, video games and comics.
Tsui Hark’s A Chinese Ghost Story (Hong Kong, 1987) is a typical example of film
20 . New Hong Kong Cinema

contents ‘flowing’ across different screen-based media during the time when the
Hong Kong film industry was going through structural adjustment in response to
the changes in wider sociocultural and political contexts. Tsui’s film was loosely
based on a short story within the Chinese classic collection of supernatural sto-
ries Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (written by Pu Songling approximately
in the late 1600s and the early 1700s), and was inspired by Li Han-hsiang’s film
adaption The Enchanting Shadow (Hong Kong, 1960) of the same story. Both
1960 and 1987 films share the same Chinese title Qian Nu You Hun (倩女幽魂
in both traditional and simplified Chinese scripts). They tell the fight between
a good Taoist and an evil spirit amid the love story between a young man and a
beautiful female ghost. Tsui’s 1987 film is believed to have spawned three other
films under the same family title: A Chinese Ghost Story II (Ching Siu-tung, Hong
Kong, 1990), A Chinese Ghost Story III (Ching Siu-tung, Hong Kong, 1991) and A
Chinese Fairy Tale (aka A Chinese Ghost Story) (Wilson Yip, China/Hong Kong,
2011). Tsui was the producer of the 1990 and 1991 films but was not involved
in the 2011 version. In 1997, Tsui directed an animated film based on the same
series and entitled it A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation (Tsui Hark,
Hong Kong, 1997). This film series also inspired a 2003 television series of forty
episodes under the same title. It was produced and broadcast in Taiwan (then
broadcast in Hong Kong in 2006). The television series features Hong Kong,
mainland Chinese and Taiwanese actors, who were not involved in any of Tsui’s
A Chinese Ghost Story films.

Cinema of Transitions and Interstitiality

An essence of the Cinema of Transitions is its quality of being interstitial. The
New Hong Kong Cinema and the transitions it has been reflecting in the past
thirty-plus years since the Handover news was announced come closest to an
interstitial style of cinema in Naficy’s accented cinema theory (proposed in
2001), despite the obvious place-specific differences between Hong Kong and
the accented filmmakers’ places of origin. In Naficy’s proposition (2001: 10), the
accented films are made by filmmakers predominantly from ‘Third World and
postcolonial countries (or from the global South)’ who have gone into exile or
diaspora because of decolonization and other political changes taking place in
their home countries since the 1960s. They have managed to find their ways to
make films again within the mainstream filmmaking systems of the West after
migrating to the United States and various European countries. Owing to the
 Introduction . 21

specific political-cultural transitions of their identities, their filmmaking style

and filmmaking process have also undergone drastic changes. As Naficy argues:

If the dominant cinema is considered universal and without accent, the films
that diasporic and exilic subjects make are accented … the accent emanates
not so much from the accented speech of the diegetic characters as from the
displacement of the filmmakers and their artisanal production modes. (Naficy
2001: 4)

To be interstitial, therefore, is to operate both within and astride the cracks of

the system, benefiting from its contradictions, anomalies, and heterogeneity. It
also means being located at the intersection of the local and the global, mediat-
ing between the two contrary categories, which in syllogism are called ‘subalter-
nity’ and ‘superalternity’. As a result, accented filmmakers are not so much
marginal or subaltern as they are interstitial, partial, and multiple. (Naficy
2001: 46–47; my emphasis)

According to Naficy, diasporic and exilic filmmakers making films in the West
often refer to their places of origin and displacement experience. These films
are therefore ‘accented’ (Naficy 2001: 4). Here, Naficy uses the linguistic term
‘accent’ in order to suggest a distinctive particularity of certain cinemas: if the
classical and the new Hollywood cinemas are free from any overt ideology and
accent (i.e., the neutral one), then by extension all alternative cinemas are
accented (Naficy 2001: 23). We may adapt Naficy’s idea of accented cinema to
the case of the New Hong Kong Cinema where we can find cinematic expres-
sions of the Hongkongers’ diasporic experience and interstitiality: if the domi-
nant film industry is becoming a China market-oriented film industry that is based in
mainland China and is heavily charged with the Sinocentric ideology, then the New
Hong Kong Cinema is accented in the sense that it is transitional and interstitial.
The sense of interstitiality in the case of the New Hong Kong Cinema has
been a troubled one, precisely because it is hidden under a thick veneer of com-
mercialism (Abbas 1997: 17–18; M. Berry 2005). Yet, the more this cinematic
practice’s interstitiality lies hidden below the surface, the more it is betrayed
by all sorts of clues contained in the films and picked up effortlessly by target
audiences who have similar concerns. Far from leading to ghettoization or mar-
ginalization, the interstitiality of the New Hong Kong Cinema tends to work for
22 . New Hong Kong Cinema

proactive transcendence, enabling the cinematic practice, and what it depicts,

to circumvent the orthodox geopolitical constraints of particular locales, cities
or nations. Ultimately the New Hong Kong Cinema firmly maintains an advanta-
geous position, as it reaps rich harvests in good times and weathers adversities
in bad times.
Hence, Abbas’ (1994: 65) mention that Hong Kong Cinema ‘is both a popu-
lar cinema and a cinema of auteurs’ is not entirely correct. Many Hong Kong
mainstream filmmakers, including those whom critics praise as being auteurs,
would always have, first and foremost, the goal of surviving in the film business
by securing financial resources and maintaining sufficient box-office income
(Ngai and Wong K. 1997: 97; M. Berry 2005: 422–542). It follows that even when
these mainstream filmmakers have wished to address some sociopolitical issues
of Hong Kong, instead of the constraint of political censorship, their concern has
mostly been the financial conditions of their film projects and their livelihood
(Sek 1988: 15; Teo 1988; Lo Y. 1997; K. Ng 2009). These two seemingly contrasting
concerns have been haunting Hong Kong filmmakers for a long time. Striking a
balance between caring for ideological, society-related topics in films and play-
ing by the rules of the game in the commercial filmmaking industry has become
one of the most imperative tasks of many Hong Kong mainstream filmmakers.
At the same time, their success stories in filmmaking offer us abundant material
for exploring and appreciating film practices in different places.
Naficy’s theory covers a wide range of areas that are the components of the
‘accented style’ (in the author’s words) the accented filmmakers employ to reflect
their diasporic and exilic identity after re-establishing their filmmaking careers in
the West (Naficy 2001: 289–92). These areas of concern include accented films’
visual style, narrative structure, characters and characterization, subject matter,
structures of feeling, accented filmmakers’ own location and authorship, as well
as their specific mode of film production, distribution, exhibition and reception
activities. This theory and its areas of discussion thus serve as a highly adaptable
theoretical framework that we can utilize to examine the New Hong Kong Cinema
as an example of the Cinema of Transitions. It also informs the structure of this
book and the realignment of several seemingly separate issues regarding Hong
Kong-related Chinese-language films. I will return to this point in the last section
‘About the Research and the Book’ of this ‘Introduction’. For now, we will discuss
how the New Hong Kong Cinema has remained firmly an identifiable unit against
the backdrop of recent developments in China and East Asia.
 Introduction . 23

East Asia in the Twenty-first Century: Concepts and Perspectives

While Hong Kong film culture has come to reflect the economic, political, social
and cultural concerns of the Hong Kong Chinese, we can no longer confine
Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films to ‘local’, ‘global’ or a portmanteau
‘glocal’ that consists of the two. Instead, we should turn to an already emerging
new direction that makes more visible the understated component within the
global-local paradigm, i.e., the redefined regional film cultures in an ‘East Asia’
that is undergoing the latest round of regionalism. This reconsideration is espe-
cially necessary in view of the dramatic international relations triggered by the
rise of China, U.S. preoccupation with Middle Eastern issues and its interests
in the Asia-Pacific region in the twenty-first century (Campbell 2011), and the
Global (mainly Western) Financial Crisis.

The New East Asian Regionalism

The regionalism and regionalization characteristics of East Asia should not be
confused with that of the European Union or the two Americas. International
relations expert Peter J. Katzenstein distinguishes between ‘regionalism’
and ‘regionalization’. According to Katzenstein (2000: 354), ‘Regionalisation
describes the geographic manifestation of international or global economic
processes. Regionalism refers to the political structures that both reflect and
shape the strategies of governments, business corporations and a variety of non-
governmental organisations and social movement’. When Katzenstein wrote
about East Asia’s ‘new regionalism’ in 2000, in East Asia there were two politi-
cal-economic centres, China and Japan. In little more than ten years, however,
the situation in East Asia changed drastically. Jacques (2012) stays away from a
Euro-American perspective and looks at East Asia’s (in particular China’s) pro-
gress from the historical perspective of Chinese civilization. He notes that China
will soon become the single most important power in East Asia, first, through
its economic prowess in the post-WTO accession years and, second, through
revitalized cultural influences. Jacques’ assumption represents a still somewhat
homogenous approach to treating and understanding Chinese people, espe-
cially as he does not delve deep into the cultural and racial conflicts between
different Chinese communities or into the Hong Kong Chinese community’s
uneasiness about returning to the rule of PRC. However, his emphasis on China’s
being a civilization-state (and not a nation-state in the modern sense) offers
24 . New Hong Kong Cinema

strong support to his arguments that China’s approach to the entire world is
going to be very different from what the West (of which Europe and the United
States are the two cornerstones) is familiar with. Jacques reminds his readers
that China is not just the nation-state it has ‘recently’ become (in the last one
hundred years approximately). It is, in the author’s words, ‘the oldest continu-
ously existing polity in the world’ (Jacques 2012: 244). He also notes that:

When the Chinese use the term ‘China’ they are not usually referring to the
country or nation so much as Chinese civilization – its history, the dynasties,
Confucius, the ways of thinking, the role of government, the relationships and
customs, the guanxi (the network of personal connections), the family, filial
piety, ancestral worship, the values, and distinctive philosophy, all of which
long predate China’s history as a nation-state … Chinese identity is over-
whelmingly a product of its civilizational history. The Chinese think of them-
selves not as a nation-state but as a civilization-state … its multitudinous
layers comprising the civilization-state, with the nation-state merely the top
soil. (Jacques 2012: 244)

Understanding how China works and thinks as a civilization-state, rather

than just a nation-state, is important, as it will help us understand how the
Chinese (particularly those of the mainland) behave towards one another and
towards the non-Chinese. Jacques detects the often overlooked racial discrimi-
natory attitudes the ethnic Chinese generally have towards peoples of darker
complexion,29 combined with ignorance of racial difference within China. He
also discusses the possibility that China’s rise might lead to a renewed expres-
sion of the age-old China-centred tributary system (encompassing some of the
past East Asian tributary states, such as Japan and Korea), the modern East Asia
(ASEAN+3) summit in the late 1990s and the 2000s being an important hint of
such a tendency (Jacques 2012: 347, 374–405).
Rey Chow (1993: 9), herself a Hong Kong-raised cultural theorist now living
in the United States, also protests against the Chinese ‘hegemony’ in her book
Writing Diaspora. Chow disapproves of the cultural essentialism that results from
Chinese ‘hegemony’, and of the Chinese identity being imposed upon those
people of Chinese descent who hold a culturally pluralistic view. The author
argues that such moves demonstrate a focus on consanguinity that violently
demands total submission of the ethnic Chinese to a hollow Sinocentrism
 Introduction . 25

(Chow 1993: 24–25). Chow advocates that people should ‘unlearn’ their sub-
mission to their ethnicity and acknowledge the more realistic cultural identity
negotiations often demonstrated by her fellow Hong Kong Chinese.
What is common to Jacques’ and Chow’s writing is their acknowledgement
of Sinocentrism (or ‘the Middle Kingdom mentality’) (Jacques 2012: 294–341),
an ideology rarely discussed and taken for granted in scholarly works. It focuses
on ‘China’ as a modern nation-state, a civilization, a race and even a cultural
concept. The concept of ‘cultural China’ put forward by neo-Confucian Tu Wei-
ming in The Living Tree (1994: 1–34) provoked much controversy. He argues the
need for those who live and work on the ‘periphery’ of China (i.e., those Chinese
descendants who do not live on the mainland) to replace the traditional ‘centre’
(mainland Chinese) in cultural and intellectual discussions. This should lead to
a rethinking of the concept of ‘China’. On the surface, Tu’s argument looks like a
kind of nonconformist disapproval of the absolute cultural elitism in which the
mainland Chinese intellectuals are dominant. Ien Ang, however, points out that
Tu’s definition of three symbolic universes comprising ‘cultural China’ represents
yet another Sinocentric ideology. It highlights the ‘periphery’ (where Chinese
intellectuals in diaspora dominate) instead of the ‘centre’, and precludes the
possibilities of cultural pluralism and diversity among these overseas Chinese
(Ang 1998: 228–33). Why, after all, do the overseas Chinese have to think and
act only like ‘Chinese’, and why does the thinking of ‘cultural China’ have to be
initiated by intellectual communities? A strong marginalization of non-intellec-
tual ethnic Chinese communities who think and act otherwise but most likely
form the great majority of the Chinese diaspora is easily detected here. As we
shall see in my discussion in Chapter Four, the cultural Sinocentrism and feeling
of superiority could be as dangerous as any other essentialist ideology, such as
German Nazism or Italian Fascism, that glorifies one’s own culture and history
while potentially marginalizing, ignoring and, in the extreme case, killing off other
cultures and peoples.
The awareness of the possible effects of cultural Sinocentrism is very impor-
tant if we are to understand how modern China, attempting to be a continu-
ity of its civilizational past, is proactively influencing its own nationals and the
overseas and returned Chinese communities to perceive themselves and others.
This in turn influences the ways these different ethnic Chinese communities
construct a Chinese identity more on the basis of Chinese culture and history
than on the modern notions of nationality and citizenship (Wu 1994: 148–49).
26 . New Hong Kong Cinema

The cultural-political effects also extend to the interactions of these communi-

ties and individuals within and beyond cultural-industrial sectors like the film
industry, practitioners of which are often involved in working with colleagues
from various countries. As Jacques (2012: 343) notes, ‘The way in which China
handles its rise and exercises its growing power in the East Asian region will be a
very important indicator of how it is likely to behave as a global power’.

The New Hong Kong Cinema as One of the Most Prominent Components of the
East Asian Film Industries
To reiterate, this book has chosen to focus on Hong Kong Cinema of the last
thirty-plus years. Special attention is paid to this cinematic tradition’s relation
to China on the rise in an East Asian setting. It explores the manner in which the
New Hong Kong Cinema has been influenced by a love-hate relationship with
the cultural Sinocentrism at home (in Hong Kong and elsewhere in mainland
China) and, more significantly, in other parts of East Asia.
Why do we shift Hong Kong Cinema from the usual transnational or national
cinema paradigms and reposition it instead in the (new) East Asia paradigm – a
regional and cultural concept that was perhaps less important for Hong Kong
Cinema in the Cold War period than after the Asian Financial Crisis? In other
words, why is it essential for us to understand how contemporary Hong Kong
Cinema has been moulded to become a part of China-led, East Asia-oriented
film business?
With more and more archival materials being explored and published in dif-
ferent scholarly studies in recent years, we can now understand that the film
industries in East Asia have been prone to working and doing business inter-
dependently in different historical periods, including the most recent one (see,
for example, Yau S. 2010; Sugawara 2011; DeBoer 2014). The phenomenon in
today’s East Asian collaborative film business world finds a surprising parallel
in the 1950s and the 1960s as well as in much earlier periods. Initiated by key
players in the film scene in the East Asian region, this kind of interrelationship
among different East Asian film industries has gone beyond individual East
Asian film industries’ aim of fighting against the invasion of Hollywood prod-
ucts. It has also accomplished more than just the promotion of national film
products of each country in East Asia. The Shaw family, for example, has been
one of the dominant players in the region (see, for example, Wong A. 2003; Fu
2008). Throughout the years, the Shaws have changed from their earliest form,
 Introduction . 27

Tianyi (aka Unique) Film Productions in Shanghai (established in 1925), through

to a reincarnation in Hong Kong as Nanyang (established in 1937; renamed as
Shaw and Sons Limited in 1950), and the establishment of Shaw Brothers (HK)
Limited (1958–2011), to its present mode of producing films under various com-
panies of the Shaw conglomerate. By the 1950s and the 1960s, Shaw Brothers
had firmly established branches of production, distribution and exhibition across
East/South East Asia, becoming the biggest film studio in the region. Besides
building a film kingdom with branches operational in various places, the Shaws
also worked with some of the biggest players (film studios) in East Asia (most
notably Japan’s Shochiku, Toho, Daiei (acquired by Kadokawa in 2002), Toei
and Nikkatsu) to weave a tight regional film business network. Together they
launched in 1954 the first film festival in East/South East Asia chiefly for film
marketing purposes (see K. Yau 2003; R. Cheung 2011c: 203–4; Iordanova 2011:
11).30 Initially known as the Southeast Asian Film Festival, the event was renamed
in 1957 as the Asian Film Festival; then in 1982 it was further renamed as the
Asia-Pacific Film Festival, the title that is still in use today (S. Lee 2011: 242–46).
Therefore, from a historical point of view, the late 1990s to 2010s actually
witnesses a revitalized, rather than a completely new, phenomenon of collabo-
ration (in the areas of film financing, production and marketing) and resources
sharing within East Asia. We see it happening in some of the most successful
mainstream East Asian films of the new millennium, the latest being Wong
Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster (China/Hong Kong, 2013) on the biographic story of
martial arts master Ip Man. Successful projects do not involve key film compa-
nies only. There are also profitable co-produced films that are made on smaller
budgets. They find their niches and enjoy positive box-office/critical reception.
We can easily find some examples among those made and distributed by Peter
Chan’s Applause Pictures (established in 2000) (Davis and Yeh 2008: 93–99).31
Several East Asian and Chinese-language cinema experts have considered
using East Asia as the main vantage point of their studies. From an industrial-
cultural point of view, Darrell William Davis and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh (2008: 1)
argue that a discussion of East Asian screen industries as a whole will better reflect
the significant restructuring and transformation of all film industries in specific
East Asian localities involved. The authors consider aspects of film industries in
the region, ranging from film policies and funding opportunities to trans-border
production and talent sharing. What they have found to be the latest trend in
the 2000s is ‘increasing decentralisation, deregulation, and regional cooperation’
28 . New Hong Kong Cinema

(Davis and Yeh 2008: 3). In writing about the political economy of the first gen-
uine co-produced China-Hong Kong blockbuster, Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002),
Anthony Fung and Joseph M. Chan (2010: 203) discover a rational economic cal-
culation in the production of the film. The authors believe Hero follows an interna-
tional market structure: the Asian, including the Chinese, audience market serves
as a barometer for the American market, which in turn influences either positively
or negatively the film buyers in Europe (see also Curtin 2007: 25). From a cultural
studies point of view, as suggested by Jonathan D. Mackintosh, Chris Berry and
Nicola Liscutin (2009: 8–9), a regional perspective underscores the ongoing cul-
tural negotiations between the dichotomy of ‘global’ and ‘local’. It also intervenes
in postcolonial approaches to globalization, which has been seen as a Western-
led ideology to be followed by the rest of the world. Similar to its ever-changing
geopolitical parameters, ‘East Asia’ as a cultural entity and ideological concept is
bound to undergo continuous constructions and deconstructions (Mackintosh, C.
Berry and Liscutin 2009: 21–22; see also R. Cheung 2011a: 42–43).
The regional interdependence in film and other screen industries is not with-
out problems. It raises the question of industrial biases and the consolidation
of the more powerful film business players in the region. As media and cultural
studies scholar Kōichi Iwabuchi (2009: 26–27) observes, instead of de-West-
ernizing the media cultural flows, what has been happening in East Asia in the
past fifteen years or so places the United States again in the dominant position.
This is made possible by the growing dominance of multinational media con-
glomerates that have connections with the country. However, with the rise of
China, the government of which is keen on developing the nation’s cultural and
creative industries, there is increasing evidence that the key players of East Asian
film industries are of Chinese origin and are mostly based in Beijing. Cases such
as China Film Group Corporation (CFGC), Bona Film Group, Huayi Brothers
and Wanda Group have enviable financial power of influence, and are usually
permitted and backed in various ways by the Chinese central government in
operating their film business.32 As a sanctioned gateway of China’s domestic film
industry, at least one of these key players, the state-run CFGC, also holds almost
absolute control of foreign imported film distribution within China.33 Moreover,
these key industry players do not just aim at selling Chinese film products
to domestic and neighbouring markets in East Asia. They are also using East
Asia as their hinterland to engage in collaboration with Hollywood to produce
English-speaking films, thereby skimming off the most profitable markets, which
 Introduction . 29

Hollywood products used to dominate for decades. As Bruno Wu, the founder
of ChinaWood Film and Media Hub in China, says: ‘We want to participate in
English-language global content, but with Chinese elements and talent that
Chinese audiences relates [sic] to’ (China’s New Global Strategy 2012).
This situation of asymmetrical interdependence (and power relations), with
Chinese film companies that are operating at certain economic and political
advantages, seems to echo the China-centred tributary system in the realm of
international relations I discussed above. Some might argue that this bears a
similarity to the marginalization and oppression already prevailing in the bipolar
world (Mackintosh, C. Berry and Liscutin 2009: 15–16). However, we should also
have in mind that such an asymmetrical relationship among film industry play-
ers in East Asia is not imposed single-handedly by China. Neither does it imply
that there are no big film business players in other parts of East Asia: we can see
that South Korea and Japan have their own ‘big shots’, like CJ E&M Film Division
(formerly CJ Entertainment) in South Korea and Toho in Japan. The way that
other East Asian film business players have chosen to benefit from the success
of their Chinese counterparts may suggest that: (1) these other East Asian play-
ers are content to work under the leadership of those leading players from China
at the dawn of the twenty-first century, (2) they are accumulating and saving up
their own resources before coming to the fore again, (3) they are looking at other
markets besides those in their own countries and East Asia, (4) they do not mind
imitating China’s ways of operating its film business for specific reasons, even to
the extreme extent of being Sinicized in various ways. Whichever is the case, the
picture is bound to be very complicated and intriguing.
In these seemingly Chinese-dominated situations, as far as film industries
in East Asia are concerned, Hong Kong Cinema’s role in the industrial, cultural,
geopolitical and economic arenas of China and East Asia has not only been well
maintained, it has also been highlighted in official records. For example, in 2003,
the Centre for Cultural Policy Research of the University of Hong Kong pub-
lished a ‘Baseline Study on Hong Kong’s Creative Industries’ for the Hong Kong
SAR government. Hong Kong’s film and video industry was highlighted among
the eleven creative industries under study (The Centre for Cultural Policy
Research of the University of Hong Kong 2003: 104–11). Moreover, there have
been more and more signs of the reinvention of Hong Kong’s cinematic practice
in the twenty-first century amid China’s rise, and the latest development of East
Asian and global film business (see, for example, A Description of China’s Film
30 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Industry 2007; Coonan 2009; Shackleton 2012c). Some recent phenomena with
regard to Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films since the turn of this mil-
lennium include:

1. Appealing to a pan-Chinese film market is apparently the most popular way

for the China-Hong Kong as well as pan-East Asian co-production projects to
maintain a strong regional and international presence. The subject matter and
talent employed also show a deliberate consideration of the Chinese audi-
ence market.34
2. Hong Kong local films test the regional water with their local relevance in the
use of visual elements and their audio distinctiveness before going beyond
East Asia (for example, insistence on the use of Cantonese language to main-
tain Hong Kong’s local identities, despite full awareness that Cantonese-
speaking films may have linguistic and cultural limitations in reaching
Mandarin-speaking film audience communities in China).
3. In the Hong Kong film industry, between the level of co-produced blockbust-
ers and that of low-budget local film productions there is one other film-
making stratum, albeit a much less visible one. In it we find some Hong Kong
directors occasionally making films that are not characteristics of their typi-
cal oeuvres (for example, big-budget filmmakers making low-budget films, or
inexperienced filmmakers participating in expensive co-productions).
4. Hong Kong has made itself an excellent candidate for illustrating communi-
cations scholar Michael Curtin’s argument (2003, 2007: 14–19) about ‘media
capital’, which attracts immigration of creative labour. It has a well-estab-
lished community of filmmakers, actors and other kinds of talent. Moreover,
Hong Kong film viewers are one of the major sounding boards of Hong Kong-
related Chinese-language films.
5. Hong Kong film financiers and film executives have a forward-looking attitude
and flexible operational modes. They are the chief cultural-industrial repre-
sentatives of Chinese-language films. They are also the first collaborators of
foreign film executives who might want to take advantage of Hong Kong’s
signing of the CEPA with China, so as to enter the huge mainland Chinese
audience market (Petkovic 2009; Fung and J. Chan 2010: 205–6).
6. The Hong Kong SAR government has made the decision to promote the film
industry as one of the core cultural industries. This in turn inspires the main-
land Chinese film industry’s changing mode of doing business.
 Introduction . 31

7. The Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) and its related events
(e.g., Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART), the Hong
Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) and the Hong Kong Film Awards)
together form one of the main regional film hubs with regard to film trade,
marketing and distribution.

Hence, while Hollywood remains the biggest film industry player in a more and
more globalized world, the once homogenized East Asia deserves a closer study
as the Chinese film industry now becomes the powerhouse of the region while
Hong Kong Cinema is one of the most distinct frontiers of East Asia’s film sector.

About the Research and the Book

In discussing the transitions that are closely related to Hong Kong as a soci-
ety and how the Hong Kong film industry operates under such circumstances,
I strongly believe that an analysis pertaining not just to one or two facets but
various different ones of the New Hong Kong Cinema can anatomize the issues
more thoroughly than otherwise. Here we do not only deal with the human iden-
tity quest often revealed in film, but we also explore how underlying ideologies of
individual films and filmmakers have influenced the actual operation of film as a
cultural and creative industry. My purpose is to display the interlocking manner
of these facets of the New Hong Kong Cinema. In doing so, I do not intend to
highlight or downplay any particular area of this cinematic practice. To achieve
this purpose, my multidimensional methodology has helped me carry out the
research tasks. Over more than eleven years of investigations of the New Hong
Kong Cinema, I have conducted numerous rounds of textual analysis of films. I
have also conducted online and offline study of old newspapers and film trade
press, archival research, field surveys at film festivals, personal interviews with
film industry insiders, and online surveys of written chat room conversations.
These research activities have been helpful for me to understand the contexts
of the making, distribution, exhibition and reception of Hong Kong related
Chinese-language films. They also allow me to examine critically how the New
Hong Kong Cinema has accumulated its cultural and economic values via these
various functions along its ‘value chain’, to borrow the concept from business
management. Although my research approach to the New Hong Kong Cinema
32 . New Hong Kong Cinema

is mainly qualitative, I have also employed quantitative data in certain parts of

my analysis.
As I mentioned earlier, Naficy’s accented cinema theory and the areas it
regards as components of the accented style (Naficy 2001: 289–92) inform the
way I see apparently separate issues of Hong Kong films as parts of a closely
integrated entity within the model of Cinema of Transitions. For the purpose
of easily presenting these issues that intertwine with each other in reality, I will
deal with them as a structure. The first three chapters in this book can be viewed
as the book’s pivot. They cover interrogations pertinent to the matters of the
films themselves and the film production, as a consequence of the diasporic
and interstitial experience of the Hongkongers (Hong Kong Chinese being the
majority of this population) over the course of colonial and postcolonial history.
In order to show the extent of the issues of concern found across a wide range
of films, I select an array of film examples to illustrate and illuminate my points
within the confines of each chapter.
Chapter One critically examines the use of ‘journeys’ and ‘journeying’ in
Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films. As Naficy observes (2001: 4–6),
the accented filmmakers are often preoccupied with place and displacement.
Various kinds of journeys become cinematic tools with which filmmakers express
struggles over identities. Naficy chooses specific places, spaces and vehicles
as his ‘privileged’ sites to investigate journeys and related subject matter in
accented and exilic films. Similar to these accented films, the New Hong Kong
Cinema often features journeys and journeying. Extending from Naficy’s ideas, I
focus my discussion not only on the journeys per se, but on three stylistic areas
– subject matter, way of developing characters and narrative structure, where
journeys and journeying are typically employed in new Hong Kong films to unveil
the Hongkongers’ identity negotiations.
According to Naficy (2001: 275, 290), accented films tend to feature foreigner
or outsider characters to show the films’ and the filmmakers’ interstitiality. The
typical characteristics of these characters include speaking the dominant lan-
guage in film with an accent. They carry with them an air of alienation and loneli-
ness. Many of these roles are played by non-actors or amateur actors. Bearing
in mind the interstitial quality of accented films, in Chapter Two I look at several
types of outsider characters that are often featured in new Hong Kong films.
These characters are from Vietnam, mainland China and other parts of South
East Asia; some of them are hand-drawn, non-human animated figures. Not
 Introduction . 33

only are they fluent in the Cantonese Chinese language, which is the mother
tongue of most of the Hong Kong Chinese residents, these outsider characters
are able to speak the language without any accent. Their presence in film raises
questions, such as: why are they the lead characters in the first place, if the New
Hong Kong Cinema is supposed to be about the city and people of Hong Kong?
What roles do they play in helping the Hong Kong Chinese to look inwardly to
their own qualities being ‘Chinese’? I explore in this chapter how these sup-
posedly non-Chinese characters provide an indirect route for the Hong Kong
Chinese (filmmakers and audience alike) to perceive themselves from a differ-
ent angle during periods of transitions.
Chapter Three draws on the idea of accented filmmakers’ authorship to dis-
cuss the vision of four different types of Hong Kong filmmakers and their self-
inscription in film in the context of Hong Kong’s transitions. Naficy’s original idea
on the accented filmmakers’ authorship (2001: 34) is to ‘put the locatedness and
the historicity of the authors back into authorship’, as ‘authors’ are free from a
definite expression in pre-structuralism and post-structuralism. Filmmakers of
accented films assume multiple roles, mostly as a way to perform their selves.
They can be the author, narrator or simply a subject in film (Naficy 2001: 291).
Borrowing Naficy’s concept, the ‘locatedness’ and the ‘historicity’ of filmmakers
in the New Hong Kong Cinema refer to the place Hong Kong and the Handover
respectively. Yet, unlike the archetypal accented filmmakers identified by Naficy,
many Hong Kong filmmakers cannot show their existence directly on screen, due
to the commercial nature of their films. The demand of senior film executives, film
distributors and viewers may be more influential than the filmmakers themselves
in determining how filmmakers inscribe or do not inscribe themselves in film, and
the image filmmakers create for themselves inside and beyond their films. Ann
Hui represents those who work between commercial and art-house productions.
Johnnie To is a firm believer of film commercialization. Fruit Chan presents him-
self as a grass-roots independent filmmaker with a highly skilled marketing mind.
The ‘New Generation Directors’ are still struggling with their filmmaking endeav-
ours. For this reason, it is interesting to study the authorial concerns and vision of
these different Hong Kong filmmakers when they feature the life of the under-
privileged or social underdogs – a common theme that shows their love of the city
and people of Hong Kong, and their worries amid the place’s historical transitions.
In the field of film studies, the film audience is often under-explored or is not
usually deemed a core research area. In Chapter Four I bring the film audience
34 . New Hong Kong Cinema

into my consideration by interrogating the New Hong Kong Cinema’s state of

transitions and interstitiality from the perspective of film audiences. I believe it
is important to unearth audience reception information of Hong Kong-related
Chinese-language films that the box-office data or professional film critics
would not be able to provide. To accomplish my task, I trace the reception of the
Chinese-language mega blockbuster Red Cliff (Part I in 2008 and Part II in 2009),
as a representative of the New Hong Kong Cinema, among its various ethnic
Chinese film viewing communities in East and South East Asia. These audiences
in the region are traditionally Hong Kong Cinema’s major target markets (Hau
2012). I give details of a series of original online surveys and a follow-up survey of
their viewing experience. In this research, I found that the command of spoken
and written Chinese languages, and the knowledge of Chinese history, did help
many of these film viewers articulate their diverse opinions on the film, which
are quite different from the director John Woo’s initial directorial vision. These
audiences’ existential conditions and their spectatorial responses thus add one
more dimension to our discussion of the state of diasporic mentalities and tran-
sitions found in the New Hong Kong Cinema.
In Chapter Five I explore the newest East Asian film business network that
has evolved since the Asian Financial Crisis attacked the region. There, we can
see the combined influences of the political-economic frameworks of differ-
ent East Asian territories on shaping the region’s film industries and business.
My purpose is to find out how the New Hong Kong Cinema operates astride
and within the interstices found in this regional context, in which several cin-
ematic hubs interact, collaborate and compete with each other in conducting
film-related activities. These cinematic hubs, which I call nodes, include Beijing,
Shanghai, Tokyo, Busan, Taipei and Hong Kong. My discussion focuses on the
respective national/sub-regional film policies affecting these East Asian film
business nodes, and these nodes’ complicated relationships in maintaining
their network of activities. In this regional film landscape, the New Hong Kong
Cinema’s role during transitions is again highlighted when China is increasing its
influence in East Asia and throughout the rest of the world.
This book concludes with a summary of my arguments for looking at the
New Hong Kong Cinema as a Cinema of Transitions. Hong Kong Cinema’s ever-
increasing importance as one of the sharpest frontiers of the East Asian film
arena makes it a natural engine, and a prime example, for the regional and inter-
national development of other cinematic practices.
 Introduction . 35

Notes

 1. According to the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART) (2007),
films made with a budget between U.S.$1 million and U.S.$5 million (i.e., between
£615,000 and £3 million) are considered ‘mid-budget films’ in Asia.
 2. Source: interview with Ann Hui in ‘No Regrets’, A Simple Life (DVD) (Hong Kong
version, bonus track).
 3. Source: interview with Ann Hui in the ‘Making of’, A Simple Life (DVD) (Hong Kong
version, bonus track).
 4. The mainland China box-office figures for A Simple Life were reported in China Film
News (in pinyin, Zhongguo Dianyin Bao), and quoted in another entertainment-
related website ent.163.com (How Bad n.d.). China Film News is under the govern-
ance of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television
(SAPPRFT; formerly the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT))
of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
 5. Source: interview with Andy Lau in the ‘Making of’, A Simple Life (DVD) (Hong Kong
version, bonus track).
 6. The specific Chinese language a person uses discloses his/her geopolitical origin.
The Cantonese language is the mother tongue of most Hong Kong Chinese. It is
spoken as the everyday language there. Unlike the mainland Chinese, the Hong Kong
Chinese are still taught to write traditional Chinese written characters in school,
although more and more Chinese residents in Hong Kong can also read texts in sim-
plified Chinese characters (which were introduced by the government of the PRC in
mainland China in the 1950s). Today, traditional written Chinese is used by the Hong
Kong Chinese, the Taiwan Chinese, the Macau Chinese and earlier generations of
overseas Chinese living in Europe and the United States. Simplified written Chinese,
on the other hand, is used by the mainland Chinese and Chinese communities living
in South East Asia, such as those in Singapore and Malaysia.
 7. Film information: Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, Hong Kong, 2002);
Infernal Affairs II (Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, Hong Kong, 2003); Infernal Affairs III
(Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, Hong Kong, 2003).
 8. To conform with the general recognition of the status of the nation of China, by
the name ‘China’ here I refer to the PRC, set up by the Chinese Communist Party
in 1949 in mainland China. Regarding the Republic of China that was established in
1912 in mainland China and that later resettled in Taiwan by the Kuomintang (i.e.,
the Chinese Nationalist Party) in 1949, I will refer to it in this text as ‘Taiwan’. It also
claims to be the true China.
 9. The words ‘Hongkonger’ and ‘Hong Kongese’ were officially included in the Oxford
English Dictionary in March 2014 to refer to a ‘native or inhabitant of Hong Kong’,
although the use of the word ‘Hongkonger’ dates back to 1870 (Lam 2014). ‘Hong
Kongese’ can also be used as an adjective, ‘Of or relating to Hong Kong or its inhabit-
ants’.
36 . New Hong Kong Cinema

10. For a complete list of this series of books, see Hong Kong University Press’ official
website, www.hkupress.org (accessed 5 May 2015).
11. The local mass media in Hong Kong nicknamed some of these postwar Cantonese
films as tsat yat sin in Cantonese (or qi ri xian in Mandarin; literally, seven-day works)
because they were completed over production periods that were in some cases as
short as a single week. Not surprisingly, many of them are not of high quality.
12. Hong Kong together with Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea are referred to as
Asia’s Four Little Dragons (aka Asian Tigers) due to their intense economic growth
between the 1960s and the 1990s.
13. There is archaeological evidence of human presence in Hong Kong dating as far back
as 39,000 years ago.
14. See ‘Nationality and Ethnicity’ (released on 4 May 2012) under ‘Interactive
Visualisations’, results of the 2011 Population Census, conducted by the Census and
Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) gov-
ernment, www.census2011.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
15. Jacques (2012: 535, 567–68) highlights the influence of Confucian tradition as one
of the persistent and long-lasting cultural influences on ethnic Chinese, as well as
on former tributary states to China, such as Japan and Korea (see also Straubhaar
quoted in Curtin 2003: 221).
16. ‘China’ is used here to denote both the country and a cultural-political concept.
17. Golden Harvest was renamed as ‘Orange Sky Golden Harvest’ in August 2009
after the single largest shareholder Wu Kebo joined the group through Orange Sky
Entertainment Group (International) Holding Company Limited. Source: ‘About Us’,
Orange Sky Golden Harvest Entertainment’s official website (English), www.osgh.
com.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
18. For details of the two film funds, see ‘Film Development Fund’ and ‘Film Guarantee
Fund’, the Hong Kong Film Development Council (HKFDC)’s official website
(English), www.fdc.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
19. Interview footage in News Magazine, Jade Channel, Television Broadcasts Limited
(TVB), Hong Kong. Broadcast on Saturday, 1 December 2012, from 7 pm to 7.30 pm
Hong Kong time.
20. For a detailed account of that part of the history of Hong Kong Cinema, see the
studies by Stephen Teo (1997), David Bordwell (2000) and Yingchi Chu (2003).
Mainland China and Taiwan both claim that their respective cinemas are the real
Chinese national cinema. While mainland China still treated locally made, non-co-
produced, Hong Kong films as foreign films after the Handover, Taiwan had accepted
Hong Kong films as part of its national cinema long before Hong Kong returned to
Chinese rule.
21. I refer to ‘world cinemas’ in the plural in this book, instead of ‘world cinema’, in order
to acknowledge the emergence of different cinematic practices within the once
homogeneous ‘world cinema’ in the discipline of film studies.
 Introduction . 37

22. See the works by, for example, Peter Wesley-Smith (1993) (subject: law), Michael
Sida (1994) (subject: history, politics and government), David Newman (1995)
(subject: politics and government), Enbao Wang (1995) (subject: politics and gov-
ernment), and Wang Gungwu and Wong Siu-lun (1995) (subject: politics and gov-
ernment).
23. See the works by, for example, Wang Gungwu and John Wong (1999) (subject: inter-
discipline), Robert Ash et al. (2000) (subject: economics, politics and government),
Robert Ash et al. (2003) (subject: politics and government) and Ralf Horlemann
(2003) (subject: history).
24. In 2012, China’s GDP stood at U.S.$8,226,885 million (£5,060,000 million). Source:
National Bureau of Statistics of China, 22 February 2013.
25. The ‘one country, two systems’ principle was also planned to apply to Macau (whose
sovereignty change from Portuguese to Chinese rule happened in 1999) and Taiwan
as well (see Y-W. Chu 2013: 4–6).
26. In practice, however, Hong Kong is not entirely free from China’s political interfer-
ence. Occasional incidents (e.g., the Hong Kong SAR sought interpretation of the
Basic Law by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the PRC
after the judiciary passed a judgement in 1999 regarding right of abode issues) have
led observers to suspect the judiciary independence of Hong Kong in the ‘one coun-
try, two systems’ framework. On 10 June 2014 the Chinese State Council issued a
white paper on the practice of the ‘one country, two systems’ policy in Hong Kong,
alerting the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong of China’s intention to further
narrow Hong Kong’s political freedom (China Media 2014; Hume 2014). The white
paper stresses that ‘the central government exercises overall jurisdiction over the
HKSAR [Hong Kong SAR]’ and ‘the powers delegated to the HKSAR by the cen-
tral government … enable it to exercise a high degree of autonomy in accordance
with the law’ in the section on ‘Establishment of the Special Administrative Region
System in Hong Kong’ (Full Text 2014).
27. Even after more than seventeen years (at the time of writing) since the official
Handover, sociocultural alienation between the mainland Chinese and the Hong
Kong Chinese, and between their respective identifications, has not subsided and
has influenced a wide array of aspects of people’s everyday lives.
28. According to the official information of the Hong Kong SAR government, notwith-
standing that a Hong Kong resident had obtained the British National (Overseas)
(BN(O)) passport before the 1997 Handover, he/she is a Chinese national in the
Hong Kong SAR after the Handover if he/she is of Chinese descent and was born in
Chinese territories (including Hong Kong). He/she is, however, not required to give
up his/her BN(O) passport, which was the result of a special political arrangement
put in place by the British government for Hong Kong citizens before the British
gave up sovereignty of Hong Kong. The choice of not having the Chinese nationality
status is out of the question, unless one officially applies for renouncement of one’s
Chinese nationality. See ‘Frequently Asked Questions about Chinese Nationality’,
38 . New Hong Kong Cinema

the Hong Kong Immigration Department of the Hong Kong SAR government’s offi-
cial website (English), www.gov.hk/en/residents/immigration/chinese/faqnationality.
htm (accessed 5 May 2015).
29. Jacques refers to several such examples in his book. In particular, the author men-
tions the tragic death of his wife Harinder Veriah, a young Malaysian lawyer of Indian
descent, in Hong Kong in 2000, as being a direct result of serious racial discrimina-
tion at a local hospital. In 2008, this case led the Hong Kong SAR government to
introduce anti-racist legislation for the first time (Jacques 2012: 325). Racial issues
have not gone completely unnoticed by the Hong Kong Chinese population. The
Chinese-language mass media occasionally mention such issues, but usually in con-
nection with other pressing sociopolitical matters. For example, one of the in-depth
news programmes of TVB Jade channel (a Cantonese-language channel), Sunday
Report, presented a half-hour broadcast on 25 November 2012 on the topic of for-
eign children’s schooling in Hong Kong. The programme showed that the Hong Kong
mainstream education system had not made any provisions or special arrangements
for the children of expatriates (who lack Chinese language skills) to take lessons in
Chinese if they wished. This indirectly touched upon the problem of the local gov-
ernment’s insufficient awareness of the needs of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.
30. Personal interview with Li Cheuk-to, Artistic Director of the Hong Kong International
Film Festival (HKIFF), conducted by the author in Hong Kong on 7 July 2010 (within
the context of the ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ project at the University of St
Andrews).
31. While expensively made East Asian films are usually staples of the mainstream movie
theatres throughout East Asia, they are marketed and exhibited as art-house films
in Europe and the United States. The reverse happens when European mainstream
films and American indies are screened in East Asia’s art houses.
32. China Film Group Corporation (CFGC) is the largest and most influential state-run
film enterprise in China. Bona Film Group is the largest privately owned film distribu-
tor in China. It develops an integrated business model that encompasses film dis-
tribution, film production, film exhibition and talent representation. Huayi Brothers
is China’s leading independent television and film production company, which also
diversifies into producing music labels and building movie theatres. The Dalian
Wanda Group operates in the cultural industry as well as in commercial properties,
luxury hotels, tourism investment and department store chains (See China’s Wanda
Group Buys AMC Entertainment 2012; Davis and Yeh 2008: 27–28; see also Fung and
J. Chan 2010: 204 (on Hero, a film that enjoyed exceptionally privileged promotion
and marketing due to its close connection with the Chinese government)).
33. At the time of writing, CFGC and a smaller film distributor, Huaxia Film Distribution
(CFGC owns 20 per cent of Huaxia’s shares), are the only two officially approved film
distributors in China allowed by the Chinese authorities to distribute foreign films
in China on a revenue-sharing basis. According to film trade magazine Variety, there
 Introduction . 39

will soon be one more Chinese film distributor allowed to achieve their calibre and
release foreign films (China Opens up 2012).
34. There have been worries that Hong Kong filmmaking might soon lose its distinctive-
ness once it is thoroughly blended with other cinematic practices in the East Asian
region, most notably mainland Chinese filmmaking. Counter-comments from both
Hong Kong and mainland China uphold that, instead of being ‘mainlandized’, Hong
Kong filmmaking is influencing mainland Chinese commercial films with its specific
style of shooting (Sek 2013: 123–24; it is also noted in renowned mainland Chinese
actor-director Zhang Guoli’s thank-you speech when he received the Best Film from
Mainland and Taiwan Award for the film Back to 1942 (Feng Xiaogang, China, 2012)
in the thirty-second edition of the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2013).
Chapter One

Cinematic Journeys and Journeying in

New Hong Kong Films

Hong Kong’s relationship to China has always been intriguing. Physically located
at the south-eastern tip of China’s territory, Hong Kong had not been of key
political and cultural significance to China during most of the country’s 5,000
years of history. It was not until the British colonizers took over political control
of Hong Kong after China’s defeat in the two Opium Wars (1839–42 and 1856–60
respectively) that Hong Kong,1 as a geographical outpost of China and a remotely
located colony of the British Empire, began to assume its historical, cultural, and,
much later on, economic distinctiveness. Thanks to this distinctiveness from the
development of its supposed motherland China after the collapse of the Qing
dynasty, Hong Kong has played a very important role in the social redevelop-
ment of the country, especially due to the population mobility that has gone on
in China throughout most of the late nineteenth, twentieth and early twenty-
first centuries. Unlike the familiar northward movement of the population that
has occurred within many Western countries during their periods of national
development, Chinese migrants have been moving from the north to the south
of China, Hong Kong being the last point of departure of many of these migrants
before they finally leave Chinese soil. These moves have predominantly been
triggered by major historical incidents, natural and/or human-made disasters
and the economic needs of the people to go elsewhere to make their living.
In his book on China and the Chinese Overseas (1991a), Chinese immigration
scholar Wang Gungwu traces the trajectory patterns of overseas Chinese over
the last two centuries, classifying them into the categories of ‘trader’, ‘coolie’,
‘sojourner’, ‘descent or re-migrant’. In addition to these four categories, there
are at least two other kinds of Chinese emigrants: student (Pan 1999: 62) and
illegal emigrant (R. Cheung 2013). These migrant groups and their moves have
certainly inspired many Chinese-language films produced on the mainland or
elsewhere. In particular, there are Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films,
which have been made over the last thirty-plus years, that testify to a sudden
increase in the outgoing migration from Hong Kong to Western countries right
before and shortly after the 1997 Handover.
42 . New Hong Kong Cinema

This chapter employs the long history of Chinese people journeying across
the national border as a major point of departure for the discussion of the New
Hong Kong Cinema as a Cinema of Transitions. I would like to raise two ques-
tions here to guide the discussion: How have these human migrations changed
the self-perception of Chinese descendants as being genuine, or not so genu-
ine, Chinese people? Have they had any profound impacts on the ways dif-
ferent groups of Chinese communities have perceived, loved and despised
one another throughout the long history of Chinese civilization? I start with a
review of the specific migration experience of the Hong Kong Chinese during
the period that led up to the official Handover, and their return migrations.
Drawing on diaspora and film scholar Hamid Naficy’s argument of journeys
and journeying as important elements of accented films, I use ‘journeys’ and
‘journeying’ here as the connecting thread to align several Hong Kong-related
Chinese-language film examples – Floating Life (Clara Law, Australia, 1996);
Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea, 1997); Exiled
(Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2006); Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong,
1990); Echoes of the Rainbow (Alex Law, Hong Kong, 2010); Bruce Lee, My Brother
(Manfred Wong and Raymond Yip, China/Hong Kong, 2010); and Song of the
Exile (Ann Hui, Hong Kong/Taiwan, 1990). Regardless of their official places of
origin, all these films are about residents of Hong Kong and how they deal with
the constant moves in their lives. I further identify three major types of situation
whereby journeys and journeying are strongly emphasized in these films: jour-
neys and journeying being dealt with as the subject matter, characters in the film
being developed during their journeys or revisits to the past, and films employ-
ing ‘journeying’ as their unconventional narrative structure. My close analysis of
these films shows how they can serve as a testimony to the direct and indirect
sociocultural effects of the 1997 Handover on Hong Kong society, in particular,
in the area of human mobility. By telling us what kind of decisions characters
make with regard to their travels and by showing how their decisions might in
turn affect their transitional perspectives, these films prove to us that they are
not just witnesses but, arguably, also active members of the New Hong Kong
Cinema to intervene in the public discourses and shape the public imagination
at this historical-political crossroads in Chinese history. Through them, we can
also see how ‘journeys’ and ‘journeying’ have become significant elements of
the New Hong Kong Cinema.
 Cinematic Journeys . 43

When Journeys Begin

As excellent lenses for studying social lives in Hong Kong over the last three
and a half decades, new Hong Kong films are characterized, first and foremost,
by the theme of human migrations. More precisely, ‘moves’, ‘migrations’, ‘jour-
neys’, ‘sojourns’ are among the indispensable elements of these films. Moves
into and away from Hong Kong are featured through subject matter, character
development and/or narrative structure, which reflect and magnify this reality.
In 1994, geographer Ronald Skeldon charted the migration history of the Hong
Kong Chinese. In his studies he highlights that Hong Kong itself has been a prod-
uct of migration, with more than 90 per cent of its Chinese population having
their places of origin in mainland China (although by 1981, 57 per cent of the
population consisted of people born in Hong Kong) (Skeldon 1994a: 22). The
sudden influx of mainland refugees into Hong Kong immediately following the
establishment of the PRC on the mainland in 1949, as the author argues, pro-
vided the foundation of the ‘refugee mentality’ of many Hong Kong Chinese and
their children/grandchildren. There would still be a few waves of migration out
of China into Hong Kong triggered by economic factors, or by major political
events, such as China’s participation in the Korean War (1950–53), the Cultural
Revolution (1966–76) and the June Fourth Incident (aka Tiananmen Square
Massacre) (1989). The main consequence of this ‘refugee mentality’ was that
those Chinese migrants who seemed firmly settled in Hong Kong were prepared
to move again with the approach of the 1997 Handover, even though their chil-
dren or grandchildren had been born in the local territory (Skeldon 1994a: 23).
Elsewhere I have termed this mentality ‘situational, diasporic consciousness’
(W. Cheung 2007) – meaning that many Hong Kong Chinese are aware of their
status and mentality as being one of a diaspora in situ, and that they can never
become the real PRC Chinese as long as they are legitimate Hong Kong citizens.2
Their diasporic mindset may be downplayed as long as they are allowed to live
the so-called Hong Kong way of life and enjoy Hong Kong’s core values in terms
of human rights and freedoms, as promised in the Basic Law of the Hong Kong
SAR for their lives after 1997. But their diasporic consciousness immediately
comes to the forefront whenever their Hong Kong core values are endangered.
This was evident in occurrences, such as the Hong Kong SAR government’s
forceful introduction of Basic Law Article 23 (the basis of a security law) in 2003
and the mainland Chinese way of moral and national education in Hong Kong
44 . New Hong Kong Cinema

in 2011 and 2012 (Textbooks Round the World 2012). A great majority of the
Hong Kong general public felt that Hong Kong society was being oppressed
in these incidents. They responded to these SAR governmental actions, alleg-
edly backed by the Beijing government, by participating voluntarily in sizeable,
peaceful street protests and various kinds of public debates (J. Cheung and K.
Lee 2003; Fitzpatrick 2003; In the dock 2003). The decision by the Beijing gov-
ernment in August 2014 to set the limits of Hong Kong’s electoral reform, in
which only a small group of local elite and professionals will be allowed to nomi-
nate the city’s future government head, further aggravated the situation. This
incident led directly to the sizeable civil disobedience movement the Umbrella
Movement, which started in Hong Kong on 28 September 2014 and lasted for
seventy-nine days. Although the local government cleared the movement for-
cibly on 11 December 2014, since then the protestors have continued the rally in
different formats.
Hence, emigrations occurring just before 1997 can be understood as a
specific kind of sociopolitical response of ordinary Hong Kong citizens to the
changes in the wider context. With the ‘refugee mentality’, many of them felt
that their circumstances might be adversely affected by the uncertain political,
social and economic conditions that the sovereignty change might bring about.
Official government estimates in Hong Kong show an annual average of more
than 48,600 Hong Kong residents emigrating to other countries between 1987
and 1997, compared to an annual average of 20,000 Hong Kong emigrants in the
early 1980s. The number peaked at 66,000 in 1992 before 1997 arrived (Hong
Kong 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000; Skeldon
1994a: 30). The latest data from various countries suggest that the emigration
from Hong Kong between 1984 and 1997 could have been as high as 800,000 in
total (Sussman 2011: 21–22). Such emigration figures have more significant impli-
cations than their purely numerical indications might suggest: in this most recent
surge of emigration from Hong Kong, most of the emigrants were university edu-
cated, highly skilled and wealthy. They were from the elite of Hong Kong society.
Their departure thus meant a serious brain drain from Hong Kong just before
1997. Many of them left Hong Kong as families comprising two or three genera-
tions, rather than as the single emigrants in indentured labour typical of earlier
waves of Hong Kong emigrations (Sussman 2011: 22). Skeldon highlights that
emigration from Hong Kong before the Handover was not triggered by political
anxieties alone. There were certainly other reasons that can largely be seen as
 Cinematic Journeys . 45

push factors – such as the Hong Kong Chinese’s fears of the imminent Chinese
communist rule, or pull factors – for instance, the changing immigration policies
in major destination countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia,
which welcomed these Hong Kong elites (Skeldon 1994a: 34–37, 1994b: 4).
Hong Kong’s 1997-related emigration was, however, much more compli-
cated than the estimated figures above can show. One reason for this com-
plexity is that available figures are very often only rough estimates, as the Hong
Kong government did not gather precise migration statistics (Wong S. 1997).
Another reason is that many Hong Kong emigrants did not actually settle down
for good in their destination countries. Very often they landed with their families
in the host countries and then went back to Hong Kong on their own almost
immediately, in order to benefit from the booming economic conditions there,
which Western countries were not enjoying. These returnees were commonly
nicknamed ‘astronauts’ (Skeldon 1994a: 39–41, 1994b: 11). A third complexity of
emigration trends is that while Hong Kong seemed to have suffered from brain
drain during the lead-up period to 1997, there was also an increase in the number
of immigration cases into Hong Kong, with many skilled labourers coming in
(Skeldon 1994a: 38).
Return migrations to Hong Kong and further north into China additionally
complicate this already intricate picture of the most recent migration patterns
and the identity layering of the Hong Kong Chinese, a picture not commonly
found among remigrants in other territories (Sussman 2011: 7). The Hong Kong
Chinese returning after having secured their foreign passports is a trend that
many scholars consider to be an economic decision aimed at obtaining better
job and entrepreneurship opportunities in Hong Kong and the big cities of
China, rather than something related to political attitudes or Chinese nation-
alism (Ley and Kobayashi 2005: 116). As anthropologist Aihwa Ong (1999: 20,
112) identifies, this kind of ‘flexible citizenship’ of these returnees had much
to do with their economic calculation and was facilitated by the Hong Kong
SAR government’s immigration policy. Under such policy, these returnees and
their families were (still are) allowed to maintain their foreign passports, and
to preserve their permanent right of abode in Hong Kong. Arguably, this politi-
cal arrangement played a primary role in the decision-making process of these
Hong Kong returnees when they were pondering the possibility of their return
migration. Geographers David Ley and Audrey Kobayashi (2005: 115) estimate
that by the mid 1990s, Hong Kong residents holding foreign passports who had
46 . New Hong Kong Cinema

returned to live and work in Hong Kong amounted to some 500,000–700,000

people in a local population of 6.5 million. Moreover, such return migration to
Hong Kong may not be considered a finality; rather, it might be just one of the
many expected or unexpected moves along the ‘continuing itinerary’ of their
lives in a transnational context (Ley and Kobayashi 2005: 113).
The perennial openness to moves makes the Hong Kong Chinese migrants
conform to the argument made by Skeldon (1994b: 17) before 1997 that these
Hong Kong Chinese migrants are ‘exiles, but they are not impelled to move’. His
use of the term ‘exile’ is somewhat in line with the use of the term ‘diaspora’ put
forward by scholars who work in the larger field of diaspora studies. For example,
media historian and social theorist John Durham Peters (1999: 39) argues that
people in ‘diaspora’ have to endure the difficult reality of not being able to return
‘home’ over a long period of time, while the status of ‘exile’ signifies a desire for
‘earthly home’ that is estranged (Peters 1999: 39). Naficy has a similar interpre-
tation of the concepts of ‘diaspora’ and ‘exile’, and their intriguing relationship
with ‘homeland’. Where ‘exile’ traditionally implies banishment or prohibition of
return, Naficy distinguishes ‘exile’ from ‘diaspora’ as follows:

Diaspora, like exile, often begins with trauma, rupture, and coercion, and it
involves the scattering of populations to places outside their homeland.
Sometimes, however, the scattering is caused by a desire for increased trade,
for work, or for colonial and imperial pursuits. Consequently, diasporic move-
ments can be classified according to their motivating factors … Unlike the
exiles whose identity entails a vertical and primary relationship with their
homeland, diasporic consciousness is horizontal and multisited, involving not
only the homeland but also the compatriot communities elsewhere. (Naficy
2001: 14)

Unlike the conventional use of the term ‘exile’, ‘diaspora’ is then often asso-
ciated with the collective action of the diasporic subjects (Tölölyan 1996: 24;
Cohen 1997: 25). Making reference to different generations of the South Asian
diaspora, historian Dipesh Chakrabarty (1998: 472) points out that ‘diasporas
are internally differentiated around constellations of shared memories’. In other
words, diasporas would be understood more comprehensively if the periods
and the historical conditions that caused the movement of people out of their
places of origin are taken into account. Some scholars of diaspora studies equate
 Cinematic Journeys . 47

such places of origin of diasporas with their homelands or home-nations, which

might become part of the identity problems for future generations of diasporas
born and living as natives in their host countries (Hall 1990 [1989]; Tölölyan 1991;
Clifford 1994; Robbins 1995; Braziel and Mannur 2003: 7–9). As different coun-
tries of origin have produced diasporas of different categories, such as expellees,
exiles, overseas settlers, refugees, voluntary and involuntary migrants, emigrants,
immigrants, etc., in different periods of time, an orthodox definition of ‘diaspora’
is unlikely to cover all kinds of empirical experiences that global diasporas have
had (Safran 1991: 83; Cohen 1997: 21).
While there is certainly a hidden concern with the homeland, Skeldon’s term
‘reluctant exiles’ for describing emigrants from Hong Kong deviates from the
conventional use of the terms ‘exile’ as well as ‘diaspora’, for these ‘reluctant
exiles’ carry with them complicated economic considerations on top of socio-
political reasons that have generated other diasporas, such as the Jewish. They
are also different from other segments of the Chinese diaspora, which have a
much clearer idea of what ‘homeland’ means. To these Hongkongers, an imag-
ined homogenous ‘China’ may not be as important as their actual lives in their
real home(land) Hong Kong (S. Chan 1999: 81; Y. Huang 1999: 145). This makes
the Chinese diaspora from Hong Kong distinctive when they are represented in
films.

Accented Filmmaking and Film Journeys

The prototype of accented films in Naficy’s theory places great emphasis on

the transitional and transnational places or spaces, in which ‘journeys of and
struggles over identity’ happen (Naficy 2001: 5). These films certainly reflect
to a large extent the filmmakers’ own unpleasant and marginalized situation in
diaspora and exile. According to Naficy, a majority of these filmmakers are from
‘Third World and postcolonial countries (or from the global South)’ (Naficy
2001: 10). They were displaced from their homelands as a result of decoloniza-
tion, post-nationalization and/or other kinds of sociopolitical changes at home.
Different diasporic or exilic filmmakers often share the commonalities of being
liminal subjects when located interstitially in societies and film industries after
migrating to the West. We should bear in mind that films featuring journeys may
not necessarily be ‘accented’, but accented films will have to involve certain
48 . New Hong Kong Cinema

journeys or journeying to signify the displacement of the filmmakers and/or the

characters, and to qualify as products of accented filmmaking. Often initiated
by the places of concern, journeys in accented films are either ‘deterritorializing’
or ‘reterritorializing’ (Naficy 2001: 222). Once journeys start, they are bound to
shape and affect profoundly the experience and, very possibly, the identities of
the filmmakers and the characters. The nature of the journeys may sometimes
also change along the way. Many journeys depicted in accented films involve
not just geographical, but also psychological, metaphorical and philosophical
journeys. Among them, home-seeking journeys, journeys of homelessness and
homecoming journeys are highlighted by Naficy (2001: 5–6, 33, 222–23). Borders,
tunnels, seaports and airports, hotels and motels, trains and buses, and suitcases
are typical icons of accented films.
Naficy’s discussion of journeys and journeying in the accented cinema with
specific film examples is inspiring for our discussion of new Hong Kong films
and the journeys they feature. As I discussed above, many segments of the New
Hong Kong Cinema depict and reflect on journeys, moves and migrations of the
Hongkongers. Such human mobility was triggered by historical-political trans-
formations in the city and the subsequent economic concern of the residents.
The latter, however, is less of a concern in accented films made by displaced
filmmakers from Third World and other postcolonial territories. Be they com-
mercial or film festival-oriented art-house in nature,3 these Hong Kong-related
Chinese-language films have as their organic parts actual and cinematic jour-
neys and journeying. These moves are components of the films, but, equally
important, their presence shapes how the films are presented and received.

Journeys and Journeying as Subject Matter

As a direct reflection of what is going on in Hong Kong society, travels in films,

regardless of their nature, often generate mixed feelings and advance different
power relations and meanings (Cresswell and Dixon 2002: 4). Arguably one of
the very few films of its kind, Homecoming (Yim Ho, Hong Kong, 1984) poetically
depicts the self-rediscovery of a Hong Kong woman who returns to her ancestral
home in mainland China for a short sojourn, which before long rekindles her
love for her people and the harmonious country life. Just Like Weather (Allen
Fong, Hong Kong, 1986) is a docudrama following a Hong Kong couple before,
 Cinematic Journeys . 49

during and after their migration from Hong Kong to the United States. The film
was one of the first to deal directly with the topic of the Hongkongers’ west-
ward migration when the sovereignty change began to loom large in people’s
lives. Parts of the story in Crossings (Evans Chan, Hong Kong, 1994) take place in
Hong Kong. The film features several protagonists of Chinese descent. They are
portrayed as sojourners who meet in Hong Kong. Their individual stories end up
intertwining with one another on a more emotional level. Once upon a Time in
China and America (Sammo Hung, Hong Kong, 1997) portrays a fictitious trip of
the legendary martial arts master Huang Feihong and several of his pupils. Set in
the late 1800s, the master crosses the Atlantic to establish an American-based
branch of his traditional Chinese medical clinic. However, he is caught up in the
conflicts between the European settlers and native Americans. The film reflects
the real-life migrations of the Hongkongers, who made their own destinies after
being denied any part in the British and Chinese negotiations and determination
of the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule. It also mirrors the filmmaking career
of the film’s director Sammo Hung and the male lead Jet Li. Before making this
film, Hung and Li had left their base in Chinese-language film industries to work
in Hollywood.
Whereas the above films have a clear country of origin in Hong Kong, more and
more films made since the 1990s entail investments of film executives and financi-
ers who are based in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and other East Asian territories.
Depending on the projects’ requirements, the production of these films may only
be accomplished through filmmakers going on long business trips to shoot the
films elsewhere from Hong Kong. Journeys and journeying thus start even before
the films are made. This is especially typical for those films that are made with
the pan-East Asian co-production mode and have dual, triple or even multiple
countries of origin officially. For example, the Pang Brothers prefer Thailand as
the shooting location for their films such as The Eye (Oxide and Danny Pang, Hong
Kong/Singapore, 2002), although Thailand is not mentioned in the film’s official
places of origin. Once a member of the Hong Kong New Wave, Patrick Tam made
a major comeback and won the Best Director Award at the twenty-sixth edition
of the Hong Kong Film Awards (the Hong Kong equivalent of the Oscars®) in
2007 for his father-and-son drama After This Our Exile (Patrick Tam, Hong Kong,
2006), which is set entirely in the rural area of Kuala Lumpur and Perak in Malaysia.
Edmond Pang Ho-cheung, a well-liked and bankable ‘New Generation Director’
(L. Pang 2009: 84) from Hong Kong, had major parts of his comedy Love in the Buff
50 . New Hong Kong Cinema

(China/Hong Kong, 2012) shot on location in China. A significant part of the story
in his Vulgaria (Hong Kong, 2012) is also set in China. The protagonists in both
films have to expand their professional circles to include investors and custom-
ers from mainland China following the country’s economic rise. As we shall see
in Chapter Five, the mainland Chinese partners play an extremely important part
in many of these Hong Kong-related film projects. Their presence, based on the
requirements of the CEPA signed between the central government of the PRC and
the Hong Kong SAR government, allows the China-Hong Kong co-produced films
to enter the mainland Chinese audience market without being subject to China’s
annual quota on importing foreign films.4 In addition, the Hong Kong partners of
these co-produced films are likely to rely on the personal and business networks of
their mainland Chinese partners to open up for them the biggest single audience
market on earth. In such circumstances the situation of Hong Kong filmmakers
comes closest to that of the accented filmmakers with respect to their survival
(be it political or economic) within the interstices of a much larger film industry in
China. I will devote the following paragraphs to discussing journeys and journey-
ing as the subject matter of three feature films that fictionalize the Hong Kong
Chinese’s migrations, long-term sojourns (with or without a specified return date)
and return migrations (resettlements) in the context of Hong Kong’s intriguing
relationship with China.

Floating Life: Home-Seeking Journeys and Migrations

Produced by the Australian-based production company Hibiscus Films (focus-
ing on quality specialist films) and funded partially by the Special Broadcasting
Service of Australia, Floating Life is Hong Kong immigrant director Clara Law’s
first Australian film after she migrated with her family to Australia. According to
the director, her move was partly due to the impacts of the sovereignty change
on the Hong Kong Chinese’s self-identification and to her aspiration to further
pursue her filmmaking career in a more diversified environment (Tan S., Clemens
and Hogan 1994–95: 51). The film is hence labelled ‘Australian’, although its story
is entirely devoted to documenting the life of a Hong Kong immigrant family
before, during and after their settlement in Australia just prior to 1997. This
Hong Kong-related film has thus been chosen here to start our discussion of
‘journeys’ in film. As a product of the Australian government’s multiculturalism
policy and a cinematic mirror of Law’s real-life move from China, via Macau and
Hong Kong, to Australia, Floating Life has much of its concern focused on how
 Cinematic Journeys . 51

immigrants turn into settlers, and the changes this might bring about in their
lives and their psychological conditions (Files 1997; Teo 2001; Louie 2003: 98).
The film’s cast includes many Chinese-Australian actors and actresses who are
not well-known in Hong Kong or in other Chinese communities in East Asia. The
major language spoken in the film is Cantonese and not English.
Floating Life tells the story of the Chans led by a pair of elderly parents –
retired tea merchant Pa (Edwin Pang) and his wife Mum (Cecilia Lee). They
have two adult daughters, one adult son and two teenage sons. There are nine
sections in the plot, indicated by eight intertitles: ‘A house in Australia’, ‘A house
in Germany’, ‘A house in Hong Kong’, ‘A house in China’, ‘A house without a tree’,
‘A house in turmoil’, ‘A big house’ and ‘Mui Mui’s house’ respectively. The film
opens with Pa and Mum’s last day in Hong Kong before they migrate to Australia.
They are taking the two teenage boys with them, while their second daughter,
Bing (Annie Yip), has already settled in Australia for a few years and has a pro-
fessional job in a local office. The Chans’ third child (and the eldest son), Gar
Ming (Anthony Brandon Wong), is still waiting for his immigration papers in
Hong Kong. The Chans’ enthusiasm for reunion in Australia soon turns into a
nightmare for the whole family. Bing, after spending seven years living alone in
Australia and later joined by her husband from Hong Kong, appoints herself as
the matriarch of the family. Under Bing’s strict domestic regime, Pa, Mum and
their teenage sons soon start living a socially withdrawn life in the suburban
house of Bing and her husband. The two boys secretly describe themselves as
living in ‘illegal custody’ and in a ‘concentration camp’. Conflicts frequently arise
among the Chans, mostly provoked by Bing’s unyielding attitude.
Meanwhile, the Chans’ eldest daughter, Yen (Annette Shun Wah), is hap-
pily married to her German husband. The couple and their young daughter, Mui
Mui, reside in Germany. Feeling responsible for her parents’ family, and learning
about their uncomfortable situation, Yen decides to pay them a visit in Australia.
She transits in Hong Kong to see Gar Ming, who works as a foreign currency
broker and is living a spiritually empty life in the cosmopolitan city. Yen’s visit
to Australia does not help resolve the family conflicts. The situation even wors-
ens, culminating in Pa and Mum’s purchase of a new house and moving out of
Bing’s. Feeling betrayed, Bing falls into clinical depression and cuts all ties with
her family, but later on is helped by her mother to gradually resume a normal life.
The film ends with Mui Mui’s unsubtitled voice-over (spoken in Cantonese with
a strong German accent) wishing the family to be reunited in the years to come.
52 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Without showing the move itself, the plot of the entire film is triggered by
the protagonists’ longing to settle down in a place they can regard as their ‘real
home’. Dialogues between the characters suggest their move is provoked, to a
certain extent, by their fears of intangible things: the fear of the new commu-
nist rulers in Hong Kong, the fear of having their house confiscated (something
not uncommon in mainland China immediately after the establishment of the
PRC) and so on. For example, Bing emphatically reminds her parents that they
should not regard their lives in Australia as an enjoyment. In Bing’s words in
Cantonese, they are in Australia for chau nan (in Mandarin, it would be tao nan)
– literally becoming refugees in order to flee or run away from disasters in their
place of origin. ‘Chau nan’ as their supposedly main purpose of emigrating from
Hong Kong is however not subtitled and can only be understood by Cantonese
speakers. Similar exchanges are charted in the opening sequence of the film,
where Pa chats with the noodle shop owner about the family’s ‘running away’
once again, just when they have started to ‘warm up their seat’ in Hong Kong.
It is only hinted in the film that the older generation underwent maltreatment
by the Chinese communists on the mainland before migrating to Hong Kong.
They probably fled the country along with hundreds of thousands of mainland
Chinese refugees who sought political refuge in Hong Kong in the 1950s (as a
result of China’s participation in the Korean War, 1950–53), or in the 1960s (as a
result of the notorious Cultural Revolution, 1966–76).
Geographical mobility between old and new homes/houses, on the other
hand, offers the transnational migrants the possibility to choose a life they desire.
Mobility encompasses the physical, psychological and emotional activities the
migrants are involved in. More importantly, mobility enables these migrants
to escape from the difficult conditions at home. Film scholar Gina Marchetti
(2006: 197) reads the allegory of this film, arguing that it moves in the direction
of ‘embracing a new homeland’. The move can then be viewed as the ‘tactics
of intervention’ in the trajectory of the migrants. As cultural theorist Rey Chow
(1993: 25) argues, ‘These are the tactics of those who do not have claims to terri-
torial propriety or cultural centrality. Perhaps more than anyone else, those who
live in Hong Kong realize the opportunistic role they need to play in order, not to
“preserve”, but to negotiate their “cultural identity”’. Furthermore, the move per
se could easily become an end in itself instead of the means by which the char-
acters try to solve their problems. This is when the state of being mobile can be
thought of as a space/site where migrants physically and spiritually linger on for
 Cinematic Journeys . 53

a long time, seeking comfort in a self-constructed and a self-confined emotional

limbo while trying to adjust to their new lives (Teo 2001; see also Stein 2002).

Happy Together: Journeys of Homelessness and Long-Term Sojourns

Whereas the Chans in Floating Life portray the Hong Kong Chinese as ‘reluc-
tant exiles’ (in Skeldon’s sense), Wong Kar-wai, who is a Hong Kong-based
director, conveys his diasporic sentiments and the 1997-related anxiety of his
fellow Hongkongers in the Cannes award winner Happy Together (Rayns 1995:
14; Stephens 1996: 17). Like many of his peers in the Hong Kong film industry,
Wong was a Chinese immigrant who moved with his mother to Hong Kong from
Shanghai when he was only five years old. At that time he did not speak any
Cantonese at all. Most of Wong’s films, according to the director, are influenced
by his childhood experience of being completely uprooted from his hometown
in Shanghai (Ngai and Wong K. 1997: 88). Happy Together is the director’s sixth
feature film, and entirely scripted by himself. It was co-produced by Wong’s Jet
Tone Production in Hong Kong, and its Japanese and South Korean filmmaking
partners, Prénom H and Seowoo Film Company respectively. The story in Happy
Together was inspired by Argentine author Manuel Puig’s novel The Buenos Aires
Affair (1973) and the film was mainly shot on location in Argentina. It was com-
pleted with footage taken in Taipei and Hong Kong. The prolonged shooting
period of three months in Argentina stirred up in Wong (as well as in his whole
crew and cast from Hong Kong) a feeling of being exiled and of homesickness for
Hong Kong (Havis 1997: 15; Ngai and Wong K. 1997: 107–9).5 Although the film
is generally considered an art-house film even by Hong Kong films’ standards,
the main cast includes three of the most famous East Asian stars, Tony Leung
Chiu-wai, the late Leslie Cheung and Chang Chen, who are mainstays of the East
Asian commercial cinemas. Happy Together was theatrically released in Hong
Kong in the summer of 1997 prior to the official Handover, a timing that suggests
a certain degree of political sensitivity of the film.
The film is packaged as a gay romance story, set between mid 1995 and early
1997, between Fai (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Wing (Leslie Cheung), who have
left Hong Kong on a long journey without any specific return date. Unlike Wong’s
previous films, which are narrated from multiple angles by the films’ main char-
acters, the story in Happy Together is mainly told from the angle of Fai. The viewer
is not told much about Wing’s background. The film starts with the two men
arriving in Argentina in mid May 1995 in hopes of restarting their deteriorating
54 . New Hong Kong Cinema

relationship afresh, but the journey itself brings them more conflicts. They soon
lead separate lives after entering the country. Fai is getting tired of his self-exilic
life in Argentina and hopes to return to Hong Kong to be reconciled with his
estranged father. The father and son stopped talking to each other after Fai stole
a sum of money from his former boss, who is a friend of his father’s. In order to
save up money for the return journey, Fai takes up several odd jobs in Argentina,
first as a receptionist at a Tango bar, then as a kitchen helper in a Chinese res-
taurant, and finally as an abattoir worker. Contrarily, Wing does not think much
about returning to Hong Kong. After separating from Fai, he lives a promiscuous
lifestyle in Argentina and makes his living by occasionally prostituting himself to
the locals. Whenever he encounters any difficulties (such as being beaten up
by his clients), he goes back to Fai knowing that Fai will take good care of him.
Amid Fai and Wing’s series of break-ups followed by make-ups during their
prolonged Argentine sojourn, a third man Chang (Chang Chen) comes into the
picture. Chang is from Taipei and works at the same Chinese restaurant kitchen
where Fai works. It is implied that Fai and Chang are attracted to each other but
they never develop a relationship, for Chang soon leaves the restaurant to return
to Taiwan. After Chang is gone, Fai also saves up enough money to return to
Asia, leaving Wing completely on his own in Argentina.
Fai chooses to transit to Taiwan to see Chang, whom he is unable to find,
before the planned return to Hong Kong. While in Taiwan, Fai learns that Deng
Xiaoping has just passed away at the age of ninety-two on 19 February 1997.
Deng was the chief engineer of the ‘one country, two systems’ political frame-
work for Hong Kong to rejoin China. The film ends with Fai taking a night train in
Taipei. His journey still seems to be continuing, but moving towards an unknown
future. It is not revealed whether Fai finally returns to Hong Kong.
The series of journeys that form the backbone of Happy Together has been
seen by film scholars working on Hong Kong and other Chinese-language cin-
emas as a political allusion (to the 1997 Handover), no matter how hard Wong
tries, as he claims, to stay away from the topic (Ngai and Wong K. 1997: 112; Pang
Y. 1997). For example, Jeremy Tambling (2003: 11) argues that ‘allegory’ is the key
to understanding this film. Stephen Teo (2005: 100) thinks that Happy Together
is Wong’s ‘most political movie to date – it is conditioned by the 1997 deadline,
highlighting its spiritually debilitating effects on two Hong Kong men’. Sheldon
Lu (2000: 280) thinks that the national identity issue of the Hongkongers is
brought up early in this film. Taiwan-based film producer and critic Peggy Chiao
 Cinematic Journeys . 55

Hsiung-ping (1997: 18) believes that the film is about three cities: Beijing, Taipei
and Hong Kong.
Fai’s story looks unfinished at the end of Happy Together. With the benefit of
hindsight, nonetheless, it is quite safe to assume that Fai’s role and his journey
into an unknown future (as well as his identity quest) would soon continue in
another of Wong’s films, In the Mood for Love (France/Hong Kong, 1999), via
another protagonist. In this 1999 film, which was also a Cannes award winner,
the emotionally lost main character Chow Mo-wan (also played by Tony Leung
Chiu-wai) seems to be a 1960s version of Fai of Happy Together. Here, Chow is a
professional writer penning mainly serialized martial arts novels for local news-
papers in Hong Kong. The film tells us that he has been cheated on by his wife
but later finds his true love, albeit unrequited. At the end, the sad Chow moves
to Singapore to continue his writing career (Nochimson 2005: 16–17).
The role of Chow would reappear in Wong’s newer film, 2046 (China/France/
Germany/Hong Kong/Italy, 2004), which nonetheless was not supposed to be
the direct sequel of In the Mood for Love. The main events of 2046 happen in the
Hong Kong of the 1960s. Although the name of the main character of this newer
film, Chow Mo-wan, is the same as that of the male lead in In the Mood for Love,
and the role is played by the same actor, the Chow in In the Mood for Love has
very different personality traits from that of the Chow in 2046. The former Chow
is sort of a family man; the latter Chow is a typical playboy. The former Chow is
hurt by his cheating wife but he is able to move on to pursue a new relationship;
the latter Chow does not want to love anybody. At first, the Chow in 2046 mainly
writes pornography stories for newspapers. He later begins to devote himself to
writing a saddening science fiction novel. This diegetic novel tells a futuristic
story in which lonely persons attempt to take a train to a mysterious place called
2046 where they may regain their loves; but it is impossible to know the outcome
for them as no one has ever returned from 2046.
Within the film text of 2046, travelling to the place 2046 is an imaginary journey
created by the character Chow. This diegetic novel is visualized as an insertion into
the film. However, if we read this futuristic novel within the film as an intertextual
continuation of the journey that Fai in Happy Together has started, and if we under-
stand all the journeys in Wong’s three consecutive films (i.e., Happy Together, In
the Mood for Love and 2046) within the political context of Hong Kong after the
Handover, the number 2046 will evoke another level of meaning. This is because
2046 is the last year of the transitional period given as a grace period to Hong Kong
56 . New Hong Kong Cinema

by the Chinese government, before Hong Kong will be completely absorbed into
the PRC’s political and economic systems. This play on number in Wong’s film,
advanced through using the narration of the same actor featured in different films
and a visualization of a seemingly imaginary journey within the diegetic environ-
ment, cleverly creates the effect of a lingering political allusion underneath the
more noticeable, aesthetic achievements of Wong’s works (Brunette 2005; Teo
2005). Arguably, the director’s own worries about the 1997-related transitions of
Hong Kong have never really diminished since he started his subtle way of includ-
ing political allegory in Days of Being Wild in 1990 (see below), as no one knows
what will happen to Hong Kong after the year 2046 in a political environment in
which China dominates. To a certain extent, we can also see that Wong’s worries
echo, and continue from, the Hong Kong Chinese’s fears of the Handover – the
fears that had started long before the year 1997 arrived.

Exiled: Homecoming Journeys and Return Migrations (Resettlements)

As one of the most prolific genre film directors locally trained in Hong Kong
(starting his career at Hong Kong’s local television station TVB), Johnnie To
(whose family name is pronounced toe in its English Romanized version, dou in
Cantonese, and du in Mandarin) insists on having his filmmaking career firmly
established in his native Hong Kong. Most of his firms were produced through his
co-owned independent production house Milkyway Image, based in Hong Kong
(Bordwell 2003). While his films are internationally famous for visually poetic
action scenes (Asch 2007; Camper 2007; see also the detailed background of
Johnnie To in Chapter Three in this book), the stories are mainly related to the
place Hong Kong. However, To’s Exiled, made in 2006 and marketed as a Hong
Kong film, is set entirely in Macau in a period shortly before the territory’s return
to Chinese rule in 1999. A former Portuguese colony located right next to Hong
Kong, Macau has long been regarded as a backwater of Hong Kong; before its
return to China, the small peninsula was a haven for gambling and local gangster
activities. Although Exiled tells a story that is not directly related to Hong Kong,
the chaotic social situation depicted in it clearly suggests a similar state in Hong
Kong before its Handover (V. Lee 2009: 84; He 2012: 304).
The Chinese title of Exiled is Fang • Zhu (放 • 逐), which has a double
meaning. Ignoring the period sign between the two Chinese characters, the
two words form the Chinese equivalent of its English translated title. Literally, it
means being in exile or going into exile. However, with the magic of the period
 Cinematic Journeys . 57

punctuation set between the two Chinese words, we can see another layer of
meaning: to let go • to chase after. This points directly at the on-the-run situa-
tion that the entire film is about. The story opens with Wo (Nick Cheung), who
wants to quietly rebuild his home with his wife (Josie Ho)6 and their newborn
son in a deserted neighbourhood in Macau after a long absence from the place.
Four hitmen come to Wo’s flat to look for him. Blaze and Fat (played by Anthony
Wong and Lam Suet respectively) have been sent by Wo’s corrupt former boss
Fay (Simon Yam), whom Wo attempted to assassinate some time earlier but
failed. It is now Fay’s turn to seek revenge by sending his two hitmen to chase
after Wo and kill him (hence, ‘to chase after’). Tat and Cat (played by Francis
Ng and Roy Cheung respectively) come to help Wo run away again (hence, ‘to
let go’). As it turns out, Wo and the four hit men were close childhood friends.
When Wo comes back to the flat from being outside, the visitors follow him
in and start a minor gunfight. The group of friends are soon reconciled with
each other. The next morning the group of friends go to a hitman agent, Jeff
(Eddie Cheung), to ask for a job that would pay off handsomely, for Wo wants
his wife and baby son to be left with some money in case he is killed. Jeff informs
them of the possibility of hijacking a ton of genuine gold owned by corrupted
government officials. Meanwhile, aware that Wo is still alive, Fay avenges him-
self on Wo and soon kills him. He also captures Wo’s wife and baby. The group
of friends go to rescue Wo’s surviving family, ignoring the dream life that they
would soon have with the hijacked gold. The final gunfight results in almost all
of the male characters being killed, leaving alive only Wo’s wife, her baby and a
prostitute working nearby. This home-return journey of Wo and his family has
thus resulted in a tragic end.
Many commentators believe that the male bonding in this film echoes that
found in To’s earlier films, such as The Mission (Hong Kong, 1999), PTU (Hong
Kong, 2003), Election (Hong Kong, 2005) and Election 2 (aka Triad Election)
(Hong Kong, 2006), and some of his later films such as Sparrow (Hong Kong,
2008) (Sanjek 2007; V. Lee 2009: 95–100). The Hong Kong-born director’s love
for his native territory that he declares explicitly as regards his film Sparrow,7
however, is rarely associated with Exiled and discussed extensively by critics. For
example, film scholar Vivian P.Y. Lee feels that the setting in Macau could mean
‘a changing perception of Macau in Hong Kong’s cultural imagination’ (2009:
95). But there is no further analysis as to the motivation for To in treating this
‘changing perception’ of a place in his unique way. There is also no analysis as
58 . New Hong Kong Cinema

to why the characters in Exiled remind each other of their long-term friendship,
growing up together at ‘gai liu’ (in Cantonese; 雞寮 in written script), when they
are now in Macau. ‘Gai liu’ is mentioned in their dialogues and shown clearly in
Chinese subtitles, but not English, about five minutes into the film. The term
is commonly used by many Cantonese-speaking Hongkongers to refer to the
Kwun Tong Resettlement Estate built in the 1960s on the Kowloon side of Hong
Kong for new immigrants and low-income families. The place has now become
Tsui Ping Estate, a public high-rise housing estate in Hong Kong, after several
decades of district redevelopment. ‘Gai liu’ in the case of the characters in Exiled,
then, refers to a childhood rendezvous that is gone forever. It suggests their (and
the director’s) nostalgia for the past and places in Hong Kong, as well as their
resistance to both political and cultural changes of the territory they once called
‘home’ (Nochimson and Cashill 2007). Yet, the new ‘home’ in Macau is also a
‘no-go area’ under uncontrollable circumstances: just like the exilic character
Wo, who was coerced to leave and has to die on returning ‘home’ in Macau.
Wo’s connection to this Macau ‘home’ is built more on the rekindled friendship
with his friends than with the place that is as dangerous and undesirable as any-
where else (Braziel and Mannur 2003: 6; Mannur 2003: 286). On the basis of this
understanding, I read the final showdown in Exiled as an expression of the direc-
tor’s unarticulated anxiety and doubt over Hong Kong’s political reunification
with China (the new ‘home’ for Hong Kong natives) and the return migrations
of many Hong Kong emigrants since the Handover.

Developing Characters through Journeys (to the Past)

Naficy (2001: 27) remarks that many characters featured in diasporic and exilic
films are sad, lonely and alienated because they are displaced from their home-
lands. They are often multilingual while speaking the dominant language with an
accent. These characters are performed by professional and non-professional
actors and actresses, and can be regarded as on-screen self-representations
of the filmmakers themselves (Naficy 2001: 290). If journeying in these films
involves not just geographical and textual, but also historical, biographical and/
or psychological journeys, we should expect they will very likely become major
catalysts for the transformation of the characters and their identities (Naficy
2001: 223). In this regard, I find three Hong Kong films especially appropriate for
 Cinematic Journeys . 59

our discussion of the characters’ development via journeying where this involves
not just textual journeys but also historical ones to a recent past, and whereby
the protagonists and the filmmakers themselves attempt to reinvent their feel-
ings for their (absent) homelands.

Days of Being Wild: Multiple Character Development

Days of Being Wild is Wong Kar-wai’s second feature film. It was festively released
in Hong Kong in 1990 right before the Christmas holidays, and expected to
appeal to a young audience with its superstar cast. But it turned out to be a box-
office disappointment to its investor In-Gear, which had previously produced
Wong’s first feature film As Tears Go by (Hong Kong, 1988) (Ngai and Wong
K. 1997: 97). Days of Being Wild is set in 1960. The film was planned to have a
sequel set in 1966. But the dissatisfactory box-office record of Days of Being Wild
triggered a quick commercial decision to abort production of the second part
(which arguably became the background of Wong’s two other films, In the Mood
for Love and 2046) (Ngai 1990: 38–39; Abbas 1997: 50; Amato and Greenberg
2000). Despite its box-office failure, Days of Being Wild brought Wong his first
Best Director Award at the tenth Hong Kong Film Awards in 1991 (Abbas 1997:
50; Dissanayake and D. Wong 2003: 12; Brunette 2005: 5; Teo 2005: 32–33, 68).
Over the course of time, this film has gathered many positive reviews and is now
regularly ranked as one of the best Chinese-language films ever produced.8
Wong uses an unconventional (by Hong Kong films’ standards in the 1990s),
episodic way to tell the story of six young adults. Among them, Yuddy (Leslie
Cheung) steals most of the spotlight as a character evoking the role of James
Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, United States, 1955),9 though
the other five characters all take turns in the film to tell their sides of the story
(and show their feelings). These six characters represent six different types of
self-centred, lonely persons, who feel their love for others remains unrequited.
According to Wong, however, these characters are also imbued with various
feelings experienced by the Hong Kong Chinese about leaving or staying behind
in Hong Kong. Such feelings were particularly strong when the sociopolitical
uncertainty related to the imminent 1997 Handover began to loom larger and
larger in the early 1990s (Rayns 1995: 14).
The handsome, playboy-like Yuddy opens the film by flirting with Lizhen
(Maggie Cheung), a shy tuck shop worker who later becomes his first lover in the
film. Understanding that Lizhen wants eventually to marry him, Yuddy refuses
60 . New Hong Kong Cinema

to make a commitment and the two break up. Yuddy quickly becomes sexually
involved with another woman, Mimi (aka Lulu) (Carina Lau), who is a dance
hall courtesan.10 It is later revealed in the film that Yuddy is in fact the illegiti-
mate child of a very rich Philippine woman who has paid Yuddy’s foster mother
Rebecca (Rebecca Pan), a former dance hall courtesan, to take care of the boy
over the years. Both Yuddy and Rebecca do not have to work, being supported
by Yuddy’s rich biological mother. The real identity of Yuddy’s biological mother
has long been a mystery to the boy. After pestering Rebecca for years to give him
information about his biological parents, whom he has never met, Yuddy finally
gets the answer from Rebecca when she decides to emigrate to the United
States. Yuddy then breaks up with Mimi and travels alone to the Philippines
hoping to meet with his biological mother. But she refuses to see him.
Meanwhile, Yuddy’s unemployed best friend Zeb (Jacky Cheung) is secretly
in love with Mimi. Mimi does not share Zeb’s feelings. She later leaves Hong
Kong, going to the Philippines in hopes of reuniting with Yuddy. Yuddy’s previ-
ous lover Lizhen has by now developed a special friendship with the policeman
Tide (Andy Lau), who later changes his job to that of sailor and leaves Hong
Kong. He runs into the drunken Yuddy in the Philippine Chinatown. The two
spend a night together as drinking buddies, but in the following morning Yuddy
is shot dead by Philippine gangsters in the course of an illegal passport deal. Like
Yuddy’s reincarnation, an unidentified man (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is featured
in a non-dialogued, two-and-half-minute long take in the finale; he is grooming
himself meticulously in his small, dimly lit room before going out. This character
and his gestures have a strong association with the image of Chow Mo-wan in
2046 (though Wong never admits both characters in the two films are the same
person).
Through their voice-overs, conversations and decisions made in the film,
these six lonesome spirits tell the audience about their dissatisfaction with their
situations. All of them do (or are revealed to have done) some travelling in order
to move on to the next stage in their lives: Lizhen travelled from Macau to settle
in Hong Kong; Yuddy leaves Hong Kong to go to the Philippines; Mimi follows
him; Shanghainese-speaking Rebecca relocated from Shanghai to Hong Kong
where she further emigrates to the United States; Tide leaves Hong Kong for his
sailing job; while Zeb stays behind in Hong Kong. With every journey they make,
they acquire completely new dimensions of perception of their existence and
new ideas about their lives. More importantly, Wong employs these characters in
 Cinematic Journeys . 61

order to travel, together with the audience, back to a past period in Hong Kong.
It was a period when Wong was a new Hong Kong immigrant (or a diasporic sub-
ject newly from Shanghai) – a period that gave him more pleasure than suffering
(Ngai 1990: 38; Rayns 1995: 14; Ngai and Wong K. 1997: 85, 88; Marchetti 2006:
10). Wong’s experience in his motherland, China, on the other hand, does not
seem to have any lingering effect on the director’s worldview after Hong Kong
has become the director’s new home(land) and not just a host territory. Wong’s
personal experience and the way he conveys it through the characters in Days of
Being Wild thus attests to interdisciplinary scholar James Clifford’s idea (1994)
that diaspora may sometimes challenge the very idea of nation-state. As Clifford
(1994: 322) points out: ‘The empowering paradox of diaspora is that dwelling here
assumes a solidarity and connection there. But there is not necessarily a single
place or an exclusivist nation’ (italics in original).

Echoes of the Rainbow: To Be Strong and Happy

Echoes of the Rainbow is considered a small-budget film, with a production cost of
HK$3.6 million (£283,000 or U.S.$464,000) provided by the Film Development
Fund of Hong Kong (Film Development Fund 2012; Hong Kong Government’s
Sponsorship 2012). It was directed by Alex Law, who scripted many of the well-
known films on the topic of ‘migrations’ that his partner Mabel Cheung made,
such as An Autumn’s Tale (Hong Kong, 1987) and Eight Taels of Gold (Hong
Kong, 1989). Echoes of the Rainbow was distributed by Mei Ah Entertainment,
a major media distribution company in Hong Kong. The film explores the story
of a family that has fled the south of China to settle joyfully in Hong Kong. It
became an unexpected box-office sensation locally, winning the Best Director
and Best Actor Awards in the twenty-ninth Hong Kong Film Awards in 2010, as
well as the Crystal Bear for the Best Film in the Children’s Jury ‘Generation Kplus’
at the sixtieth Berlin International Film Festival (also in 2010).
The plot of Echoes of the Rainbow is set in Hong Kong in the 1960s. It is nar-
rated as a nostalgic adventure to the recent past of the territory through the eyes
of the protagonist, the eight-year-old Jin-er Law (aka Big Ears; played by child
actor Buzz Chung), who is modelled on the director’s own childhood image. 11
Despite having limited financial means after migrating to Hong Kong, the Laws
are a loving and united family residing in a friendly neighbourhood in Sham Shui
Po on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. Jin-er is the second son of the Laws
and a naughty brat in the eyes of adults. His father, Mr Law (Simon Yam), is
62 . New Hong Kong Cinema

a conservative, reticent and hard-working shoemaker who opens a side street

shoe shop in the ground floor area of the little zinc hut where the family lives.
Mrs Law (Sandra Ng) is an optimistic, energetic and chatty housewife who also
helps her husband at the shoe shop. Jin-er’s older brother, the sixteen-year-old
Desmond (Aarif Rahman aka Aarif Lee), is a polite, top-grade student of a repu-
table missionary school. Desmond is also a talented musician and a champion
runner. Jin-er’s Big Uncle (Paul Chiang) and Grandma (Ha Ping aka Teresa Loo)
also live in the same neighbourhood.
From Jin-er’s perspective, the Hong Kong of the 1960s is memorable and
full of treasurable human feelings. He immerses himself in different exciting
hobbies, such as watching Cantonese films and gathering (or more precisely,
stealing) odd objects of the period as his collectibles. Even dealing with a cor-
rupted British police officer is so much fun. However, Jin-er also goes through
incidents that speed up his growth. He witnesses Desmond falling in love for the
first time. The gap between Desmond and the girl, who comes from a wealthy
family, however, makes the love impossible. Jin-er also sees Desmond falling
prey to Leukaemia and later his death, as well as the whole family’s hopelessness
over the entire course of Desmond’s illness. Yet, no matter how bad the situation
is, Jin-er remains strong and cheerful in his adolescence, and continues to look
on the bright side of life.
Jin-er’s personal development in different incidents allows the audience to
get involved nostalgically in a filmic journey back to the past and the disappear-
ing space of Hong Kong (Abbas 1997). The experience may not necessarily be
upsetting. In fact, different parts of the film join together to create an atmos-
phere that guarantees a warm and enlightening viewing. A positive feeling for
one’s family, home and homeland, present and future, is often felt. For Jin-er, the
ancestral land in China is, at best, only a myth that Grandma always talks about.
More important for him is his present home in Hong Kong, where he was born,
raised and will continue to prosper in the future. This somehow also tells us that
there is no need for diasporic people to always look back at the past and feel sad,
as a bright future is waiting for them.

Bruce Lee, My Brother: Uncertain Development

Bruce Lee, My Brother focuses on the biographical story of action superstar
Bruce Lee from his childhood and teenage years in Hong Kong until he left
for the United States to start his kung fu career there. It was made mainly to
 Cinematic Journeys . 63

commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the birth of the late eponymous

star (Shackleton 2010b), co-directed by Manfred Wong and Raymond Yip. Both
of these experienced Hong Kong filmmakers are often associated with the Young
and Dangerous series made in Hong Kong in the 1990s.12 The film is a China-
Hong Kong co-production between Shanghai TV Media, Beijing Antaeus Film,
Beijing Meng Ze Culture & Media, and J’ Star Group in China, and Media Asia
Films in Hong Kong. This biopic is praised as the most accurate portrayal of
Bruce Lee’s early life, with endorsements from his younger brother, Robert Lee,
and two elder sisters (Hung and Z. Li 2010). Seeing how Bruce Lee’s early life is
presented in the film, we notice that it was intertwined with the fate of Hong
Kong between the Japanese occupation and the time of Western popular cul-
ture’s impact on the territory in the late 1950s. In this respect, Bruce Lee can also
be read as a representative of those Hong Kong Chinese residents who have
gone through identity changes while on the verge of choosing to move away
from Hong Kong.
The film depicts several major physical and metaphorical journeys that affect
Bruce Lee’s life. It commences with a brief commemoration by Robert Lee and
his eldest sister, and is later narrated on and off by Robert Lee. The first jour-
ney in the film is set in 1940. It is a physical journey taken by Bruce Lee’s father,
the renowned Cantonese operatic comedian Lee Hoi-chuen, who is on a per-
formance tour in San Francisco. On 27 November that year, the wife (Christy
Chung) of Lee Hoi-chuen (Tony Leung Ka-fai) gives birth to their second son
(the fourth child) whom the couple name Bruce. As a second journey in the film,
the Lees return to Hong Kong a year later, shortly before the Japanese occupa-
tion of Hong Kong begins (in real life, Bruce Lee was about three when the Lees
returned to Hong Kong).
During the postwar era in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee, now a young boy, has grown
healthily but is not interested in school. His acting talent is discovered and highly
praised by director Fung Fung (aka Feng Feng; played by Cheung Tat-ming). Fung
recruits Bruce Lee to be the child protagonist in the film The Kid, released in 1950
(in real life, Bruce Lee’s Chinese screen name, Lee Xiaolong, was first used in
this film). As a teenager, Bruce Lee (Aarif Rahman aka Aarif Lee) spends much
time playing around, partying and getting into trouble. The film also re-enacts
how, in order to win a boxing competition, Bruce Lee starts to study Wing Chun
martial arts under master Ip Man. Bruce Lee treasures friendship highly. One of
his friends, Lau Lin-kong, has become a drug addict and gets involved in drug
64 . New Hong Kong Cinema

dealing. In order to save Lau, Bruce Lee and his two close friends go to look for
him in the den but end up fighting with the drug dealers. The drug gang is later
busted by the police. This incident alarms Lee Hoi-chuen, who then decides to
send Bruce Lee to the United States in order to keep the young man from getting
into more serious trouble (in real life, Bruce Lee left for the United States in April
1959 with U.S.$102 (£62) in his pocket). The final scene of the film consists of a
pull-back shot of Bruce Lee running alone towards the ship that will soon take
him to the United States (an implied third major physical journey in the film).
Readers may argue that this film is about Bruce Lee’s personal life and has
nothing to do with other Hongkongers’ diasporic sentiments over the decades.
But as the directors deliberately incorporate a bygone era of Hong Kong and
the on-screen re-enactment of the production of some of the most popular old
Hong Kong Cantonese films made by and for postwar diasporic subjects from
mainland China, such as Thunderstorm (directed by Ng Wui in 1957) and Wong
Fei-hung’s Fight at Henan (directed by Wu Pang in 1957), this film cannot be read
as just a biopic (Y. Chu 2003: 22–41; Fu 2008: 12–15). With the insertion of these
re-enacted filmmaking scenes, the directors of Bruce Lee, My Brother have turned
this recollection about the star into a restaged history of Hong Kong as well as a
revisit of Hong Kong’s film industry in the 1950s.
Beyond developing the main characters alongside the journeys they take in
the diegetic environment, the filmmakers of the three nostalgia films I just dis-
cussed convey a strong yearning for a past of Hong Kong – the ultimate home-
land of the main characters. But that was a Hong Kong under British colonial
rule, which has disappeared since the Handover and to which they cannot
return in reality. When shooting Days of Being Wild, Wong Kar-wai could only
reinvent a 1960s Hong Kong from his childhood memories and impressions,
which he did with a sense of loss (Rayns 1995: 14; Ngai and Wong K. 1997: 88).
Alex Law of Echoes of the Rainbow was lucky to find a very old street, Wing Lee
Street, in Sheung Wan district in Hong Kong that could be used as the setting
for the neighbourhood where the protagonist Jin-er lives. Comparative literature
scholar Yiu-Wai Chu (2013: 80–83) notes that Wing Lee Street later escaped
demolition under the original urban renewal plan due to the success of the film.
The author regards the street preservation not as part of the government’s plan
to conserve local cultural heritage, but as a ‘spectacle’ under the ‘Brand Hong
Kong’ marketing programme that lacks the real ‘personality’ or the soul of the
city. Bruce Lee, My Brother was shot partially in an old building in Guangzhou,
 Cinematic Journeys . 65

China, and not in Hong Kong where that kind of old establishments could no
longer be found. The production of the nostalgia films made in the 2000s, as in
the case of Echoes of the Rainbow and Bruce Lee, My Brother, are closely linked
to the preservation of local cultural heritage for such monuments as the Star
Ferry Pier and the Queen’s Pier under the challenge of a globalized economy and
the local government’s failure to see the values of the local culture (Y-W. Chu
2013: 117–18, 165). Yiu-Wai Chu (2013: 117–18) believes that these ‘new nostal-
gia’ films are different from those made in the 1990s, such as Arrest the Restless
(Lawrence Ah Mon, Hong Kong, 1992) and He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father (Peter
Chan, Hong Kong, 1993), because the 2000s films do not just address the golden
past but also the future. I would like to add that even though these films may
have projected hope for the future, the hope is heavily overwhelmed by the pre-
sent grief of the Hong Kong locals, which is felt under the double shadow of
China’s dominance and the globalized economy. A metaphorical time travel to
the Hong Kong homeland in a past period as shown in the three films discussed
here can only generate temporary relief but not ultimate resolution to spare the
Hongkongers from their sense of loss and uncertainties about their existential
conditions.

‘Journeying’ Narrative Structure

Naficy focuses his discussion of journeys in diasporic and exilic films mainly in
terms of how different types of journeys have enriched the films and been incor-
porated into the films’ subject matter. If journeys are indeed defining features of
accented films, then we may deduce that journeys and journeying can happen
not only within these films’ diegetic worlds, but may also be found in the way
films and their narratives are organically structured. After all, every film can be
considered a visual ‘journey’ that the audience takes while it sits through the
motion picture. What makes an accented film different from other feature films
in this respect might include how the filmmaker incorporates the diasporic or
exilic sentiments into the telling of the story. It is in this regard that I believe
Song of the Exile, a semi-autobiographical film by director Ann Hui, is a prime
illustration of ‘accentedness’ and transitions (in every possible sense) in new
Hong Kong films.
66 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Song of the Exile: Flashbacks

Hui is famous for making films concerned with stories about women (E. Ho
1999, reprinted 2001). Arguably, in Song of the Exile, Hui uses the film medium to
revisit her own self in a fictional story. This semi-autobiography was supported
by Taiwan investment. It tells the story of a daughter and her mother, based on
Hui’s own diasporic life: Hui was born in mainland China, spent her childhood in
Macau and then moved to settle in Hong Kong (see Chapter Three here for her
personal background). Hui came up with this story during a trip back to Japan
with her Japanese mother (Hui 2012b: 141). Both characters in the story of Song
of the Exile have self-identification problems while living in places they cannot
regard as their real homes.
The plot is structured principally around multiple on-screen and off-screen
expeditions of different duration to the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Macau,
China and Japan respectively, which have all taken place in the diegetic past. The
film starts with a voice-over recollection by the main protagonist Hueyin (Maggie
Cheung) of her situation in the summer of 1973 after she has just finished her
master’s degree in the United Kingdom.13 Unable to find a job there even with
a British nationality (her Chinese background is hinted in the film as a reason
why she cannot get a job interview at the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC)), the 25-year-old Hueyin returns to Hong Kong to attend her younger
sister Huewei’s wedding. There, she once again confronts her estranged mother
Aiko (played by Taiwanese actress Lu Hsiao-fen). This confrontation evokes
some deep-seated misunderstandings and miscommunications dating back
through the years to Hueyin’s childhood. The plot thereafter oscillates across
the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s, unveiling the causes of the deep estrange-
ment between the mother and the daughter, who actually love each other dearly.
With a flashback to the 1950s, the audience is introduced to the young
mother Aiko. Aiko, a Japanese, is not a welcome daughter-in-law because of
the strong Chinese nationalist thinking of her parents-in-law. Ignorant of the
fact that her mother Aiko is of Japanese ethnicity, the little Hueyin is totally
on her grandparents’ side and feels that her mother always behaves strangely.
Eventually Hueyin chooses to stay with her grandparents when her parents
move to Hong Kong. It is only when Hueyin, at fifteen years old, relocates to join
her parents in Hong Kong in 1963 that she finds out about her mother’s Japanese
nationality. Learning about this personal background does not help improve the
difficult relations with her mother. The teenage Hueyin soon decides to move to
 Cinematic Journeys . 67

a local boarding school, and later to the United Kingdom for university studies,
in order to escape from her mother.
Back to 1973 after sister Huewei and her newly wedded husband have
migrated to Canada, Hueyin and Aiko take a short trip together to Japan,
which Aiko has been absent from for decades. During this trip Hueyin finally
understands and empathizes with her mother’s miserable diasporic situation in
China, and then in Macau and Hong Kong. The mother and the daughter are
reconciled, and agree that Hong Kong is their current home. At the finale, the
25-year-old Hueyin visits her ageing grandparents in Guangzhou, China, during
the notorious Cultural Revolution (the old couple have been impelled by their
love for their country to return to the mainland). It is suggested at the ending
that Hueyin is still confused about who she really is in a place that is supposed
to be her motherland (Chua S. 1998; Williams 1998: 100; Naficy 2001: 33, 127).
In order to tell this complex story about mother and daughter, home and
homeland, and unarticulated identity issues of the Hong Kong Chinese, Hui has
adopted Wu Nien-jen’s suggestion of using flashbacks as the film’s main struc-
tural framework (Hui 2012b: 142–43). Wu is the film’s screenwriter; he is also
one of the mainstays of the New Taiwan Cinema movement (1982–86), which
includes works by famous directors Hou Hsiou-hsien and Edward Yang (see M.
Berry 2005). The flashbacks not only chart the characters’ physical travels, but
more importantly also visualize their psychological journeys and the structural
journeying in the film’s narration. In order of appearance within the plot, major
journeys and journeying are:

1. The 25-year-old Hueyin returns to Hong Kong from the United Kingdom after
graduating with a master’s degree (hinted journey not shown on screen; as
part of the first layer of flashbacks set in 1973 and recollected by the adult
Hueyin in voice-over in the ‘present’ in an unknown period).
2. In 1973 right after returning home to Hong Kong, Hueyin reminisces about
episodes of her early childhood in Macau (as sets of flashbacks set in the
1950s from the perspective of the first layer of flashbacks set in 1973).
3. Hueyin’s parents relocate from Macau to Hong Kong (actual journey shown
on screen; as a flashback set in the 1950s from the perspective of the first layer
of flashbacks set in 1973).
4. The fifteen-year-old Hueyin moves from Macau to Hong Kong to join her
parents (actual journey shown on screen; as a flashback set in the summer of
68 . New Hong Kong Cinema

1963 and recollected by the adult Hueyin in voice-over in the ‘present’ in an

unknown period).
5. Grandparents return to mainland China from Macau (hinted journey in the
summer of 1963 not shown on screen; recollected by the adult Hueyin in
voice-over in the ‘present’ in an unknown period).
6. The fifteen-year-old Hueyin moves from home in Hong Kong to a local
boarding school (actual move shown on screen; as a flashback set in 1963
continued from the perspective of the adult Hueyin in the ‘present’ in an
unknown period), and later to the United Kingdom to study at university
(journey skipped).
7. Hueyin’s newly wedded sister Huewei migrates from Hong Kong to Canada
with her husband (hinted journey not shown on screen; as part of the first
layer of flashbacks set in 1973).
8. The 25-year-old Hueyin and the middle-aged mother Aiko travel from Hong
Kong to Japan (actual journey shown on screen; as part of the first layer of
flashbacks set in 1973).
9. While in Japan, the middle-aged Aiko reminisces about her own past in
Manchuria, China (from the perspective of the first layer of flashbacks set
in 1973).
10. The young adult Aiko leaves Japan to join her brother’s family in Manchuria
(hinted journey in the late 1930s to the early 1940s not shown on screen;
recollected by the middle-aged Aiko in dialogue with other characters in the
first layer of flashbacks set in 1973).
11. Aiko’s brother and his family are deported from Manchuria back to Japan after
the Second World War (hinted journey in the 1940s not shown on screen; rec-
ollected by the middle-aged Aiko in dialogue with the 25-year-old Hueyin in
the first layer of flashbacks set in 1973).
12. Aiko and her husband (that is, Hueyin’s father; played by Waise Lee) move
from Manchuria to Macau after getting married (hinted journey in the 1940s
not shown on screen; recollected by the middle-aged Aiko in dialogue with
the 25-year-old Hueyin in the first layer of flashbacks set in 1973).
13. The middle-aged Aiko and the 25-year-old Hueyin complete the Japan trip
and return to Hong Kong (hinted journey not shown on screen; as part of the
first layer of flashbacks set in the autumn of 1973 and recollected by the adult
Hueyin in voice-over in the ‘present’ in an unknown period).
 Cinematic Journeys . 69

14. The 25-year-old Hueyin visits her ageing grandparents in Guangzhou, China
(actual journey shown on screen; as part of the first layer of flashbacks set in
the late autumn of 1973).
15. In Guangzhou, Hueyin reminisces about her early years living with her grand-
parents in Macau (a short flashback set in the 1950s from the perspective of
the first layer of flashbacks set in 1973).

The structural journeying of this film is often triggered by family conflicts

and quarrels between the mother and the daughter, while the journeys are shot
mostly from Hueyin’s viewpoint (see W. Cheung 2007: 157–58). On-screen jour-
neys in any given sequence in the film may start in 1970s Hong Kong and end in
1950s Macau, etc., so that the audience and the characters can revisit the causes
of the long-term misunderstandings between mother and daughter in relation
to Hueyin’s situation in 1973. They also show different dimensions of the char-
acters’ identity issues (Abbas 1997: 38; Yue 2010: 63). As Hui says:

There is endless mobility in the structure … It starts at a certain point and

stops at another but never really returns to the original point. Fragmented
structure occurs in the middle of the film. There are also changes in the pri-
mary and the secondary structures. That makes the film very interesting and
unconventional. (Ann Hui 1990: 13; my translation)

Film scholar Audrey Yue situates Hui in the conventions of Hong Kong film-
making and argues that the flashbacks among other stylistic devices in Song of the
Exile can be considered strategies of ‘corrective realism’, challenging the ‘domi-
nant (usually classical and patriarchal) modes of authenticity’ (Yue 2010: 56).
The purpose of such filmic strategies, according to Yue, is to deconstruct and
redress ideologies that are ‘naturalized’ in dominant filmic styles featuring such
elements as linear plot, classical realism and continuity editing. Literary scholar
Elaine Yee Lin Ho (1999: 167, 177–79) also thinks that Song of the Exile manifests
women’s struggles in a patriarchal world. By invoking the past via flashbacks, this
film and many others in Hui’s oeuvre show how the female characters’ present
is energized and reaffirmed. Film scholar Patricia Brett Erens (2000a: 49–53)
argues that Hueyin’s recollections or memories of her early years via flashbacks
in the film are constructed with relevance to the present, and that there are no
literal returns to the past. Naficy (2001: 233–34) remarks that the flashbacks in
70 . New Hong Kong Cinema

this film are forms of symbolic return (to a past as well as to a place of origin)
for the diegetic mother and daughter, for the director Hui and her own mother,
and for Hong Kong residents and China to be reconciled. Hui admits that Song of
the Exile is relevant to a historic period when the Hongkongers (in particular the
Chinese descendants) were considering emigrating to other countries. They had
to think about what kind of attitudes they needed to hold when adjusting to their
new lives (Hui 2012b: 142). Going along this line, I believe these flashbacks also
serve the function of changing the audience’s vantage points, which are not con-
fined to those of the domestic environment at ‘home’ (Chua S. 1998), of mother
and daughter, or of Hong Kong and China. As the main narrative structure of
this film, the layering of flashbacks allow the viewers a holistic exploration of the
problems and the situations in which diasporic persons living in different time
periods, with Hong Kong as their current home, suffered in a similar manner. It
seems to speak directly to those Hong Kong Chinese watching this film in the
1990s and beyond in the transitional Hong Kong, and asks them to calm down
a bit to search introspectively for what they actually hoped to have had in the
bigger transitional political environment at the historical crossroads.

Concluding Remarks

Naficy highlights journeys and journeying as some of the main qualities that we
can use to identify accented films. In this chapter I have used this point of depar-
ture to examine seven Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films that deal
with, directly or indirectly, the migration decisions of the Hong Kong Chinese
via the films’ subject matter, character development and narrative structure.
Deciding whether to move or not, which may or may not be told straightfor-
wardly through the films, permeates every single element in these films. They
reflect the ‘refugee mentality’ and diasporic sentiments of many Hong Kong
Chinese. Unlike other global diasporas (Cohen 1997, 2008) such as the Jews
or the Africans, the segments of the Chinese diaspora residing in Hong Kong
practise their diasporic lives and relate to their ‘homeland(s)’ in multiple ways.
Some still think of ‘China’ (it may or may not be the one under the communist
rule) as their homeland; others regard their current home Hong Kong as their
real homeland without reference to it being part of the geographical China. Still
others lament that not even the present Hong Kong is their real homeland. The
 Cinematic Journeys . 71

city has become a place that they do not know anymore because of the drastic
sociopolitical deteriorations since the Handover. Many Hongkongers’ diasporic
sentiments have continued to this day.
These chosen films have been considered the components of the New Hong
Kong Cinema because of their specific concerns with Hong Kong’s political and
sociocultural developments with regard to the Handover. They also allow us
to see that journeys and journeying in film have become the special features
in the New Hong Kong Cinema, which I have used to exemplify the Cinema of
Transitions. Not only do these diegetic and non-diegetic journeys and journey-
ing give a visual impression of the transitions on which new Hong Kong films are
based, but they are also helping to define what the New Hong Kong Cinema is.
As global citizens, the Hong Kong Chinese cannot single themselves out
as living alone on an isolated island. They will certainly need to build up their
self-perception by identifying the difference between themselves and others,
especially other segments in the Chinese diaspora living elsewhere. Sometimes
the process of the Hongkongers’ self-identification as ‘Chinese’ can itself be an
emotional trauma. In the next chapter, we will discuss those new Hong Kong-
related Chinese-language films that attempt to answer the nationality question
of the Hong Kong Chinese from the angle of the Chinese people not belonging to
Hong Kong society. This angle of exploration in film is arguably useful to prevent
the filmmakers and the target viewing community in Hong Kong from facing the
emotional and psychological distress relevant to their self-identification.

Notes

 1. Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain when China signed the ‘Treaty of Nanking’ in
1843, as part of the indemnity paid to Britain after the First Opium War. In 1860, after
its second disgraceful defeat in the Second Opium War, China signed the ‘Convention
of Peking’ and ceded the Kowloon Peninsula (the part south of Boundary Street
in Kowloon Peninsula) to Britain. Both Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula
were ceded in perpetuity. In 1898, China and Britain signed the ‘Convention Between
Great Britain and China Respecting an Extension of Hong Kong Territory’ (aka the
Second Treaty of Peking), which allowed Britain to gain a rent-free lease over the
New Territories part of Hong Kong for a period of ninety-nine years. As a result of
the signing of the ‘Sino-British Joint Declaration’ in 1984, all three parts of Hong
Kong were returned by the United Kingdom to China in 1997. The actual ‘Handover’
ceremony took place at midnight, 30 June 1997.
72 . New Hong Kong Cinema

 2. The Hong Kong Chinese have never had an equal national status with their mainland
counterparts, not even since the Handover. For example, they hold the Hong Kong
SAR passports while their mainland counterparts hold the PRC passports. The locals
in Hong Kong are often still referred to as Hong Kong qiao bao (overseas Chinese
living in Hong Kong) by their neighbours on the mainland.
 3. The distinction between commercial and art-house cinemas used in Euro-American
contexts is not suitable for understanding the nature of Hong Kong and Hong Kong-
related Chinese-language films, when the latter are released domestically or in
neighbouring East Asian territories. Due to a lack of governmental subsidies, most
of these films, if they are lucky to get theatrical release, aim to earn a certain amount
from the box-office sales and post-theatrical sales through DVD, online and other
channels in order to recoup initial investments in their production. For example, John
Woo’s mega-budget film Red Cliff was released as an art-house film in Europe and
the United States, even though it was screened as a genuine blockbuster in East Asia.
For more exploration on Red Cliff, see Chapter Four in this book (see also Bordwell
1979).
 4. Foreign films are required to be subjected to China’s strict foreign film import quota
before they can enter the country’s domestic market. Upon the WTO’s request, in
February 2012 China increased the annual number of revenue-sharing foreign films,
from twenty to thirty-four, to enter China (Jaffe 2011; China Agrees 2012; China Eases
2012). See also note 20 in the Introduction to this book about Hong Kong films’ for-
eign status vis-à-vis mainland Chinese films.
 5. See also Buenos Aires Zero Degree: The Making of Happy Together (Kwan Pun-leung
and Amos Lee, Hong Kong, 1999).
 6. Ho in real life is one of seventeen children of the Chinese tycoon, Stanley Ho, who
has built a gambling empire in Macau.
 7. Source: interview with Johnnie To, Sparrow (DVD) (Hong Kong version, bonus track).
 8. At the twenty-fourth Hong Kong Film Awards in 2005, Days of Being Wild was
ranked third among one hundred best Chinese films made during the first century of
Chinese-language cinemas.
 9. The film’s Chinese title (A Fei Zheng Zhuan, literally, the story of rebels) is the same
as the Chinese translated title given to Rebel Without a Cause when the latter was
released in Hong Kong.
10. This character, Mimi, reappears in Wong’s 2046 as a more mature version of herself,
but without direct reference to Days of Being Wild.
11. Source: information given by Alex Law in Echoes of the Rainbow (DVD) (Hong Kong
version, bonus track).
12. The Young and Dangerous series is directed by Andrew Lau. There were six instal-
ments altogether of this film series made between 1996 and 2000; it features a
young gangster group whose characters are based on the local comic book series
entitled Teddy Boy. The young triad members in the films are all depicted as heroes,
although they are involved in criminal activities. Information about each instalment
 Cinematic Journeys . 73

is as follows: Young and Dangerous (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1996) (Manfred Wong
as the co-producer and the writer); Young and Dangerous 2 (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong,
1996) (Manfred Wong as the co-producer and the co-writer); Young and Dangerous
3 (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1996) (Manfred Wong as the producer and the writer);
Young and Dangerous 4 (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1997) (Manfred Wong as the
producer and the writer); Young and Dangerous 5 (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1998)
(Manfred Wong as the producer and the writer); Born to be King (Andrew Lau, Hong
Kong, 2000) (Manfred Wong as the co-producer and the writer). After this series,
Andrew Lau moved on to co-direct with Alex Mak the Infernal Affairs series in 2002
and 2003. During the late 1990s, other similar Hong Kong gangster films were made.
They have themes and characters derived from the Young and Dangerous series, or
are spin-offs; for example, Portland Street Blues (Raymond Yip, Hong Kong, 1998).
Manfred Wong worked again as the producer and the writer of this film.
13. Maggie Cheung was a typical Chinese diasporic subject from Hong Kong. She was
born in Hong Kong and moved to the United Kingdom with her family when she
was eight. Cheung returned to Hong Kong when she was eighteen and entered the
entertainment business through being the first runner-up at the Miss Hong Kong
beauty pageant in 1982.
Chapter Two

Outsider Characters
Chineseness, and Hong Kong Screen Imagination
and Imageries

In November 2012, the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Centre for

Communication and Public Opinion Survey released its latest public opinion
poll ‘The Identity and National Identification of Hong Kong People’ conducted
in October 2012. This was the ninth poll of a series launched by the research
centre in 1996 (Chan S-l. 2012a, 2012b). The 2012 survey showed that among
819 telephone respondents (chosen through random sampling) who were Hong
Kong residents and could speak fluent Cantonese, only 12.6 per cent identified
themselves as ‘Chinese’ (the lowest registered percentage of identification with
the nation ‘China’ since 1996), whereas 65.2 per cent of the respondents high-
lighted they were ‘Hongkongese’ (‘Hongkongese’ and ‘Hongkongers’ are often
used interchangeably).1 The survey results not only attracted unprecedented
Hong Kong mass media attention for this kind of poll, but they also received
challenges and criticism from the representatives of the Chinese authorities. To
the mainland Chinese officials, the shortcomings of this survey were not related
to its methodology or interpretations. What they strongly disapproved of was
the survey questions that asked ordinary Hong Kong citizens about their choice
between being ‘Hongkongese’ or being ‘Chinese’. From the Chinese authorities’
point of view, national status is something that should not be questioned. The
mainland Chinese officials interpreted that, worst of all, these public opinion
polls would encourage people to think about Hong Kong’s independence, and
therefore challenge the absolute rule and control of the Beijing government
over its territory. Similar criticism was addressed to well-known public opinion
researchers, such as Robert Chung who had spearheaded a public opinion pro-
gramme at the University of Hong Kong concerning the Hongkongers’ ethnic
identification (R. Chung 2012). These kinds of conflicts between the mainland
Chinese officials and Hong Kong-based scholars conducting public opinion polls
are by no means single incidents but are part of the long-standing cultural differ-
ences between various Chinese communities (England 2012). At the same time,
the events inevitably expose one of the root causes of many ongoing social and
 Outsider Characters . 75

political disputes between Hong Kong and the mainland – the concept of ‘being
Chinese’ could be interpreted from more than one angle and on different levels.
In film, the ambiguous and unclear definition of ‘Chinese’ and ‘Chineseness’
has resulted in multiple manifestations of Chinese identification in Hong Kong
Cinema over the past several decades. This chapter seeks to find out what these
filmic manifestations are and what implications they might have for the filmmak-
ers and their target audiences. My discussion starts with a summary of differing
opinions on the concept of Chineseness. The discourses of the theorists and
scholars I highlight give us an idea that the said concept is complex and multi-
layering. There are indeed numerous interpretations of what, who and how to be
‘Chinese’. I am particularly interested in knowing how Hong Kong filmmakers have
dealt with the topic in their works. With the support of an array of film examples,
I examine why, and how, Hong Kong filmmakers have employed the non-Hong
Kong Chinese characters as the featured roles in their films. The characters of
Vietnamese refugees, mainland Chinese illegal immigrants, Chinese migrants
living in South East Asia and animated figures are of special significance in Hong
Kong’s context, although the personalities they represent all seem to be unre-
lated to Hong Kong society. Moreover, they also have certain ethnic and linguistic
connections with the Hong Kong Chinese viewers, who are some of the target
audiences of these films. I argue that these outsiders’ on-screen existence is not
random. It has the effect of helping the Hong Kong Chinese revisit the issues of
their own ethnic-cultural identity through an indirect route (Abbas 1997: 28).

‘Chineseness’, ‘Being Chinese’ and ‘Becoming Chinese’

Cursory library and online research reveals that scholars from various disciplines,
critics, observers and the general public have different understandings of the
concept of Chineseness. Should Chineseness be defined culturally, politically
or nationally? Should it be dealt with differently with respect to different times
and locales? Should it be treated according to the specific circumstances of
individuals or communities? Should it be subdivided into cultural Chineseness,
political Chineseness, social Chineseness, economic Chineseness, etc.? Or is it
pointless to discuss it at all, because if Chineseness means different things to
different people, it may simply be a meaningless term? Who should define it
and for whom?
76 . New Hong Kong Cinema

While critics have attempted to make sense of what Chineseness is, more
and more of them argue that defining Chineseness is a daunting task because
this is not a fixed and stable concept. Nonetheless, one thing in common among
their views is that the definition of the concept and what it might mean to those
it concerns have evolved through time. Ideas about it broadly range from those
that support the wide applicability and pluralization of Chineseness, to those
that argue Chineseness is an empty term. The views often oscillate from one
extreme to the other on the explanation scale of Chineseness. From this angle,
Chineseness per se is not only a place- or culture-specific notion (see, for exam-
ple, Y-W. Chu 2001, 2013: 38–39), but it also involves the much less discussed
element of ‘time’ as related to the manifestations, meanings, interpretations and
discussions of the notion. Let me make a brief summary of scholarly debates
throughout the years about the concept of Chineseness. As there are indeed
various views from critics who have discussed this topic, the summary here can
only provide highlights of different comments and is by no means exhaustive.
This overview is important for understanding why Hong Kong films made in dif-
ferent decades may carry tints of Chineseness, transitional Chineseness or non-
Chineseness.
Born in Indonesia and raised in Malaysia, Chinese immigration scholar Wang
Gungwu was one of the first scholars to systematically discuss the concept of
Chineseness: he did this as early as 1957 (Wang G. 1991b: vii). Wang highlights
that Chineseness is a ‘shared historical experience whose record has continu-
ally influenced its growth’ (Wang G. 1991b: 2). This opinion points to the first
written record of Chinese civilizational thinking, Confucianism, supported by
the unifying language of signs and symbols. The author acknowledges that the
kind of Chineseness manifested in mainland China after 1949 (the year of the
establishment of the PRC) is different from that found in Taiwan, Hong Kong
and among large Chinese communities in South East Asia and North America
respectively (Wang G. 1991b: 7).
Hong Kong-raised cultural theorist Rey Chow argues that the resort to
Chineseness, or Sinicization, is illusory and manipulative in a sociopolitical sense.
It amounts to merely submitting oneself to the empty myth of consanguinity
(R. Chow 1993: 23–24). Underlying Chow’s argument, and in her usage of the
term in the early 1990s, is the condition of Chineseness being related to the
Chinese ethnicity (R. Chow 1993: 25). Is Chineseness restricted to those born
Chinese, or is it not?
 Outsider Characters . 77

In the Introduction to this book, I showed that Chinese-American Neo-

Confucian scholar Tu Wei-ming advocates an imaginary overarching universe
called ‘cultural China’. In this sphere, Tu envisions that Chinese diasporic people
should come to the fore to spearhead discourses concerned with Chinese mat-
ters. Within the third universe of ‘cultural China’, Tu includes non-Chinese
descendants who are mostly intellectuals of other nationalities and who have
strong research interests in Chinese matters. His idea seems to be based on
a wider understanding of what Chineseness could mean and involve. But the
inevitable implication is that Tu’s idea assumes the superiority of Chineseness.
It forces people to think and discuss only from the angle of Chineseness and it is
thereby restrictive. Openly challenged by cultural theorist Ien Ang in 1998 and
2001 in two of her famous publications, Tu’s idea however does add an extra
dimension to the debates about Chineseness.
Born to Chinese parents in Indonesia, educated in the Netherlands and now
settled in Australia, Ang does not deny the concept of Chineseness. Instead,
Ang (1998: 225) advocates that Chineseness should be treated as an open
and indeterminate signifier, and used with caution. How one deals with one’s
Chineseness remains a personal political choice (Ang 2001: 35–36, 44–51). Ang’s
disagreement with Tu’s ‘cultural China’ thesis is shared by Chua Beng Huat
(2012), a Chinese-Singaporean sociologist. In his writing about East Asian pop
culture being used by the regional powers as a tool of exerting ‘soft power’, Chua
dismisses the concepts of Confucian greater China and Chinese diaspora. Chua
(2012: 34) argues that ‘the cultural definition of Chineseness has been unavoid-
ably and increasingly marked by local politics’. He recalls the rupture that took
place between cultural-ethnic Chineseness and Chinese nationality when in
1955 Zhou Enlai, then Prime Minister of the PRC, encouraged overseas Chinese
communities (except those in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) to take up their
local citizenship (Chua 2012: 36). This fully indicates the multiple layering in
the concept of Chineseness and what it might mean to be ‘Chinese’ to different
individuals and communities. The author also cites the case of Singapore as an
example of counteracting the monolithic term ‘Chinese’, as Singapore adopts
the nationality-neutral term ‘Huaren’ to refer to those cultural-ethnic Chinese
people who are Singaporean citizens (Chua 2012: 37). In Mandarin, ‘Huaren’
literally means ‘ethnic Chinese people’ without denoting any specific nation-
alities of the group.2 Although built on a disputable assumption that Mandarin
is the lingua franca of ethnic Chinese, ‘Huaren’ can be regarded as a better
78 . New Hong Kong Cinema

label to replace the term and concept of ‘Chinese’ when ‘Chinese’ is used with
essentialist intention on the individuals and groups concerned.3 From a histori-
cal perspective, Asian studies scholar Caroline S. Hau (2012) revisits the ways
in which the Chinese communities and individual countries in South East Asia
have related to ‘China’. Hau argues that Chineseness is multi-sited and the sig-
nifier ‘China’ is floating. According to the author, ‘In practice, no single political
entity/regime embodies or exercises ultimate authority on “China,” “Chinese,”
and “Chineseness”’ (italics in original). She disagrees that China has played the
role of the ‘preeminent cultural arbiter of Chineseness’. Instead, Britain (one of
the most aggressive colonizers in Asia in the colonial period), the United States,
Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South East Asian countries (and the Chinese
communities they host) that have had an ongoing economic and cultural-politi-
cal relationship with mainland China, and the governments of these territories in
different historical periods, have all had a part in defining what ‘China’, ‘Chinese’
and ‘Chineseness’ mean. Over the years, regional ‘de-Sinicization’ and ‘re-Sini-
cization’ of ethnic Chinese communities in East and South East Asia, triggered
by various political, economic and cultural reasons, have gone far beyond the
reach of the Chinese state. In fact, the hybrid Chineseness manifested at times
at grass-roots level in mainland China may not necessarily coincide with, and
sometimes even challenge, the Chineseness officially sanctioned by the Chinese
state.
In a similar vein, Hong Kong-based cultural theorist Kwai-Cheung Lo writes
about the Chineseness of the Hongkongers in his Chinese Face/Off (2005). Lo
calls it a ‘potential Chineseness’ (2005: 3), and regards Hong Kong’s culture as
operating ‘an articulation of “transitional Chineseness”’ (2005: 4). His idea then
serves as another alternative to the so-called proper and ‘real’ Chineseness rep-
resented by China. Lo (2005: 4, 8) also argues that ‘Hong Kong’s Chineseness
is a site of performative contradictions’. Hong Kong serves as a sounding board
by which the meanings of Chineseness, which have been evolving through time,
can be tested. Like Chow (1993, 1998), Lo (2005: 6) agrees that Chineseness,
a supposed master signifier of the so-called Chinese nation, is nothing but an
empty sign. He applies his idea about Chineseness and its manifestations to the
diasporic situation of Tibetans. Here, Lo (2009: 2) reminds us that the diaspora
concept is used by the Chinese state to promote nationalism under the empty
notion of Chineseness among different races of people who are now considered
‘Chinese’ politically, if not culturally. Besides the prevalent Han race, there are
 Outsider Characters . 79

fifty-five ethnic minorities (including the Tibetans that Lo discusses) identi-

fied under the Chinese Communist Party’s ethnic classification scheme. These
ethnic minorities reside in places that have now come under Chinese state gov-
ernance. Due to historical and political reasons, these groups of populations
have become ‘Chinese’ even though they may not be willing to be designated as
such. To them, the ‘Chinese’ status is an imposed nationality.
The rejection of the imposed identity is certainly shared by many
Hongkongers, who do not wish to be labelled as ‘Chinese’. The social feelings
involved are regarded by the mass media as ‘negative expressions of Hong
Kong people’s “Chineseness”’ (A. Zhang 2012). These Hongkongers find online
channels to express their dissatisfaction with the imposed national and cultural
identity, and their difference from their mainland counterparts. Meanwhile,
local grass-roots organizations, such as ‘We Are Hong-kongian, Not Chinese’
and ‘Scholarism’, organize regular street protests and establish online forums to
discuss the issues of being or not being ‘Chinese’, and the invasion of ‘mainlan-
derism’ in Hong Kong. Writing on the postcolonial identity crisis as reflected in
the Hong Kong cop-and-gangster Infernal Affairs trilogy, Ohio-based Chinese
culture and literary scholar Howard Y.F. Choy (2007: 55) adds the considera-
tion of the Hongkongers’ Britishness to the discussion of the Hongkongers’ re-
Sinicization, or the state of becoming ‘Chinese’. Writing against the ‘orthodox
Chineseness’ promoted by the PRC, Hilary Hongjin He (2012: 299), who was
educated in Australia and is now based in Fujian, China, argues that Hong Kong
demonstrates ‘the cosmopolitan side of Chineseness’ against a broad notion of
‘Greater China’, and not just the ‘China’ as located on the mainland or the ‘China’
as represented by the Republic of China in Taiwan.
Among all these discussions of Chineseness and the Hongkongers’ kind
of Chineseness, I find psychologist Nan M. Sussman’s discussion of the
Hongkongers’ identity inspiring, in that the author takes into account the East
Asian aspect and multiple migration experience of the Hong Kong Chinese.
Based on the historical legacies of Hong Kong’s past and present political and
cultural experience, the author dissects the identity of the Hongkongers into
layers in order to understand the returned Hong Kong Chinese. They had emi-
grated from Hong Kong before 1997 and have then remigrated back to the city.
The author traces the identity of the Hong Kong Chinese as starting to develop
only in the 1840s, when Hong Kong became a British Crown Colony. The author
argues that the Hongkongers’ Chinese identity has evolved in relation to four
80 . New Hong Kong Cinema

particular historical incidents and eras, with each newer stratum of identity
demonstrating particular historical and cultural concerns laying on top of the
older ones. The historical eras that Sussman identifies are: (1) the time prior to
the Opium Wars, (2) the postwar British sovereignty period, (3) the pre-Hand-
over period (1984–97) and (4) the post-Handover, remigration period (Sussman
2011: 12).
Sussman sees the resulting Hong Kong Chinese identity as composed of
three nested layers. At the core is a Chinese identity (inherited from the ances-
tors or coming from the persons themselves, who have brought the typical
Chinese cultural values from their places of origin in mainland China). This core
is then surrounded by a layer of Western cultural and civic values (resulting from
the British colonial influence, and other daily interactions between the Hong
Kong Chinese and their Western neighbours living in the same society). Further
out, these two layers of the Hong Kong Chinese identity are encompassed by a
regional, geographical identity (Sussman 2011: 18). Although Sussman does not
articulate it clearly, this third layer is understood as directed towards the East
Asian status that forms part of the Hong Kong Chinese’s sense of identifica-
tion. As for those migrants who have returned to Hong Kong, their identities
are bound to be even more complex. The corresponding layering in Hong Kong
Chinese identity that Sussman highlights thus sets the author’s idea apart from
that of other researchers, who argue that the Hongkongers’ Chineseness is tran-
sitional, flexible or subject to contextual determination.
Two things are worth noticing. On the one hand, it is not surprising to see
that Chineseness as a cultural marker indeed has multiple layers of interpre-
tation depending on its manifestations in different time periods, locales and
social-cultural-political contexts. The concept’s openness is perhaps most pro-
nounced when the historical burden of Chinese civilization interacts with other
cultures and societies. Hence, we see different researchers, especially those
ethnic Chinese researchers around the world who have empirical experience
of ‘being Chinese’ culturally and ethnically, analysing it differently. On the other
hand, the topics of ‘Chineseness’, ‘being Chinese’ and ‘becoming Chinese’, as
developed by ethnic Chinese researchers outside mainland China in non-Chi-
nese languages, should not be taken as something coincidental. Rather, they are
the by-products or long-tail effects of two hegemonies, the Western (mainly
European and American) and the Chinese. Most cases of the treatment of these
topics are responses against the ‘chauvinistic sinocentrism’ or ‘sinochauvinism’
 Outsider Characters . 81

(R. Chow 1998: 6) of the mainland Chinese intellectuals, which in turn has been
aimed against earlier Western hegemony. We should not forget that, politically,
the Chinese authorities do not encourage open discussions of Chinese national-
ity status, as evident in the conflicts between the mainland Chinese officials and
Hong Kong-based identity researchers mentioned in the introduction to this
chapter. Here, we can see the internal conflicts of the Chinese hegemony – that
is, the official, authoritative Sinocentrism on top of the cultural Sinocentrism –
that have inadvertently impacted the discourse on Chinese-related matters in
various fields.

Outsider Characters: The Hong Kong Chinese’s Imaginary Stand-ins and

Alter Egos

Given that there is no clear definition of Chineseness or what it means to be

Chinese nowadays, it is arguably convenient for Hong Kong film directors to
make use of the non-Hong Kong Chinese roles as metaphors and allusions to
develop their cultural, social and political comments on the surrounding environ-
ment. In interrogating why non-Hongkonger actors/actresses are employed to
play Hong Kong natives in Hong Kong films and why a particular past is empha-
sized, comparative literature scholar Yiu-Wai Chu argues that the purpose of
such cinematic representations is to ‘develop an autonomous imaginary free
from the domination of the China factor’ and to resort to a ‘hybridized’ cosmo-
politanism (Y-W. Chu 2013: 98–99). According to the author, the use of a local
narrative in Hong Kong’s ‘cultural imaginary’ can subvert this cosmopolitanism
simultaneously. Applying the same logic, we can consider those Hong Kong
Kong-related Chinese-language films featuring Hong Kong actors/actresses to
be non-Hong Kong Chinese characters as cases of offsetting the influence of the
places of origin. The purpose is also to stress the ‘hybridity’ quality of the films,
especially those made immediately before and after the Handover.
What specific kinds of non-Hong Kong Chinese characters to be featured
depended heavily on the prevailing sociopolitical circumstances at any particular
point in the recent past. For example, films portraying Vietnamese boat people
(referring to those refugees fleeing Vietnam in crudely built big boats), who are
usually ethnic Chinese in the diegetic settings, saturated Hong Kong screens in
the early to mid 1980s when Hong Kong was under international pressure to be a
82 . New Hong Kong Cinema

refuge port in real life for Vietnamese refugees. Besides everyday news coverage
and television drama series, moving images such as The Story of Woo Viet (Ann
Hui, Hong Kong, 1981); The Man from Vietnam (Clarence Fok, Hong Kong, 1982);
Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Clifford Choi, Hong Kong, 1983); To Liv(e) (Evans Chan,
Hong Kong, 1991); and Run and Kill (Billy Tang Hin-sing, Hong Kong, 1993) fea-
ture main protagonists who hail from Vietnam but speak Cantonese fluently and
without any accent. Another troupe of so-called outsiders – new or illegal immi-
grants from mainland China – is featured as the main characters in Hong Kong
films that were made in the mid 1980s, the 1990s and the early 2000s. It was a
time when Hong Kong society had to face the economic-sociopolitical transi-
tional uncertainty of the Handover. Hong Kong films such as Long Arm of the
Law (Johnny Mak, Hong Kong, 1984); Love in a Fallen City (Ann Hui, Hong Kong,
1984); Her Fatal Ways (Alfred Cheung, Hong Kong, 1991); and Comrades, Almost a
Love Story (Peter Chan, Hong Kong, 1996) are some of the classics that famously
make use of the mainland Chinese characters and their sojourns to reflect socio-
political realities the Hongkongers would need to face once the nationality on
their passports changed from British National (Overseas) to Chinese.
There are practical advantages for filmmakers to use outsider characters in
film, as they could serve as imaginary stand-ins and alter egos for the Chinese
audience in Hong Kong to experience indirectly the vicissitudes of life and the
changes in time and place. The audience could empathize with these charac-
ters and share their different diegetic structures of feeling, such as melancholia,
fear and loneliness (Naficy 2001: 291), without the need of going through these
feelings in real life. Outsider characters and their diegetic experience also help
minimize and rehearse the impacts of what might be severe blows to the sense
of being of the local target audience (see discussion below on Boat People (Ann
Hui, Hong Kong, 1982), Durian Durian (Fruit Chan, China/France/Hong Kong,
2000) and Going Home (in Three) (Peter Chan, Hong Kong, 2002)4). They high-
light an escapist function that many Hong Kong mainstream genre films perform
(see discussion below on The Detective series and the McDull series).
No matter what the practical advantages are, Hong Kong filmmakers have
been in a similar position to that of the accented filmmakers in employing out-
siders as main protagonists and adopting the characters’ vantage points to tell
the stories. Typical foreign characters in accented films, as suggested by dias-
pora and film scholar Hamid Naficy (2001: 70, 290), have ambiguous identities.
They often speak the dominant language in film with an accent and are usually
 Outsider Characters . 83

played by non-actors. Although we may find the outsider characters in Hong

Kong-related Chinese-language films deviating from those in accented films
(e.g., speaking Cantonese fluently and without any accent, and blending into
the dominant society if they so wish), the presence of these outsider characters
in the New Hong Kong Cinema often offer, on top of other conveniences, an
association to Chineseness. At any given point in time, they give an alterna-
tive angle for the filmmakers and the target audiences to look into their quality
of being or not being ‘Chinese’. To the filmmakers/target audiences/dominant
environment, these characters are foreign but they also look strangely familiar.
The ambiguity of these outsider characters thus heightens the interstitial quality
that many new Hong Kong films project.

Chinese-Vietnamese-turned-Hong Kong Chinese?

Although the arguments I present in this book are largely concerned with the
sociocultural-political situations of the ethnic Chinese population in Hong
Kong, which represents a majority of around 93.6 per cent of the total population
of 7.07 million, I would like to mention that the minority groups in Hong Kong
are not ignored in my discussion. These groups amount to around 6.4 per cent of
the total Hong Kong population. They are categorized under ‘Other Ethnicities’
in Hong Kong in the 2011 Population Census conducted by the government.
Within this 6.4 per cent of the Hong Kong population, there are Indonesian
(1.89 per cent), Filipino (1.88 per cent), White (0.78 per cent), Indian (0.40 per
cent), Pakistani (0.26 per cent), Nepalese (0.23 per cent), Japanese (0.18 per
cent), Thai (0.16 per cent), Korean (0.07 per cent), other Asian (0.10 per cent)
and others (0.43 per cent). In other words, apart from the local community of
white European descent (including people hailing from the United Kingdom, the
United States, Canada, continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South
Africa), who may serve to support Cohen’s imperial diaspora proposition (1997,
2008), minorities in Hong Kong consist mostly of other Asians. The census indi-
cates that 98.7 per cent of these ethnic minorities are ‘Usual Residents’, while 1.3
per cent are ‘Mobile Residents’. A majority (86.7 per cent) of them were not born
in Hong Kong. The census results provide no further information on the cat-
egory of ‘Other Asian’ in the section on ‘Ethnicity of Population’, or about ‘Other
Nationalities’ in the section on ‘Nationality of Population’. The only exception
84 . New Hong Kong Cinema

is the category ‘Vietnamese’. While there is no mention of ‘Vietnamese’ in the

‘Thematic Report: Ethnic Minorities’ (2012) published by the 2011 Population
Census Office of the Census and Statistic Department of the local government,
the category ‘Vietnamese’ is included in the ‘Ethnicity’ item in the demographic
fact sheets for individual districts in Hong Kong. Whether these Vietnamese are
in fact Vietnamese by descent, or whether they are Vietnamese by nationality
remains uncertain.5
Vietnamese illegal immigration into Hong Kong was a heated topic in the
local public debates and mass media reports between the mid 1970s and the
late 1980s. The first Vietnamese refugees arrived at Hong Kong in May 1975.
The influx of boat people from Vietnam was caused by their fear of the new
Vietnamese Communist government and by subsequent ethnic cleansing car-
ried out by the government in the major cities of Vietnam. Many of the vic-
tims were ethnic Chinese, who then fled the country to neighbouring territories
such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Whereas Malaysia and
Singapore prohibited the Vietnamese refugees from entering their territories,
in 1979 Hong Kong declared itself a ‘port of first asylum’, effectively absorb-
ing all the Vietnamese refugees who might have planned to go to South East
Asian countries but were turned away. It is estimated that more than 210,000
Vietnamese have reached Hong Kong since the first boat arrived in 1975. As a
result, during the time when Hong Kong was taking in the Vietnamese refugees,
Hong Kong had one of the highest boat people populations in the region. Over
the years, the nature of these refugees has changed from political to mainly eco-
nomic (D. Wong 1983; C. Cheung 1998; Williams 2000).
Between the years 1975 and 2011, 143,714 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong
re-settled overseas. Some 57,344 Vietnamese illegal immigrants were repatriated
from Hong Kong back to Vietnam under the ‘UNHCR Voluntary Repatriation
Programme’ (1991–97). Another 19,210 Vietnamese migrants and illegal immi-
grants were repatriated under another scheme, the ‘Orderly Repatriation
Programme’, introduced in Hong Kong in 1991 (Immigration Department Annual
Report 2011). A ‘Widened Local Resettlement Scheme’ was implemented by the
Hong Kong SAR government in February 2000, allowing some 973 Vietnamese
refugees and 435 eligible Vietnamese migrants stranded in Hong Kong to be
assimilated into Hong Kong society.
The Vietnamese illegal immigrants have been a huge social and financial
burden for Hong Kong society during the pre- and post-Handover period. While
 Outsider Characters . 85

local mass media in Hong Kong reported on the negative impact of Vietnamese
refugee flow on Hong Kong society, international mass media focused more on
the human rights issues related to these boat people, such as the closed refugee
camps in which they were held and, later, the repatriation policy that received
serious international criticisms of Hong Kong’s ways of treating these outsiders
(Chugani 1984). The tense international relations between the United Kingdom
and China over the handling of the Vietnamese refugee problem during the
period leading up to the Handover was also a news topic in the international
mass media (Gittings 2000).

Boat People
Ann Hui was famously one of the first Hong Kong directors to explore the theme
of Vietnamese illegal immigrants in television programmes and cinematic works
in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Hui became an assistant to the Hong
Kong martial arts film guru King Hu after she had graduated from London Film
School in the 1970s. Her own directorship took off while working at the local
television station TVB. She also worked for a short while for the Independent
Commission Against Corruption (locally known as the ICAC), which is an inde-
pendent governmental unit combating corruption in society. Most of her works
display strong humanist concerns from a female perspective, something rare
in the male-dominated local film industry. Cultural studies scholar Mirana M.
Szeto (2011) celebrates Hui’s success in dealing with ‘cinematics of everyday life’
in a way that allows the director to connect with the local audience. Media cul-
ture scholar Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong (2011: 14) identifies Hui among a small group
of female auteurs worldwide. Hui and her films have earned awards and praise
from international film festivals that they themselves may at times demonstrate
gender bias. Over a directorial career spanning more than three decades, Hui
has used her films as powerful tools to show sympathy for the underprivileged
and to attend to what might generally be regarded as insignificant topics and/or
characters. This may explain why Hui was drawn to the topic of the Vietnamese
and their lives in Hong Kong in the 1970s. In 1978, she explored the issue of
Vietnamese boat people in a television episode entitled ‘The Boy from Vietnam’
(‘來客’) as part of the Below the Lion Rock (獅子山下) series sponsored by the
government-funded but independently operated Radio Television Hong Kong
(locally known as the RTHK). The story reflects the difficult life of a teenage
Vietnamese boy who has landed in Hong Kong and awaits resettlement to his
86 . New Hong Kong Cinema

final destination in the West. In 1981, Hui tackled a similar topic in a fictional film,
The Story of Woo Viet, featuring the up and coming Chow Yun-fat as an ethnic
Chinese refugee from Vietnam, who, instead of resettling in the United States,
ends up being a hired killer in the Chinatown of the Philippines.
Moving from the small screen to the big screen, again with the heated topic
of Vietnamese refugees, Hui made Boat People in 1982 (Shu 1988: 47; Hui 1998:
21). The project was initiated by the film’s producer Miranda Yang and funded
by a leftist Hong Kong-based company, Bluebird Movie (M. Berry 2005: 428).6
The film was released mainly in Hong Kong, although it also enjoyed limited
international release in the United States, France and Japan. It was screened to
selected audiences at major international film festivals such as the Cannes Film
Festival (as a selection film) and the New York International Film Festival in 1983
(Erens 2000b: 184; Stringer 2003: 17).
Boat People was shot on location in Hainan, China, which was meant as a
stand-in of Vietnam (M. Berry 2005: 429). Strictly speaking, the film is not about
Vietnamese refugees but about the hardships of their lives in Vietnam before
they choose to become boat people (Szeto 2011: 51). The film is set mainly in
1978, a time when the united communist Vietnam was in an incipient stage, and
tells the story of the Japanese photojournalist Akutagawa (George Lam), who
is invited by the Vietnamese government to be the witness of the country’s new
reforms. During the time when Akutagawa is in Vietnam, he makes friends with
several locals, including the family of the fourteen-year-old Cam Nuong (Season
Ma), To Minh (Andy Lau), Officer Nguyen (Qi Mengshi) and Nguyen’s mis-
tress (Cora Miao). All of them are leading a difficult life. Except Officer Nguyen,
they all hope to leave the country. Their experience shows the dark side of
Vietnam that is completely opposite to what the Vietnamese government wants
Akutagawa to see. After Cam Nuong’s mother, an illegal prostitute, has commit-
ted suicide, Akutagawa decides to help Cam Nuong and her young brother to
board the big boat and flee the country; in doing so he can save them from being
sent to the New Economic Zones where many people died of hard labour. The
plot ends with Akutagawa tragically sacrificing his life, albeit unintentionally, in
order to allow the Vietnamese siblings to flee successfully.
Although most of the major characters in the film are supposedly local
Vietnamese, they are played by popular Hong Kong Chinese actors and
actresses, such as George Lam, Cora Miao, and the then up and coming Andy
Lau and Season Ma. These characters in Boat People are supposedly outsiders
 Outsider Characters . 87

to Hong Kong society, yet bear certain linguistic similarities to the target audi-
ence in Hong Kong. All of them, including the main Japanese character, speak
fluent Cantonese to one another, but not the Vietnamese language. If not for the
opening scene portraying communist soldiers marching triumphantly on main
streets in Vietnam after the Vietnam War (1955–75), the viewers could indeed be
easily confused and think they were watching a Hong Kong Chinese-related film
(Sek 1988: 20). Hui’s reluctant admission that Boat People serves to dramatize
the Hongkongers’ perception of life and their fear of an uncertain future could
support this confusion (Stokes and Hoover 1999: 181, 347; see also Szeto 2011:
54–55). The timely (or one may say in hindsight, untimely) release of the film in
Hong Kong in mid October 1982, shortly after the commencement of a series of
negotiations regarding Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, quickly spurred the
local audience’s interest in the film (Hui 1998). Instead of the featured topic of
Vietnamese refugees, many local Chinese viewers saw the film as an allusion to
their own imminent destiny under the authoritarian rule of communist China.
The subsequent local box-office success (grossing more than HK$15 million
(£1.2 million or U.S.$1.9 million), and ranked number four among ninety-nine
Hong Kong films in that year’s Hong Kong box-office chart) brought to Hui both
her first major directorial success and, later on, much trouble on a political level
(Snapshots 1986: 7; Teo 1988: 41; Li C. 1994: 167; Chan C. 2000: 509; Leung P.
2000: 242; W. Cheung 2007: 207). In Chapter Three, I will explore more the
director’s possible political stance.
In particular, the fact that the male lead Akutagawa is Japanese may have
further problematized the sense of identification and identity among the Hong
Kong viewers in the early 1980s. One may even argue that Akutagawa represents
Hui’s alter ego exploring an imagined world that the filmmaker had never actually
been to, but had done a great deal of research on before starting the film’s pro-
duction (Cheuk 2012: 470). Not much information on Akutagawa’s background
is given in the film. Through his conversations with other characters, we learn
that he is an orphan and a Tokyo resident. He was married by the age of eight-
een but he does not mention anything about his wife or children. Comparable
with other lonesome characters often featured in accented films (Naficy 2001:
27, 290), Akutagawa as a character speaking Cantonese (Lam pretending to
have a Japanese accent) and coming from a developed country stands in strong
contrast with the main Vietnamese characters in this film. Yet, the characteri-
zation made by Lam, a popular Cantopop singer and seasoned actor, not only
88 . New Hong Kong Cinema

helps ease the incongruity and foreignness of Akutagawa, but also rouses the
audience’s sympathy for him and for those he cares about (W. Cheung 2007:
208–10; see also Bhabha 1994: 227–28). Akutagawa complicates this poignant,
semi-political drama by his own geographical, national and cultural displace-
ment: he starts out as a genuine outsider to the communist Vietnamese society
(as well as to the target audience’s familiar environment in Hong Kong), passes
through disillusionment with the country’s superficial stability, and assumes a
foster-father role for Cam Nuong and her brother after their mother’s death.
The penultimate scene illustrates this fully. It is enhanced by a dissolve from a
close-up of Cam Nuong (now aboard the big boat, her status changing from a
Vietnamese citizen to one of the Vietnamese boat people) to an extremely long
shot of Akutagawa (being burnt alive at the pier after the policemen have shot
him). On the one hand, this on-screen transit emphasizes both characters’ dis-
placement, and on the other hand it re-places Akutagawa in this foreign country
through Cam Nuong, who by this scene becomes Akutagawa’s cinematic exten-
sion visually and metaphorically. At the ending, the freeze frame of a close-up
showing Cam Nuong looking blankly at the sea works effectively to fix forever
the images of another set of identity displacement (out of Vietnam) and re-
placement (into a rough sea, as the film’s Chinese title Tou Ben Nu Hai suggests)
that are shown simultaneously. Despite being banned for political reasons in
China and Taiwan (and for ten years in Hong Kong), this Hong Kong New Wave
pioneer film, with the timeliness and multi-placement of its characters, remains
in the canon of important films in the New Hong Kong Cinema (Boat People
Reappears 1992: 26; Li C. 1994: 168–69; Hui 1998: 24; Stringer 2003: 20).

Mainland Chinese vs Hong Kong Chinese?

The dramatized incident in Boat People serves to fill in some of the blanks in the
public awareness and imagination in Hong Kong about how Vietnamese outsid-
ers might have ended up in the immigrant city. Since the early 1980s, another
kind of outsider coming from mainland China has quickly been made visible as
a secondary agenda to the discourses of Hong Kong’s political, economic, social,
cultural and historical contexts amid the city’s preparation for the Handover.
Interestingly, unlike the Vietnamese (who usually occupy the public imagination
in Hong Kong as refugees or boat people), what the mainland Chinese nationals
 Outsider Characters . 89

and new mainland Chinese immigrants stand for in the imagination of the Hong
Kong public has changed over time. This change has gone hand in hand with
Hong Kong’s development over the last three and a half decades as a global
city (similar to London and New York, especially in the realms of economic and
cultural interaction) (Sassen 2001), as well as with China’s economic reform.
Different mass media (e.g., newspapers,7 television dramas, novels and
novellas, Cantopop, radio talk shows and, of course, films) play a significant
role in influencing how the Hong Kong public has formed its impressions of this
unavoidable ‘other’ from the mainland. Although biased at times, the mediated
images of the mainlanders are not always negative. They are in fact very diverse.
They might be nondescript, laid-back sons, daughters and cousins, such as the
role of Ah Caan in the 1979 TVB drama series The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(網中人), and of Choi Sum in the 2013 TVB drama series Inbound Troubles (老
表, 你好嘢!). They might also be acquaintances (or people one has never met
before in real life) on Facebook or Twitter, members of one’s WhatsApp instant
messaging groups and Skype contacts. Sometimes, the mainlanders impress the
Hong Kong locals with the image of the worldly-wise lao xiong (pronounced in
broken Mandarin by the Cantonese-speaking Hongkongers; literally meaning
‘old big brother from the North’). At other times, they are represented as illegal
immigrants, for instance, in the role of Fan in Little Cheung (Fruit Chan, Hong
Kong, 2000) and Durian Durian, and of the female helper at the butcher’s in
Hollywood Hong Kong (Fruit Chan, France/Hong Kong/Japan/United Kingdom,
2001). They could also be hard-working middle-class office workers, such as the
role of Yen in Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai, China/
Hong Kong, 2011). The mainlanders are often found among intellectuals. But
they might also be associated with some of the biggest criminals the city has
ever had. Many Hong Kong-produced mainstream cop-and-gangster films have
the major role of villain from the mainland, e.g., in Long Arm of the Law, Intruder
(Tsang Kan-cheung, Hong Kong, 1997) and The Stool Pigeon (Dante Lam, Hong
Kong, 2010). The mainlanders might be found among those mainland Chinese
pregnant women abusing Hong Kong’s medical system, as in the role of Wong
Fei-fei in the 2012 TVB drama series Friendly Fire (法網狙擊). In other settings,
they could also be carers, such as the role of Pearl in Homecoming, and of Miss
Choi in the nursing home in A Simple Life. The mainlanders might also be among
the elite, wealthy venture capitalists and business executives, such as the role
of Chen Handong in Lan Yu (Stanley Kwan, China/Hong Kong, 2001), and of
90 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Brother Tyrannosaurus in Vulgaria. They might be part of the authorities, Hong

Kong-based People’s Liberation Army members and mainland Chinese police-
men (or other kinds of mainland Chinese uniformed officials). We can see them
in the cameo of the soldiers in The Longest Summer (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong,
1998), and in the role of Inspector Shen Chen in Infernal Affairs III, of Li in The
Floating Landscape (Carol Lai, Hong Kong, 2003), of the mainland Chinese police
captain in Election 2, and of Fang Zhengdong in A Beautiful Life (Andrew Lau,
China/Hong Kong, 2011). In a lot of Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films,
the mainlanders are represented as victimized females, such as prostitutes,
femme-fatale figures or battered new immigrants. For example, we can find
them in the role of the prostitute in Intruder, of Yan in Durian Durian, of Hung
Hung (aka Tong Tong) in Hollywood Hong Kong, of Mary in Mary from Beijing
(Sylvia Chang, Hong Kong, 1992), of Li Qiao in Comrades, Almost a Love Story,
of Vivian in Chinese Box (Wayne Wong, France/Japan/United States, 1996), of
Bai Ling in 2046, of Mei in Dumplings (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong, 2004), of Sun Na
(aka Xiaoyu) in Perhaps Love (Peter Chan, China/Hong Kong/Malaysia, 2005),
of Chung Chun-lei in Sparrow and of Wong Hiu-ling in Night and Fog (Ann Hui,
Hong Kong, 2009). But the mainland Chinese are also portrayed in films as
practitioners of various cultural and creative industries, such as the major char-
acters in Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow, China/Hong Kong, 2001) and Beijing
Rocks (Mabel Cheung, Hong Kong, 2001). They might also be seen in films in the
roles of heroes, stars and celebrities, and so forth. Over the years, the images of
mainland Chinese counterparts have formed an inseparable part of the real, as
well as the imaginary, state of existence of Hong Kong – a city located on the
southern edge of China’s territory, and which itself is a composite product of
multiple waves of migrations from mainland China (and other territories). The
mainlanders are, one may even argue, a kind of alter ego that suggests to Hong
Kong society what a ‘Chinese’ city is like or not like.

Durian Durian
Still, stereotypes of this prominent ‘other’ from the mainland have abounded in
Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films over the past thirty-plus years since
the Hongkongers started to seriously consider and construct their own identity
through visual images. In Durian Durian, we see two kinds of images of this main-
land ‘other’– illegal mainland prostitute and child immigrant. The mainlanders
in Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films may not be put in marginalized
 Outsider Characters . 91

positions. Yet, they are often given the kind of spotlight that does not do them
justice either. In the cases of illegal mainland prostitutes and child immigrants,
they are often discussed in a negative manner in the sociopolitical contexts of
Hong Kong. Being an independent Hong Kong production, Durian Durian strives
to redress this problem, but the film ends up in a self-knitted web of complicated
and unanswered questions that perhaps only time can resolve.
This docudrama is the fourth feature film made by Hong Kong independent
director Fruit Chan after he has turned away from the mainstream Hong Kong
film industry (see Chapter Three for Fruit Chan’s biographical background).
Before Durian Durian, Fruit Chan made his Handover Trilogy, which includes
Made in Hong Kong (1997), The Longest Summer (1998) and Little Cheung (2000).
These three films portray various archetypal Hong Kong locals, especially those
born and raised under the British colonial system, in order to explore and scru-
tinize the effects of the Handover on the Hongkongers. Durian Durian (2000) is
the first of Fruit Chan’s Prostitute Trilogy (still unfinished), which also includes
Hollywood Hong Kong (2001). The third film in this supposed trilogy has not been
made; for a long time, Fruit Chan’s Public Toilet (Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea,
2002) has been mistakenly thought of by critics as this third one (E. Cheung
2009: 152 note 17). Public Toilet marks a halt in the director’s annual production
of independent films that he started to make in 1997.8
Durian Durian obtained financial support from Wild Bunch, the French film
distribution and international sales company that has handled the international
sales of many award-winning films, such as Spirited Away (Miyazaki Hayao,
Japan, 2001) and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Belgium/
Romania, 2007) (Gan 2005: 23). The film reached its audiences mainly through
the international film festival circuit, moving from Venice, Toronto, London,
Hong Kong in 2000 to Rotterdam in 2001, before selected international release
in other territories such as Tokyo and Malaysia, and DVD sales much later on.
Durian Durian follows the stories of two different mainland Chinese charac-
ters who stay in Hong Kong temporarily, each for their own specific reason. The
first half of the film is about the story of Fan, the same illegal child immigrant
from Little Cheung (Ye 2000: 22). Little Cheung is about the eponymous nine-
year-old boy who has lived all his life in Mongkok, one of the old districts in Hong
Kong, and the sociopolitical changes of the society he has witnessed over about
a year. Durian Durian picks up what is left untold about Fan in Little Cheung (Fan
in both films is played by nine-year-old amateur actress Mak Wai-fan from Hong
92 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Kong). Through Fan’s voice-over, we learn that she was born to a Hong Kong
father and a mainland Chinese mother, and that she regards mainland China as
her real home. Fan is a typical example of tens of thousands of children who are
not given the right of abode in Hong Kong by birth due to the non-citizenship
of one or both of their parents (HK Government 2001). In order to reunite with
her whole family in Hong Kong, the girl overstays in the city after her three-
month entry visa has expired. Yet, during the time in Hong Kong, she is confined
at home for fear of being caught overstaying. Going to school is unfortunately
also out of the question. Often shot at low camera height from the subjective
point of view of Fan, the city to her, as an outsider, looks different from what it is
often associated with: glamour, progress, civilization and prosperity. All Fan can
see (and all that the audience can see through Fan’s eyes) are dark alleyways,
the small flat in which she is cramped up with the whole family, and other illegal
immigrants or migrant workers. There is no place for Fan in Hong Kong and,
naturally, she is not happy there.
Half way through the film, Fan meets the 21-year-old Yan (played by profes-
sional mainland Chinese actress Qin Hailu). From then on, the vantage point of
the film changes from that of Fan to that of Yan. Yan, who is also from China,
works illegally as a prostitute while she is on a three-month travel visa in Hong
Kong. She represents another kind of outsider to Hong Kong society. Yan’s main
goal is to stay in Hong Kong to earn quick money through prostitution before
returning home in a post-industrial town in the north-east of China. Although
Yan is from a middle-class family and has received proper training in the Beijing
opera performing arts, like everyone else from her generation she struggles to
make a living in her hometown.
The stories of Fan and Yan subvert the stereotypical images of these two types
of mainlanders in the minds of many Hongkongers (V. Lee 2009: 172). To Fan and
Yan, China is their ultimate home no matter how harsh their lives there have been.
Hong Kong, in contrast, is the unapproachable ‘other’. Their improvised lines and
dialogues in the film make their unpleasant situations in Hong Kong stand out in
sharp relief against Hong Kong’s seeming prosperity after 1997 (F. Chan 2000; M.
Berry 2005: 472, 476). Their presence in the city seems also to ask the audience to
look at Hong Kong and the characters’ own situations from a double-alternative
angle, in that late capitalism has gradually taken its toll on both China and Hong
Kong (Tsui 2000). Moreover, the two females’ illegitimate status during their tem-
porary stays in Hong Kong also questions the effectiveness and the limitations
 Outsider Characters . 93

of the ‘one country, two systems’ political framework, as well as other intertwin-
ing cultural, economic and psychological relationships between Hong Kong and
China (Acquarello 2001; Cheng S. 2002; Gan 2005: 2; V. Lee 2009: 176–77). As
film scholar Esther M.K. Cheung (2008: 90) argues, the ‘realistic’ traits of this
docudrama are better understood in specific historical and cultural contexts. To
the author, Fruit Chan employs a realistic film style (e.g., he uses quasi-realistic
mise en scène) to enhance ‘the impressions and effects of the “real”’ (E. Cheung
2008: 90) in a film that is, after all, fiction and is reliant on the use of symbolism to
explore the themes of ‘homelessness’ and ‘dislocation’ (M. Berry 2005: 474, 477).
Talking about the symbolism of the eponymous fruit durian that is described in the
Chinese title of the film as the ‘floating durian’ (E. Cheung 2008: 92), Fruit Chan
comments: ‘Durian is a strange fruit. People who like it thinks [sic] it’s the greatest,
people who don’t think it really stinks’ (Ye 2000: 23). Much like the fruit’s ambigu-
ous position in the minds of its consumers, the ambivalent view of reunification
of Hong Kong and China, and the exacerbated atmosphere of homelessness and
helplessness in Hong Kong society after 1997, are still bothering many Hong Kong
and mainland Chinese.

Going Home (in Three)

Not surprisingly, the mainland ‘other’ is often met with in Hong Kong genre films,
such as the widely celebrated kung fu films and the more recent pan-Asian hor-
rors (Choi and Wada-Marciano 2009). The latter were revitalized in the late
1990s under the inspiration of successful Japanese horror films (aka J-horror),
e.g., Ringu (Nakata Hideo, Japan, 1998). Peter Chan’s Going Home, part of the
first omnibus pan-Asian horror, Three, explores the sensitive issues of mainland
Chinese immigrants. The mainland ‘other’ here is the male lead, played by one of
the most bankable East Asian stars, Leon Lai (who was born in Beijing and raised
in Hong Kong). The cast certainly poses challenges to the imagery often used in
Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films to represent the mainlanders.
The film segment of Going Home, which runs for around fifty minutes, tells
the tragic love story of Yu (Leon Lai) and his wife Hai’er (Eugenia Yuan).9 It is set
in a rundown, almost deserted public housing complex.10 Widowed policeman
Wai (Eric Tsang) moves into the area with his eight-year-old son. The young
boy is scared by the ghostly atmosphere in the neighbourhood, and claims he
keeps seeing a young girl in a red dress. Wai does not pay much attention to
his son’s complaint until one day the boy disappears after school. Wai searches
94 . New Hong Kong Cinema

around for his son but to no avail. He goes to his only neighbour Yu, who lives in
another block right across from Wai’s. After Yu has denied having seen the boy,
Wai sneaks into Yu’s flat and discovers that Yu is keeping his wife’s corpse in
the flat. Yu hits and ties up Wai the intruder. In the conversations thereafter, Yu
reveals that he and his wife are from Changsa, China. Both of them are qualified
Chinese medical doctors, yet both developed cancer. Yu is trying to resurrect
Hai’er from death by bathing her dead body with Chinese herbal medicine every
day. He hopes that, once Hai’er wakes up, they can go back home to mainland
China. When Wai’s colleagues come to look for Wai, they take Yu as a luna-
tic and remove the corpse of Hai’er from the flat. In the finale, Yu is knocked
down by a car when he attempts to chase after the vehicle carrying his wife’s
body away. Yu also dies eventually. It is later revealed that Hai’er used the same
method to resurrect Yu from death three years ago. The (ghostly) girl in a red
dress turns out to be their aborted child.
Going Home highlights and blurs the boundaries between Hong Kong natives
and their mainland counterparts both inside and outside the film story (Li C.
2012: 201; Wong C-f. 2012: 203). Yu is perfectly bilingual in both Mandarin and
Cantonese. When he speaks to Hai’er’s dead body in Mandarin, he is at ‘home’
in the mental sphere that he creates for himself and Hai’er. Wai, who intrudes
in their sphere, is the outsider. But when Yu is talking to Wai in Cantonese, he is
aware of his outsider’s location in Hong Kong society. This is visually presented
by the almost vacant residential complex where only the lowly paid police-
man and the unemployed mainland Chinese medical doctor would consider
living. The casting of Leon Lai and Eric Tsang as the main characters, and the
Mandarin-speaking Eugenia Yuan as the supporting actress, adds one more
dimension to the blurry boundaries between the Chinese of Hong Kong and
those of the mainland. Yuan was a newcomer in the Hong Kong film industry.
Born and raised in the United States, she is the eldest daughter of Cheng Pei-pei,
who is the martial arts star famous for her connections with Shaw Brothers and
her performance in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, China/Hong Kong/
Taiwan/United States, 2000). According to Peter Chan, Three was one of the
first ambitious strategies of Asian-based filmmakers gathering Asian talent and
investments to capitalize on the regional markets in recent years. If so, in addi-
tion to Lai and Tsang’s bankability with the East Asian audience markets (espe-
cially those of Chinese-language films), the ambiguity of boundaries between
the mainland Chinese and the Hong Kong Chinese is indeed necessary to please
 Outsider Characters . 95

the audiences on both side of the border (Frater 2000; Mazurkewich 2000).
While paving the way to the successful pan-Asian Three… Extremes (2004)11 and
The Eye series (2002, 2004, 2005),12 Peter Chan’s Going Home arguably gave the
director/producer a confident poise to penetrate further the Chinese-language
audience markets (especially on the mainland) in the years to come (Shackleton
2009b). After co-founding Applause Pictures in 2000 in Hong Kong to develop
his concept of pan-Asian productions, and after producing an array of financially
and critically successful pan-Asian projects, Peter Chan moved on to establish
We Pictures in 2008. The company is aimed at producing and selling ‘China-
centric’ films, in the hope of changing the vista of Chinese-language cinemas.13
From this perspective, the mainland Chinese ‘other’ in Peter Chan’s films (from
Comrades, Almost a Love Story to Going Home) can be viewed as an important
element in the filmmaker’s course to ultimate success.

South East Asian-Chinese and Animated Chinese

So far I have discussed two main types of outsiders to Hong Kong society that
filmmakers present in Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films. In real life,
these so-called outsiders have brought to the Hong Kong citizens, at worst,
social and economic strain, and at best, a chance to revisit the Hongkongers’
own existence as being ‘Chinese’. As anthropologist David Yen-ho Wu (1994:
150–51) puts it concisely when explaining the multi-layering of perceptions of
the concept of ‘Chinese’ among the Chinese:

Both Zhonguoren [literally, people from the China country] and zhonghua
minzu [literally, the Chinese people clan] represent an identity based on con-
cepts of cultural and historical fulfillment rather than the more conventional
modern notions of nationality or citizenship. Since most Chinese have believed
that the Han people were the race of China, one that had absorbed people of
all languages, customs, and racial and ethnic origins, the meanings of being
Chinese in the sense of ethnicity, culture, citizenship, or residence were almost
never addressed. (emphasis in original)

Over the years Hong Kong filmmakers have not just portrayed Vietnamese boat
people and the mainland Chinese as the two most visible groups of outsiders.
96 . New Hong Kong Cinema

In some instances films have presented characters that come from other social
and cultural minorities living at the margin of Hong Kong society. These might
not be refugees, like the Vietnamese; or illegal immigrants, like some of the
mainland Chinese. Many of the other minorities found in Hong Kong, such as
Thais, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Indonesians, Filipinos, Nepalese, have gained
legal status in Hong Kong through the official channels of migration, work or
personal connections (e.g., marriage to Hong Kong citizens). Even though they
account for less than 6.4 per cent of the total population in Hong Kong, they are
rarely given the limelight in Hong Kong mainstream films, which are still filled
with mostly Chinese or Chinese-like faces.
Recent Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films shot on location in South
East Asia tend to feature Cantonese-speaking Chinese immigrants to these
countries (e.g., Thailand, Malaysia). These films, which cater mainly to the view-
ers in Hong Kong, then offer an opportunity of empathy, rather indirectly, to the
target audience to understand the situations of new immigrants and minority
groups hosted by Hong Kong. The setting of their stories is justifiably not in
Hong Kong but in South East Asian countries. Employing Hong Kong Chinese
actors and actresses to play the roles of diasporic Chinese living in South East
Asia can further enhance these films’ appeal to their target audience in Hong
Kong. On the other hand, Hong Kong-led runaway productions have benefited
from the long-existing East and South East Asian film production and distribu-
tion networks. These film business connections were first established promi-
nently by the Shaws (operating under the company name Tianyi (aka Unique)
Film Productions at the beginning) in the 1920s and maintained throughout the
years. In the early 2000s, the film business connections in the region were revi-
talized by Peter Chan’s pan-Asian co-production concept through his co-owned
Applause Pictures. Affordable production costs in South East Asian territories
also facilitate the proliferation of these runaway productions during the new
millennium. Some of the most recent ones include Patrick Tam’s award-winning
After This Our Exile, which was shot on location in Perak and Kuala Lumpur in
Malaysia, and the Pang Brothers’ The Detective series, which was shot mainly in
Thailand.

The Detective Series

Oxide Pang (the elder of the twin brothers) directed all three films in The
Detective series. They include The Detective (Oxide Pang, Hong Kong, 2007),
 Outsider Characters . 97

The Detective 2 (Oxide Pang, Hong Kong, 2011) and Conspirators (Oxide Pang,
Hong Kong, 2013; aka the last instalment of The Detective series). The twin
brothers also had the roles of the producers of The Detective and The Detective 2,
and Oxide Pang was the co-producer of Conspirators. The younger of the twins,
Danny Pang, did not work on the final instalment. The series was produced by
Universe Entertainment (Hong Kong), while the first two instalments were pro-
duced in association with several other companies, including Sil-Metropole and
Magic Head Film Production. All the films in this series belong to a new genera-
tion of Hong Kong noirish crime thrillers with a Thai flavour. Although they were
mainly shot in Bangkok, Thailand (the final instalment was also shot on location
in Malaysia and in Guangzhou, China), Hong Kong, not Thailand, is regarded as
the films’ sole country of origin. Also, the films did not have theatrical release in
Thailand. The Detective was released in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore
and South Korea. The Detective 2 and Conspirators had similar places of theatri-
cal release to that of The Detective, except the list included Taiwan instead of
South Korea.
The Pang Brothers themselves are ethnic Chinese born in Hong Kong in 1965.
They started their involvement in film production by working, respectively, as
colourist (Oxide Pang) and editor (Danny Pang). Their film production and
directorial careers, nonetheless, did not start in Hong Kong but in Thailand, after
they moved there in the early 1990s. There the Pangs directed television com-
mercials for a while. Their co-directorial debut was Bangkok Dangerous (Oxide
and Danny Pang, Thailand, 1999), which was shown at major international film
festivals, such as Toronto and Rotterdam. It was subsequently remade by the
Pangs in 2008 into the Hollywood-style, action-packed Bangkok Dangerous
(Oxide and Danny Pang, United States, 2008). This 2008 film was shot on loca-
tion in Bangkok, starring Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage in the male lead role and
Hong Kong actress Charlie Yeung as the female lead. The remake is labelled an
American film. It has enjoyed much wider international theatrical release than
its Thai version. The success of Bangkok Dangerous showered sudden fame and
wide recognition on the Pangs; this caught the attention of Peter Chan, who
around that time was developing his concept of pan-Asian co-production at
Applause Pictures. Peter Chan, whose parents are Thailand-born Chinese, spent
his formative years in Thailand, and has developed personal and professional
ties with the country. He invited the Pangs to return to Hong Kong from Thailand
to make The Eye in 2002. It was a financially and critically successful ghost film
98 . New Hong Kong Cinema

(E. Liu 2004a, 2004b; Li C. 2012: 196–97). The connection between pan-Asian
productions, Hong Kong, Thailand and horror stories thus arguably forms the
backbone of The Detective series and its basis for success on the Hong Kong
commercial cinema scene (Martin 2007; The Detective 2 2011).
The films tell the story of Chan Tam (Aaron Kwok), an ethnic-Chinese pri-
vate detective living and doing most of his detective work in the Chinatown of
Bangkok. A dropout from the Thai police academy, Chan Tam is evidently no
genius as a detective. The Cantonese title of the The Detective, C+ Zing Taam (a
play on words denoting both a private detective and a grade C detective) indi-
cates Chan Tam’s mediocrity and, at times, poor performance in his profession.
Chan Tam’s clumsiness has made it hard for him to sustain his business and has
led him into conflicts with the local police force, though he has a good police
friend Fung Chak (Liu Kai-chi). In The Detective Chan Tam is suddenly commis-
sioned by a local bully to find a missing girl. Several murder cases are uncovered
during the search, eventually revealing the presence of a supernatural force and
the cause of the mysteries – the missing girl is already dead and has returned to
the mundane world to take her revenge. In The Detective 2 (with a Cantonese
title B+ Zing Taam to indicate Chan Tam’s professional improvement in this
second instalment), Chan Tam again gets involved in mysterious serial murders.
He uncovers the identity of the murderer, who is an ethnic Chinese orphan living
in Thailand. Also revealed in the course of this search are the possible causes
of the murder of Chan Tam’s parents and his subsequent troubled childhood.
Conspirators continues the story that is told in the two previous instalments. It
unveils the real cause of the death of Chan Tam’s parents and the identity of
their murderer.
From the start in the series, Chan Tam is portrayed as a lone character. He is
an orphan and lives alone in the attic of a cinema house he inherited from his par-
ents after their disappearance (the fact that they were murdered is only revealed
to him much later in life). To the Thai police force, and by extension, to Thai
society, he is a complete outsider. Although he speaks Thai, he prefers to speak
in his mother tongue, Cantonese, with his Chinatown neighbours. This language
choice shows his Chinese diaspora status and his possible ancestral roots in the
south of China where Cantonese is spoken. Yet, his expression of Chineseness is
by no means a direct reference to mainland China alone, exemplifying Hau’s idea
of multi-sited Chineseness (2012). The fact that Chan Tam has been orphaned
since childhood also suggests to the audiences his lack of real national/parental
 Outsider Characters . 99

roots. Although rootless, Chan Tam as a private detective knows his position in
Chinatown inside-out, which is that of someone who somewhat defines and con-
fines his own marginalization in his host country Thailand. His involvement with
the unexplained supernatural power (in instalment 1) and the dark side of human
nature (in instalments 2 and 3) adds further dimensions to the mysterious past of
this anti-hero-type character. To the target audiences, especially those in Hong
Kong, the role of Chan Tam seems also to serve as an on-screen image for those
Thai natives residing in and hosted by Hong Kong. It may raise the question as
to who the hosts and the hosted actually are. The lonesome character of Chan
Tam thus multiplies the interstitial qualities of this Hong Kong series produced
astride the filmmaking environments of Hong Kong and Thailand in a film busi-
ness network where China is exercising its unprecedented power (Naficy 2001:
46–47). Chan Tam’s isolated state of existence and psychology blend in well with
the coarse and edgy visuals of the films, which are saturated with a bleached
colour tone and a heavy use of chiaroscuro. Such visuals strike a stark contrast
to the more vibrant and robust depictions of Bangkok city life often found in the
mass media. These aesthetic qualities thus further enhance the mysterious and
noirish atmosphere of this Hong Kong thriller series.
Although the instalments in The Detective series are commercial Hong Kong
films, the lonesomeness of the main character certainly echoes the displace-
ment situations of many similar outsider characters we find in the New Hong
Kong Cinema, and more generally in different accented films (in Naficy’s sense).
All the Chinese-Thai characters in The Detective series help enrich the stories
told by Hong Kong filmmakers in general in recent years. The focus of their
films is no longer just on how the Hong Kong Chinese are dealing with their lives
after the Handover, but also on widening the public awareness and imagination
regarding ethnic minorities who live among the Hong Kong Chinese.

The McDull Series

Among the existing scholarly investigations into contemporary Hong Kong
Cinema, animation is probably one of the most under-researched areas. The
relatively insignificant number of animation outputs from Hong Kong certainly
does not help. Even if they are made, Hong Kong’s local animations are often
produced under the shadow of two dominant players in the field of world anima-
tion – Japanese animated films (especially those turned out by Miyazaki Hayao’s
Studio Ghibli) and the Walt Disney cartoons. Since the beginning of the new
100 . New Hong Kong Cinema

millennium, the Hong Kong screenscape has been marked by cartoons about
McDull and his group of kindergarten friends.
In the animation, McDull’s year of birth is given as 1995. He is a little pinky
piglet with a brownish birthmark around his right eye and another on his forehead
(reminiscent of Mikhail Gorbachev’s forehead birthmark). McDull lives with his
mother Mrs Mc (aka Tam Yuk-lin) in Tai Kok Tsui on the Kowloon side of Hong
Kong. While Mrs Mc is a streetwise single parent, McDull is not very smart and
does not do well in school. However, he is very kind and obedient to his mother.
McDull goes to the neighbourhood Springfield Flowers Kindergarten that is run
by the Principal and taught by Miss Chan. Like many big-screen Japanese ani-
mated figures, McDull has his origin in a Hong Kong local comic series, McMug,
in which he is a supporting character. The eponymous McMug is McDull’s dis-
tant cousin and a much smarter pinky piglet. The comic series was created by
cartoonist Alice Mak and her colleague-turned-husband, author Brian Tse.
It started coming out in the Ming Pao Weekly magazine in 1988. Whereas the
cartoon figures are drawn in a simplistic, childlike style with a very light outline
and pastel-tone watercolours against a minimalist background, the content of
this comic series caters to an educated adult audience. Through the characters’
witty conversations, spoken in Cantonese, and their satirical comments on the
current affairs of Hong Kong, this delightful series is known for its reflection of
authentic Hong Kong culture (Lau 2012).
Over the years, McDull has gained increasing popularity, stealing much of
the limelight from his cousin McMug. McDull makes frequent appearances in
various mass media and has been featured in six animated films since 2001.
They are My Life as McDull (Toe Yuen, Hong Kong, 2001); McDull, Prince de la
Bun (Toe Yuen, Hong Kong, 2004); McDull, The Alumni (Samson Chiu, Hong
Kong, 2006); McDull, Kung Fu Kindergarten (Brian Tse, China/Hong Kong/Japan,
2009); The Pork of Music (Brian Tse, China/Hong Kong, 2012); and McDull. Me
& My Mum (Brian Tse and Li Junmin, China/Hong Kong, 2014). These anima-
tions enjoyed mainstream theatrical release in Hong Kong (and also mainland
Chinese theatrical release since the 2009 film), while all McDull films have been
screened at various international film festivals around the world, such as Hong
Kong, Moscow, Chicago, Tokyo, Paris, Hamburg, Singapore, Locarno, Annecy
International Animated Film Festival and in Cannes Film Market. The McDull
films are popular among Hong Kong and non-Hong Kong audiences for their
charm and authenticity (Kraicer 2002; Elley 2002–3).
 Outsider Characters . 101

The McDull films are easily recognizable by their fragmented contents

(except for the 2012 and 2014 episodes, each of which has a complete plot).
There are usually no main threads spanning the entire film. The philosophical
voice-over (by an adult version of McDull) hence becomes an important ele-
ment, giving a sense of unity to each of the films and putting all the fragments
in a wider perspective. At the same time, the untranslatable, colloquial and at
times vulgar Cantonese language spoken in the voice-over and the film dia-
logues is a major characteristic of the McDull series (Elley 2004). The voices
of McDull’s main characters are performed by famous Hong Kong actors and
actresses, including Sandra Ng as Mrs Mc (Ng is the partner of Peter Chan in real
life), Anthony Wong as the Principal/waiter and Andy Lau as McDull’s father.
Another noticeable feature of the McDull series is the frequent use of real street
scenes from Hong Kong as a background, highlighting the setting of the story.
By means of 3-D imaging, hand-drawn 2-D cartoon figures often appear against
a backdrop of recognizable Hong Kong streets to tell their own stories and the
stories of Hong Kong (Paquet 2006). Film critic Shelly Kraicer (2002) compares
McDull to Disney’s cartoons: ‘Disney’s move is ideological: it falsifies history/
reality to sanitize and give false comfort. McDull, on the other hand, captures
something like “authenticity” via patently artificial means: it defamiliarlizes, pro-
voking thoughtful reengagement with the society it depicts’. In this context, it is
thus not difficult to see that the creators of the McDull stories use McDull and
other characters to represent different types of local residents of Hong Kong
and how they think about their home city. The animated porcine hero is both
an outsider to the human society of Hong Kong and also an absolute local, as
evident during the finale of My Life as McDull when the grown-up McDull sud-
denly assumes a real human form.
In little McDull’s eyes, Hong Kong always undergoes constant development
and redevelopment. His neighbourhood in Tai Kok Tsui is cramped with old
buildings waiting to be torn down by wealthy land developers in urban renewal
projects. Although McDull tries very hard to learn different life-enhancing skills
(such as ‘bun snatching’ in My Life as McDull and martial arts in McDull, Kung
Fu Kindergarten) under Mrs Mc’s great expectations, he is basically very content
with what he has. As the little piglet says repeatedly in McDull, Prince de la Bun,
he prefers to live in the present. McDull’s attitude to life echoes those Hong
Kong Chinese who are happy with what they have amid certain sociocultural
constraints of the environment. His parents, however, see things differently. Mrs
102 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Mc works very hard and considers various new ideas on how to earn money
in order to prepare for an imagined better life in the future; she even buys a
plot in a graveyard in Guangdong, China to prepare for her afterlife. Contrarily,
McDull’s father Mc Bing, who has long disappeared from their lives, wants to
find his glorious past. He is only mentioned in a bedtime story, the Prince of Bun,
told by Mrs Mc to McDull. Allegedly a lost prince, Mc Bing is a useless man and
for years has stranded himself in a place that is not his home. His sudden disap-
pearance (in an attempt to go and find his kingdom) symbolizes those diasporic
Chinese who reside in Hong Kong but do not quite know where home really is.
This is reinforced by a mix and match of nostalgic street scenes of 1960s Hong
Kong, contemporary Hong Kong streets full of Filipino domestic helpers and the
animated scene of Cantonese opera (a dying performing arts tradition in Hong
Kong). While these characters understand that they might have Chinese roots
(as is said of their distant ancestor, McFat, in McDull, Kung Fu Kindergarten), they
do not have direct connections with mainland China. Tai Kok Tsui in Hong Kong
is and remains their home. No matter how hard life is for them in Hong Kong,
there is always hope; and love abounds.

Concluding Remarks

This chapter has reviewed different kinds of representations (and representa-

tives) of Chineseness via the use of outsider characters in the New Hong Kong
Cinema. Over the past thirty-plus years, it has by no means been a random deci-
sion to feature various non-Hong Kong Chinese personalities in film, whether
they are Vietnamese refugees, mainland illegal immigrants, Chinese minorities
in South East Asia or beloved animated figures. Very often the existence of these
specific characters in Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films coincided with
the most debated topics in the public domain in Hong Kong. Filmmakers could
provide the audiences with opportunities to revisit these heated discussions in
condensed and dramatized versions through the medium of film. They have thus
made use of their roles as members of a cultural and creative labour force to
experiment with the idea of being ‘Chinese’ today. Film viewers, especially the
local audience in Hong Kong, could imagine themselves in similar situations to
those of these sociopolitically foreign characters in a diegetic environment. The
resulting empathy with the filmic characters was (and still is) likely to be useful
 Outsider Characters . 103

for film viewers to deal with their own selves in real life in a transitional, histori-
cal time of Hong Kong. Nonetheless, as in other cinematic phenomena (e.g., the
abundance of ‘journeys’ and ‘journeying’ in film) that I have discussed, these
outsider characters are not quick solutions and direct answers to the Hong Kong
Chinese’s identity quest, not least because circumstances within and beyond
the city have been changing drastically in the course of Hong Kong’s political-
historical transitions.
Ironically, although these non-Hong Kong Chinese personalities and their
cinematic presentations could help Hong Kong filmmakers and film viewers alike
to explore issues relevant to their identities in real life, their ‘outsider’ status has
once again been reinforced. One may also argue that featuring these outsider
characters on screen highlights the superiority-inferiority complex from which
the Hong Kong Chinese have suffered on an ongoing basis, and which they must
resolve in order to come to terms with their new identities in the new political-
historical era. In the next chapter, I will further explore the Hongkongers’ tran-
sitional identity complex in the cases where Hong Kong filmmakers attempt to
inscribe themselves and their authorial vision more directly in film.

Notes

 1. Relevant survey findings were drawn from the Chinese-language press release
entitled ‘The Identity and National Identification of Hong Kong People – Survey
Findings’ (dated November 2012). The press release was obtained by the author via
personal email exchanges with the Centre for Communication and Public Opinion
Survey at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in late December 2012. See also the
Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey’s website (English), www.
com.cuhk.edu.hk/ccpos/en/tracking3.html (accessed 5 May 2015).
 2. In Cantonese, the written form of ‘Huaren’ is read as wa yan.
 3. Mandarin is by no means the lingua franca of ethnic Chinese. The mother tongue of
most overseas Chinese, especially those settled in North America, is Cantonese. Oral
communication between these Chinese communities and, for example, the Hong
Kong Chinese, whose mother tongue is Cantonese, would more likely be conducted
in the Cantonese language. In this scenario, Cantonese, not Mandarin, becomes the
common language of different ethnic Chinese communities living outside mainland
China.
 4. There are three segments in Three (2002): Going Home (directed by Peter Chan,
representing Hong Kong); Memories (directed by Kim Jee-woon, representing South
Korea); The Wheel (directed by Nonzee Nimibutr, representing Thailand).
104 . New Hong Kong Cinema

 5. It is said on the ‘Nationality and Ethnicity’ online interactive chart of the 2011
Population Census of Hong Kong that, ‘The ethnicity of a person is determined
by self-identification. The classification of ethnicity is determined with reference
to a combination of concepts such as cultural origins, nationality, colour and lan-
guage. This practice is in line with the recommendations promulgated by the United
Nations in 2008, and has taken into account the practices of other countries as well
as local circumstances’.
 6. In the Hong Kong context, ‘leftist’ is often used interchangeably with ‘pro-Chinese
Communist’. This is different from what the ‘left’ might mean in Europe or the United
States.
 7. Although they are controversial and always under public scrutiny, local Hong Kong
newspaper reports have formed one of the main sources informing the Hong Kong
general public of the problems that the mainland Chinese bring to the city, e.g.,
the illegal child migrants, the mainland Chinese prostitution, the birth tourism and
anchor babies in Hong Kong (aka babies born in Hong Kong to mainland Chinese
couples), the problem of the mainland Chinese’s right of abode in Hong Kong, the
issues of bulk purchase of baby milk powder in Hong Kong by the mainland Chinese,
the quarrels on public transport between the Hong Kong Chinese and the mainland
Chinese tourists, etc. (Yeung 2000; Life in the Shadows 2006; Mainland Girl 2012;
Parallel Importers 2013; see also J. Liu 2012).
 8. Fruit Chan did not release a film in 1999, but released two in 2000. They are Little
Cheung and Durian Durian.
 9. About ten more minutes of footage was added to make Going Home a feature film.
The feature version is entitled Three: Going Home. It enjoyed separate yet limited
release in 2002 in Hong Kong shortly after Three was theatrically released there (See
Li C. 2012: 201).
10. The film was shot on location in the former Police Married Quarters, located on
Hollywood Road on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong.
11. There are three segments in Three… Extremes (2004): Box (directed by Miike Takashi,
representing Japan); Cut (directed by Park Chan-wook, representing South Korea);
Dumplings (directed by Fruit Chan, representing Hong Kong).
12. Film information: The Eye (Oxide and Danny Pang, Hong Kong/Singapore, 2002); The
Eye 2 (Oxide and Danny Pang, Hong Kong/Singapore, 2004); The Eye 10 (aka The Eye
Infinity and The Eye 3) (Oxide and Danny Pang, Hong Kong, 2005).
13. Source: We Pictures’ official website, www.wepictures.com (accessed 5 May 2015).
Chapter Three

Hong Kong Filmmakers

Authorial Vision, Self-Inscription and Social
Underdogs

Since the late 1990s, the local Chinese mass media in Hong Kong have widely
started to use the term ‘collective memory’ to give meanings to specific events,
landmarks and personalities that have disappeared in the society. They con-
note the Hongkongers’ remembrance of their recent past that has nothing to
do with the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization history. The ‘collective memory’,
then, allows the Hongkongers to change their perspective from worrying about
the complicated nationality issues and sovereignty change, to focusing on their
mutual experience over a period in history when Hong Kong society has been
constructing its own identity and sociocultural sphere. Literally, the ‘collective
memory’ of the Hongkongers is unique to them.
Just when the Hongkongers in general are inclined to pay attention to a
disappearing past (Abbas 1997), so are many Hong Kong Chinese mainstream,
commercial filmmakers exploring multiple subjects of interests in their films to
revisualize that part of history solely belonging to the Hongkongers. Although
suffering from financial constraints in film production, these filmmakers have
developed their individual authorial vision, which I refer to as their concerns
and preoccupations in life, and the stances they take to see/opine about their
concerns with strong reference to their personal experiences. A mutual experi-
ence among these filmmakers is their displacement from places of birth. Many
of them were born in nearby East and South East Asian regions, such as main-
land China, and moved to Hong Kong at a very young age with their families. This
background has led the filmmakers to develop a strong diasporic consciousness
that has proven difficult to dissipate even in their adulthood.
This chapter discusses several representative filmmakers of the New Hong
Kong Cinema and their authorial vision and concerns, and how they inscribe
themselves in their films to convey their messages. They are Ann Hui, Johnnie
To, Fruit Chan and the ‘New Generation Directors’ (the newest group of film-
makers in Hong Kong). No two Hong Kong filmmakers demonstrate completely
identical preoccupations. Yet many do have the tendency of mirroring and
106 . New Hong Kong Cinema

complementing each other’s interests in life. I believe it is significant and nec-

essary to understand their authorial concerns and what they care to talk about
before we can truly appreciate their choices of particular audiovisual styles and
cinematic elements in film. I commence this chapter with a section on the issue
of film authorship, illustrated by the profiles of the chosen filmmakers. Detailed
information on their personal backgrounds, career paths and representative
works is given as a prerequisite for understanding their approaches to films, film-
making and life more generally. I am keen to find out how they represent, respec-
tively, several generations of mainstream filmmakers in the local film industry
in Hong Kong. Some of them, like Hui and To, are well-established and highly
respected inside and outside the local film sector. Others, like Fruit Chan, built
their directorial careers at specific historical moments and then, after a few years
of prolific creativity, stopped all of a sudden to pursue their professions further
until their next chances to return to the field. The newest generation of filmmak-
ers, like Clement Cheng and Derek Kwok, who previously worked in other capac-
ities in the local film industry, have only just started their directorial careers in
the last few years. They are at the crossroads of either making it or breaking it
in the continuously volatile environment of Hong Kong’s film sector, amid the
ever-increasing influence of China’s film industry and audience market on the
region. Above all, I seek to find in the works of these filmmakers any possible
reactions they may have had towards the changes of the larger sociopolitical
environment that have not been detected in previous critical studies on them.
Although these chosen filmmakers are at different stages of their careers, they
share common concerns about the dark side of contemporary Hong Kong society.
Interestingly, in recent years they display such concerns by featuring in their films
different kinds of social underdogs, which were not a favourite subject matter of
the previous generation of locally produced mainstream Hong Kong films. In order
to closely examine how these filmmakers approach the topic of social underdogs
as a way of inscribing themselves in film, in the second half of this chapter I criti-
cally study Ann Hui’s Ordinary Heroes (Hong Kong, 1999), Johnnie To’s Sparrow,
Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong and Hollywood Hong Kong, and Clement Cheng
and Derek Kwok’s Gallants (Hong Kong, 2010). These new Hong Kong films may
sometimes be regarded as realist films, art-house films, or even semi-documenta-
ries, depending on the contexts in which they are discussed. Nonetheless, each of
them is widely considered by the local general audience in Hong Kong as providing
a record of the Hongkongers’ ‘collective memory’ of a recent past.
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 107

Hong Kong Filmmakers: Who’s Who?

I deliberately use the term ‘filmmakers’ instead of film directors or film auteurs
to identify a group of Hong Kong-based mainstream, commercial filmmaking
professionals. The reason for this choice of term is to acknowledge that these
film practitioners excel in multitasking. Many filmmakers, especially the well-
established ones, are not film directors alone. They may simultaneously work
for their own or other peoples’ films in the capacity of producer, main crea-
tive source, artistic director, cast recruiter, screenwriter, narrator, actor/actress,
financier, marketer and distributor. Many of them exert a strong influence on the
outcome of the films in which they are involved. The famous filmmakers are, of
course, a brand name of their own. Film scholars Gina Marchetti and Tan See
Kam (2007: 2) call them ‘stars without specific studio affiliation’ in the post-
Shaw Brothers era. Many others are but employees on the staff of films. They
have to follow the orders and final decisions of the senior management of the
film projects; decisions are based on economic, and sometimes micro-political,
considerations.
However, in view of their roles in the local, as well as in the East Asian regional,
China-led film business, these filmmakers often find themselves struggling to
survive professionally. They face fierce competition to fund their films and to
please their audiences. In the post-CEPA era, in order to entertain the huge
audience market on the mainland, many Hong Kong filmmakers reluctantly give
up the defining local sensibilities and cultural content of Hong Kong films to act
according to the rules of the game set by the mainland Chinese film industry, in
areas such as the censorship of film scripts and final cuts, and the employment
of specific cast members. Cultural studies scholars Mirana M. Szeto and Yun-
chung Chen (2013) call the phenomenon ‘mainlandization’: ‘all film production
segments, from pre-production, production, post-production to distribution,
increasingly take place in mainland China’.
The authors also note that in the post-Handover era, there is ‘heightened
awareness about the inter-local nature of injustice, exploitation and political
repression in China and Hong Kong’ (Szeto and Chen 2012: 116). Many Hong
Kong local film viewers and informed South East Asian audiences are inclined
to watch films with authentic depictions of Hong Kong. Those Hong Kong film-
makers who act according to the standard of practice of the mainland Chinese
film industry may run the risk of upsetting these Hong Kong and South East
108 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Asian audiences. On the other hand, following the mainland Chinese film
practice does not always lead to these Hong Kong filmmakers’ success in their
mainland endeavours (Szeto and Chen 2012: 116–17; Y-W. Chu 2013: 116–20).
Filmmakers who would rather work in Hong Kong also suffer and are possibly in
a worse professional situation, with pay cuts and little job opportunities locally
(Szeto and Chen 2013). To carry on within the mainland Chinese-led filmmaking
environment of East Asia, as well as in the larger, international filmmaking world
where China (instead of Hong Kong) is becoming the more favoured film busi-
ness partner from East Asia, it is imperative that Hong Kong filmmakers continue
to carve a niche of their own.
Hong Kong filmmakers’ situation remind us of those diasporic/exilic film-
makers from Third World and postcolonial countries (or the global South) now
working and striving to survive among host film industries and cinematic prac-
tices chiefly in the West. According to diaspora and film scholar Hamid Naficy
(2001: 10–17, 291), the accented filmmakers are liminal and interstitial figures
not only in their physical locations but also in their cultural and social locations.
Although many of these displaced filmmakers have primary goals of sustain-
ing themselves politically and socioculturally in the West, the idea of exploring
them as a part of the accented cinema is clearly applicable to discussing the
directorship of those Hong Kong filmmakers working within the wider context
of the New Hong Kong Cinema. Hong Kong filmmakers are arguably liminal and
interstitial when situated in the interstices of the East Asian regional filmmaking
environment. Their interstitiality often simultaneously yet unintentionally chal-
lenges the previously limited concept of (pan-)Chinese cinema in a globalized
world (M. Berry 2005: 2, 10–16; Curtin 2007; Davis and Yeh 2008).
As proposed by Naficy (2001: 33–34), two of the qualities that establish the
accentedness of filmmakers are their ‘locatedness’ and ‘historicity’. Their dis-
placement from places of origin and their ‘(dis)location as interstitial subjects
within social formations and cinematic practices’ (Naficy 2001: 34) define what
they and their films are, and the very discussion of their authorship. Naficy’s
stance on how to treat the topic of film authorship in the accented cinema
thus contrasts with and problematizes the treatments of authorship found in
pre-structuralism (authors being ‘outside and prior to the texts’) and post-
structuralism (authors being fictive and part of the texts, to be revealed only
through spectating) (Naficy 2001: 33). Naficy observes that many accented
filmmakers have inscribed themselves in film in multiple ways, spanning from
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 109

pre-structuralist to post-structuralist, and engaging in the ‘performance of the

self’ (Naficy 2001: 35). In these cases, spectators across cultures and within
collective formations also play a part in interpreting the special features in the
authorship of individual accented filmmakers (see more discussion of spectators
in Chapter Four of this book). Applying Naficy’s idea on the accented filmmak-
ers’ authorship to that of Hong Kong filmmakers working in the context of the
New Hong Kong Cinema, we can find Hong Kong filmmakers’ ‘locatedness’ being
closely associated with their sociopolitical relations to the place Hong Kong, as
well as to China and East Asia. In terms of ‘historicity’, these filmmakers utilize
themselves and their films to give evidence to the happenings in Hong Kong in
a particular historical (also an ongoing) period relevant to the Handover. Their
‘locatedness’ and ‘historicity’ on top of their interstitiality in the regional film-
making environment shape their own inscription in film, which nonetheless may
not be as easily detected as that of the archetypal accented filmmakers. One of
the major obstacles to unearthing these Hong Kong filmmakers’ self-inscription
is the commercial nature of their films, which may be subject to the conditions
predetermined by others (government policies, senior film executives, investors,
film distributors, buyers, specific groups of target audiences, etc.). This leads
to cases in which filmmakers’ authorial concerns and vision are deeply buried
within the seemingly run-of-the-mill film production. For this reason, I believe
it is important to understand, in the first place, the specific biographical and
professional conditions that have given rise to their authorship. Several repre-
sentatives are chosen in the following discussion for this purpose.

Ann Hui
Dubbed by the U.K.-based Sight & Sound magazine in August 2012 as ‘one of
the most unjustly neglected of all contemporary filmmakers’ (Clarke 2012: 50),
Ann Hui may probably be an unknown figure in the United Kingdom, where she
received her training as film practitioner. However, Hui is in fact one of the most
successful and highly respected Hong Kong filmmakers. She became a famous
film director in Hong Kong in the late 1970s and had already gained a firm foot-
hold in Chinese-language cinemas by the time world-famous ethnic Chinese
directors, such as Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou, started to make films. In discus-
sions of contemporary Hong Kong films, Hui’s name and her works is often a
favourite topic among Chinese-language film admirers.
110 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Born in 1947 in Manchuria, China, to a Chinese father and a Japanese mother,

Hui moved south to Hong Kong with her family when she was only five. This
move has had an obvious impact on how Hui sees herself: as a diasporic or even
exilic person of Chinese descent who is at the same time a Chinese-language
film director (see how she explores the issue of identities in her semi-autobio-
graphical film Song of the Exile in Chapter One; see also Naficy 2001: 233–34; M.
Berry 2005: 423–25, 431). Settled in Hong Kong, Hui received her formal educa-
tion there and graduated with a master’s degree in comparative literature from
the University of Hong Kong. She later moved to London to study filmmaking
and then returned to Hong Kong in the mid 1970s to commence her career in the
screen industry – first as an assistant to the martial arts film guru King Hu and
then directing programmes for local television stations for several years.
Over a directorial career of more than thirty years, Hui has so far made twenty-
four fictional feature films (up until the end of 2014). Her directorial works have
earned her numerous best director and best picture awards. Although repeat-
edly emphasizing that she is not interested in politics, earlier in her career Hui
directed many television programmes based on current affairs and social issues,
which often required her to research thoroughly on topics like drug addicts and
Vietnamese refugees (M. Berry 2005: 427–28; E. Cheung, Marchetti and Tan S.
2011: 70). In 1979, she directed her first feature film The Secret (Hong Kong, 1979),
loosely based on the true story of a murder case in Hong Kong. She soon became
a mainstay of a group of young (on average, not older than thirty in the late 1970s
and the early 1980s), non-united, Hong Kong-raised (if not born there), overseas-
trained film directors, who had early directorial careers at local television stations.
The local mass media dubbed them the Hong Kong New Wave (later they came
to be referred to as the first New Wave, when the Second New Wave of Hong
Kong directors such as Wong Kar-wai, Stanley Kwan, Eddie Fong and Ching Siu-
tung attained their calibre (Teo 1997: 184)). They were willing to search for and
construct a local Hong Kong identity through film, often benefiting from their film-
making training obtained in the West (Cheuk 2008, 2012: 457–72).
Apart from approaching narratives that have social concerns, many of Hui’s
works show a humanist stance taken from a female perspective. Many are
attentive to complicated interpersonal relationships (Po 2002). The prominent
ones include Starry is the Night (Hong Kong, 1988); Song of the Exile; Summer
Snow (Hong Kong, 1995); The Stunt Woman (Hong Kong, 1996); Eighteen Springs
(China/Hong Kong, 1997); July Rhapsody (Hong Kong, 2002); The Postmodern
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 111

Life of My Aunt (China/Hong Kong, 2006); The Way We Are (Hong Kong, 2008);
Night and Fog; and All about Love (Hong Kong, 2010). Hui is a rare gem in the
male-dominated local film industry, as well as in world film production.
Hui is renowned for her versatility in using various film genres. She often
employs conventions of such genres as melodrama, martial arts and horror,
while finding ways to bring her personal touch to them. Her films are sometimes
regarded as situated between the domains of art-house and commercial cin-
emas (E. Cheung, Marchetti and Tan S. 2011: 67–68). Szeto (2011: 51) comments
that Hui is at the margin of Hong Kong mainstream cinema, satisfying both
mainstream and critical/cultural anticipations (see also M. Berry 2005: 434).
Moreover, she was one of the first in her generation of Hong Kong filmmak-
ers who started working regularly on cross-border projects in the Greater China
region (encompassing Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan) in the late 1970s
and the early 1980s, a time when each of these three different Chinese commu-
nities had its own film industry backed by particular political-economic ideolo-
gies. While working with small, local production companies in Hong Kong, Hui
forged long-lasting partnerships with mainland Chinese and Taiwan filmmak-
ers and investors (M. Berry 2005: 425, see also 42–44). Besides film directing,
Hui frequently takes up other roles, such as film producer, planner, and at times
actress, in her own or her peers’ films. Her tactful relations and solid connections
with both the mainland Chinese and the Taiwan film industries have allowed her
to blend in with these cinematic systems relatively easily while consolidating her
base in Hong Kong – a typical characteristic found among accented filmmakers
(in Naficy’s sense).
Hui is also known for her influence on newer generations of filmmakers. In
recent years, she has been working with filmmakers like Stanley Kwan (consid-
ered part of the Hong Kong Second New Wave), Ivy Ho (a seasoned screen-
writer who started making films in the 2000s), Vincent Chui and Yu Lik-wai (the
latter has forged a close work relationship with the renowned Sixth Generation
director Jia Zhangke from China).

Johnnie To
Johnnie To is another prolific and highly respected Hong Kong filmmaker that
has continued to flourish in what has become, since the mid 1990s, a sluggish
local film business. He was given official recognition as a major filmmaker as
late as 1999 by the Hong Kong International Film Festival. But this belatedness
112 . New Hong Kong Cinema

seems to have been a blessing in disguise, as it made him even more outstanding
at a time when other Hong Kong film directors from earlier generations were no
longer directly involved in film directing (Teo 2007: 101).
To was born to a working class family in Hong Kong in 1955. He quit school
after finishing third form of secondary school and became employed initially as
a messenger at the local television station TVB at the age of seventeen. While
at TVB, he enrolled in the company’s full-time acting class, the same type that
has bred important Hong Kong actors such as Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau and Tony
Leung Chiu-wai. In 1974 upon graduation, To was assigned to work as assistant
director to several experienced directors, including Wong Tin-lam (aka Wang
Tianlin), whom To worked with for the longest period (about two years). Wong
was one of the most prominent film directors from the then closed Cathay
Organisation (HK) (formerly Motion Picture & General Investment; in the 1950s
and 1960s this company was the biggest competitor of the Shaw Brothers studio
in Hong Kong). To learned much about directing from Wong, especially about
shooting the martial arts genre (Teo 2007: 215–16).1 In 1977, To was promoted
to the position of director at TVB. In 1980 he released his debut feature film,
The Enigmatic Case (Hong Kong, 1980), a martial arts film starring Damian Lau
Chung-yan (a veteran television actor) and Cherie Chung (who in the 1980s
became one of the most famous Hong Kong actresses). The film was generally
regarded as a box-office and critical failure. To then returned to the television
industry and remained there for another seven years.
Between 1986 and 1996, To explored different film genres, ranging from
comedy, romance, melodrama, to cop-and-gangster, and occasionally enjoyed
local box-office success. Some of his major works during that period include All
about Ah-Long (Hong Kong, 1989), starring Chow Yun-fat as a single father who
eventually dies in a motorbike race, and Lifeline (Hong Kong, 1997), a story about
a group of firemen. Film scholar Stephen Teo (2007: 1) argues that To has utilized
and transcended the limitations of film genres (in particular, of action films)
to the extent of changing their very nature and the related industry. However,
To’s main concern in filmmaking is to explore human lives and the existences
of people rather than to comply with genre requirements (Teo 2007: 219), even
when he is under the pressure of commercial filmmaking conditions and the high
expectations of the audience. Unlike Hui, who would not want to admit outright
her films’ political messages, To has been quite frank about this and has made
harsh comments about the authorities (Teo 2007: 237).
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 113

In 1996, To and his former TVB colleague Wai Ka-fai formed a film produc-
tion company, Milkyway Image. The company provides an excellent platform
for To and Wai to make independent and quality films (Bordwell 2003; Teo
2007: 227). It allows To to focus on directing cop-and-gangster films or films
having action as a major part. These works have brought him international fame.
They include Running out of Time (Hong Kong, 1999); The Mission; Fulltime Killer
(co-directed with Wai Ka-fai, Hong Kong, 2001); PTU; Running on Karma (co-
directed with Wai Ka-fai, China/Hong Kong, 2003); Breaking News (China/Hong
Kong, 2004); Election; Election 2; Exiled; Life without Principle (Hong Kong, 2011);
Drug War (China/Hong Kong, 2012); and Blind Detective (China/Hong Kong,
2013). Most of these films focus on group morale, non-blood brotherhood and
gangster activities, and were shot stylistically in accordance with To’s own defi-
nition of action aesthetics, which he has been applying since the late 1990s. By
the mid 2000s, To had acquired great international fame for his action films.
His simple yet stylistic cinematic language conveys a strong sense of neo-noir
rarely found in the oeuvres of other Hong Kong-based action filmmakers. To has
become an icon of Hong Kong’s cult action films.
Admittedly devoting much time to making action films, To does not confine
himself to this genre alone. He is celebrated, especially in Hong Kong and its
neighbouring audience markets, for his urban romantic comedies that explore
city life, interpersonal relationships among young professional couples and exis-
tential situations in Hong Kong. Some of the box-office hits include Needing You
… (co-directed with Wai Ka-fai, Hong Kong, 2000); Love on a Diet (co-directed
with Wai Ka-fai, Hong Kong/Japan, 2001); My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (co-directed
with Wai Ka-fai, Hong Kong, 2002); Turn Left, Turn Right (co-directed with Wai
Ka-fai, Hong Kong/Singapore, 2003); Yesterday Once More (Hong Kong, 2004);
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart; and Romancing in Thin Air (China/Hong Kong,
2012). Many of these films feature To’s long-time actor-collaborators from the
Hong Kong mainstream film industry, such as Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng, Sean
Lau Ching-wan and Louis Koo. This fine balance between the action genre,
non-action genres like romantic comedy, and other more personal and hard-
to-classify film projects might in fact be due to To’s astute commercial calcula-
tion in conducting his film business (Jost 2011: 43). Over the past twenty years
these works have brought To serious financial returns and earned him multiple
awards at important film events. They have also brought him attention at major
114 . New Hong Kong Cinema

international film festivals, including Venice, Berlin and Cannes (Jost 2011). Teo
calls him an ‘uneven auteur’ (2007: 145–76).
With Milkyway, To has also increasingly taken up a kind of coach-cum-pro-
ducer role for films made by other directors attached to his company, such as Wai
Ka-fai, and the ‘New Generation Directors’ Yau Nai-hoi and Law Wing-cheong.
Yau, who used to be a screenwriter for To’s films, directed Eye in the Sky (Hong
Kong, 2007). This film won him the Best New Director Award at the twenty-
seventh edition of the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2008. Law directed Punished
(Hong Kong, 2011). Both of these cop-and-gangster films display To’s strong sty-
listic influence, signifying his ongoing contribution to the Hong Kong film industry.

Fruit Chan
Fruit Chan is an acclaimed Hong Kong, grass-roots, independent film direc-
tor, who is famous for his small-budget films saturated with political messages.
Similar to many other Hong Kong filmmakers, Fruit Chan had diasporic experi-
ence early on in his life. He was born in Guangdong, China, in 1959 and moved
to Hong Kong with his parents at the age of five. For more than ten years Fruit
Chan lived in Hong Kong’s public housing, built by the local government to pro-
vide affordable homes for low-income families and new immigrants to the city.
After finishing secondary school, Fruit Chan enrolled in short filmmaking
courses at the Hong Kong Film and Culture Centre set up by a group of New
Wave film directors, including Tsui Hark, Ann Hui and Yim Ho (Gan 2005: 4–5;
E. Cheung 2009: 4–5). They taught Fruit Chan filmmaking and brought him into
the local film industry in 1980. Fruit Chan started with all sorts of odd jobs in film
studios, but quickly moved up the professional ladder (M. Berry 2005: 461–62).
He joined Century Film Company in 1982, and, later, Golden Harvest as assis-
tant director. It was a position that he held for close to ten years and in which
he excelled. During that time, he served many local film directors, such as Kirk
Wong, Alfred Cheung, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.
In 1989, Fruit Chan was at the time the assistant director of Tony Au’s Au
Revoir Mon Amour (Hong Kong, 1991). The film had to be given a shooting break
due to some major production problems. In order to retain the set, which was
built on a piece of borrowed plot, during the shooting break Fruit Chan was
asked to take it over to shoot a film without a finished script. The result was
Fruit Chan’s first feature Finale in Blood (Hong Kong, 1993), a romantic ghost
story set in 1920s Hong Kong (M. Berry 2005: 463–66). The film was, however,
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 115

shelved by Golden Harvest for three years before being given theatrical release.
It did not do well in box offices but received positive critical reviews. Fruit Chan
also made the comedy Five Lonely Hearts (Hong Kong, 1991), which did not enjoy
any privileged publicity or reviews and ultimately sank into complete oblivion.
Hence, in terms of his years of active involvement in the Hong Kong film
industry, Fruit Chan should be regarded as a contemporary of the Second New
Wave. The Second New Wave refers to the rise of a group of Hong Kong film
directors in the late 1980s. They followed in the footsteps of the first Hong
Kong New Wave and received international recognition. Nevertheless, critics
do not generally refer to Fruit Chan as part of this Second New Wave, most
likely because he worked for a long period of time as assistant director (not
director). Fruit Chan’s long experience in the local commercial film production
environment, however, stimulated his yearning for creative freedom not easily
allowed in a commercial filmmaking setting. In 1996, he was given 40,000 feet
of expiring film stock leftover from David Lai’s Heaven and Earth (China/Hong
Kong, 1994), produced by Andy Lau’s Teamwork Motion Pictures, which was
renamed Focus Group Holdings Limited in 2004. Fruit Chan continued to col-
lect more unused film stock from other film companies (T. 1998: 56; M. Berry
2005: 466) and started planning his first independent production, Made in Hong
Kong. Andy Lau agreed to be the film’s executive producer. The whole produc-
tion was completed with a crew of only five persons, no professional actors in
the cast and a shoestring budget of HK$500,000 (£39,000 or U.S.$64,000),
which Fruit Chan had managed to raise through his personal savings, and loans
from family and friends. The film turned out to be an overnight success. It gave
Fruit Chan the reputation of independent filmmaker without financial backup
from large companies or investors, and registered his actions as one of the first
bold attempts to fight against the commercialization of the local film industry.
However, the concept of independent film production that arises as a result is
rather confusing, for most Hong Kong films made since the last major studio
Shaw Brothers stopped film production in 1986 can in effect be regarded as
independent films. As in Fruit Chan’s case, his independence refers mainly to his
independent, small amount of film funding, while in practice he was still working
within the established film business framework in Hong Kong. As film scholar
Esther M.K. Cheung (2009: 9) rightly points out: ‘his [Fruit Chan’s] independent
debut cannot be considered as totally separable from the mainstream because
he did receive some resources from Andy Lau’s Team Work’. Moreover, Fruit
116 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Chan also utilized mainstream distribution and exhibition channels to reach out
to his audience, thus undermining the purity of his independence (see also Veg
2014 note 7 for a political-oriented definition of independent films).
Fruit Chan openly admitted the political subtext of Made in Hong Kong (from
the perspective of teenagers) in relation to the 1997 Handover, and other con-
comitant social changes and anxieties (E. Cheung 2009: 131–32). He made The
Longest Summer from the perspective of middle-aged people, and Little Cheung
from the perspective of young children. These three form the Handover Trilogy.
After the Handover Trilogy, Fruit Chan moved on to his (incomplete) Prostitute
Trilogy, which includes Durian Durian and Hollywood Hong Kong, to explore the
relationship between China and Hong Kong after the political reunification. In
making the latter two films, Fruit Chan also started to work with a larger crew and
professional actors (see discussion on Durian Durian in Chapter Two).
Between 1997 and 2002, Fruit Chan released an independent film project
every year except 1999. His last one during this period was Public Toilet, dis-
cussing the issue of life and death. The film’s acceptance of South Korean and
Japanese investments foretold the director’s gradual return to commercial film-
making. In 2004, Fruit Chan was employed by Peter Chan’s Applause Pictures
(the two Chans are unrelated) to direct Dumplings (as one segment of the pan-
Asian Three… Extremes, and as a feature film). In 2009, Fruit Chan was involved
in the making of Chengdu, I Love You (China, 2009), produced by the mainland
Chinese company Zonbo Media. He was also employed to direct a Japanese-
South African-U.S. horror film Don’t Look up (2009). In 2013, Fruit Chan took part
in a Hong Kong mainstream horror anthology Tales from the Dark (Part 1) (Hong
Kong) to direct a half-hour segment Jing Zhe.2 In 2014, Fruit Chan released the
box-office success The Midnight After (Hong Kong), a mid-budget thriller that
reflects the political deterioration and social sensibilities in Hong Kong.

The ‘New Generation Directors’

Since the new millennium, a group of new film directors has begun to gain vis-
ibility in the Hong Kong film industry. They have been designated by the mass
media and critics as the ‘New Generation Directors’ (L. Pang 2009: 84). Some
critics call them ‘the Hong Kong SAR New Wave’ (Szeto and Chen 2012). I use
the former term here to avoid confusion with the two previous New Waves of
Hong Kong directors, who dominated Hong Kong’s big screens from the 1970s
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 117

to the early 1990s. Most of the ‘New Generation Directors’ released their first
feature films in the 2000s. They have more diverse backgrounds in the film
industry than their predecessors. Some of them used to work as screenwrit-
ers or assistant directors to established Hong Kong film directors. Some are
actors-turned-directors. Others might be graduates of formal film and video
production courses at local and foreign universities. The better-known names
among them, in alphabetical order of their surnames, include Susie Au, Kenneth
Bi, Cheang Pou-soi, Clement Cheng, Cheung King-wai, Tammy Cheung, Felix
Chong, Roy Chow, Stephen Chow, Vincent Chui, Stephen Fung, Ivy Ho, Patrick
Kong, Adrian Kwan, Derek Kwok, Carol Lai, Law Chi-leung, Law Wing-cheong,
Lee Kung-lok, Heiward Mak, Mak Yan-yan, Edmond Pang Ho-cheung, Calvin
Poon, Jessey Tsang Tsui-shan, Brian Tse, Adam Wong, Barbara Wong, Wong
Ching-po, Daniel Wu, Yau Nai-hoi, Patrick Yau and Toe Yuen.
Many of these new Hong Kong filmmakers are much younger in age (between
thirty and fifty), and greener in their professional experience, than the first and
second Hong Kong New Waves. Although many of them were born and raised
in Hong Kong, and have not undergone any life-changing, first-hand diasporic
experience, their late arrival in the local film industry after the beginning of its
long-term recession has provided them with another kind of interstitial, film-
industry-relevant experience. On the one hand, they work in the deteriorating
local film sector; on the other hand, just across the border is the towering China-
led, regionalized filmmaking environment. Due to the difficult operational situa-
tion of Hong Kong filmmaking since the mid 1990s, these new film directors have
often had to struggle much harder for their professional survival than did their
predecessors, whose careers benefited from the prosperous socio-economic
environment of Hong Kong in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Except for a few
exceptions such as those named above, many ‘New Generation Directors’ only
had the opportunity to make one or two films before quitting filmmaking com-
pletely. The film funding they are able to raise is usually small. It allows them to
work only on locally oriented projects, catering to the local Hong Kong audience
only with timely and locally relevant social-cultural-political-economic subjects.
Just to be able to make films, these filmmakers are prepared to work in genres
of all kinds, and on films of varying commercial or artistic natures. This might
explain why, in order to make ends meet, many of these new directors often take
up multiple jobs in addition to filmmaking. Film scholar Laikwan Pang attributes
the current phenomenon of unemployment and underemployment in the Hong
118 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Kong film industry to the competition from mainland China, with its ‘cheaper
production costs and cultural proximity with the target audiences’ (2009: 83).
Those of the ‘New Generation Directors’ who have managed to sustain their
careers have tried out ever-newer ways to preserve filmmaking opportunities.
These methods might not have been needed or used at all by their predecessors
already active during the time of the apex of Hong Kong’s local film industry. For
example, these new directors might resort to governmental help coming through
film-related policies, funding (though limited), planning and activities under
the auspices of the newly established Hong Kong Film Development Council
(HKFDC). Aware of the film funding, marketing and distribution possibilities
at various film festivals, the ‘New Generation Directors’ might try their luck
and send their new films to première at these events before generally releasing
the films in target audience markets (R. Cheung 2011c: 205–6).3 Taking these
actions has now become one of the most vital film business tools for the ‘New
Generation Directors’ to survive.
In 2002, the Hong Kong Film Awards started to give recognition to new direc-
tors by giving out the Outstanding Young Director Awards. The first winner was
Stephen Chow, a veteran comedian-turned-director, who was awarded for his
international box-office hit Shaolin Soccer. The film also won the Best Picture
Award in that same event. Two years later, in the event’s twenty-third edition
in 2004, the award was renamed as the Best New Director Award and went to
Edmond Pang Ho-cheung for his Men Suddenly in Black (Hong Kong, 2003). The
award is still in place to this day. In 2011, the Best Picture Award of the Hong
Kong Film Awards went to Gallants, a locally produced film co-directed by two
‘New Generation Directors’, Clement Cheng and Derek Kwok. The film was
Kwok’s third directorial attempt since he started film directing in 2007, and was
Cheng’s debut work. Kwok had worked as screenwriter for Wilson Yip’s action
films Skyline Cruisers (Hong Kong, 2000) and 2002 (Hong Kong, 2001); romantic
comedy Dry Wood Fierce Fire (Hong Kong, 2002); and urban romance Leaving
Me, Loving You (Hong Kong, 2004). Cheng, who worked in various areas in the
sphere of mass communications, is a friend of Kwok’s. I will discuss this film in
the next section, which is devoted to the authorial concerns and vision of the
Hong Kong filmmakers in question.
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 119

Authorial Vision and Self-Inscription: Social Underdogs in New Hong

Kong Films

By highlighting some of the most notable names of the New Hong Kong Cinema
in the above section, I did not mean to single them out as auteurs from Hong
Kong or to take an auteurist critical approach to reading their films. I am more
interested in exploring their authorial vision and concerns. Studying these issues,
I argue, serve as a prerequisite to understand the kinds of films that the directors
focus on making, and the possible audiovisual styles they employ as devices to
convey and contain messages about the place and people of Hong Kong.
Moreover, these chosen filmmakers serve here representational purposes
with regard to particular periods in Hong Kong’s mainstream film history. Given
the collaborative nature of Hong Kong filmmaking practice (a prime example
of this kind of practice in cinema), the names of famous filmmakers are only
part of the brand ethos, which covers their filmmaking approaches, the groups
of talent working with them and the specific stylistic traditions (similar to dif-
ferent schools of thought) that filmmakers follow. This last point is particularly
intriguing, for it is not difficult to find a loose masters-and-protégés culture con-
necting earlier and newer generations of Hong Kong mainstream filmmakers, a
point I have mentioned in the above section on their professional paths. Let me
reiterate here as an example: Wong Tin-lam’s expertise in shooting the martial
arts genre has had a profound influence on Johnnie To’s action films, which in
turn affected how Yau Nai-hoi shot his cop-and-gangster film Eye in the Sky.
The filmmaking approaches and filming styles that these Hong Kong filmmakers
have shared cross-generationally are thus arguably products of collectivism and
mutual influence, on top of the inevitable exchanges between Hong Kong films
and other cinemas over the decades in a world of economic globalism (Marchetti
and Tan S. 2007). Interestingly, such a collective development of work approach
reflects, to a large extent, the Chinese people’s underlying Confucian emphasis
on the well-being of the group (rather than of the individual) as most important
for the attainment of social harmony.
In detecting their shared concerns for their base in Hong Kong and the
intergenerational influences among different Hong Kong filmmakers, I find a
recent phenomenon in the New Hong Kong Cinema that is worth discussing:
different Hong Kong mainstream filmmakers have featured social underdogs’
fictional presence in one or a few films that may or may not be found in most
120 . New Hong Kong Cinema

other films in their individual oeuvres. In real life these underprivileged people
live at the lowest socio-economic stratum of Hong Kong society. They have
been struggling against the backdrop of the city’s economic prosperity. They are
true Hongkongers and insiders of Hong Kong, as opposed to the outsider figures
discussed in Chapter Two. I argue that the social underdog serves as an indis-
pensible diegetic element for different generations of Hong Kong filmmakers to
inscribe themselves, albeit problematically, in their films in order to carry out the
‘performance of the self’ in the transitional period of Hong Kong and the Hong
Kong film industry in recent years (Naficy 2001: 35, 291). Filmmakers’ resorting
to the on-screen visibility of the underprivileged Hongkongers and the stylistic
methods employed to represent them stands in contrast to, and serves as a ‘dis-
enchantment’ of, the glossy and glamorous image that the SAR government has
continuously and systematically strived to promote for the city when it is already
in a state of loss (see Y-W. Chu 2013). In addition, these diegetic characters are
in strong contrast with the mediated images of Hong Kong to be found in 1980s
Hong Kong mainstream films, which tend to show the glamorous side of the city.

Ann Hui and Ordinary Heroes

Hui has often displayed a humanist stance in her twenty-four feature films made
in the past thirty-plus years. Ordinary Heroes is her only feature film in which she
includes a self-reflexive cameo and allows her own existential stance to resonate
closely with the characters. In Ordinary Heroes Hui intends to reflect the situa-
tion in Hong Kong after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in June 1989 up until
1997 arrived (S. Ho 1999: 18). The film’s Chinese title, Qian Yan Wan Yu, literally
means ‘thousands of millions of words’. It has a direct reference to a song of the
same name by the late Taiwanese popular singer Teresa Teng. The reference
also strongly alludes to the intricate relations between China and Hong Kong, as
Teng’s song was one of the first to enter the mainland via Hong Kong after the
start of economic reform in China in 1978 (see also V. Lee 2009: 63).4
The film tells the story of a group of Hong Kong social activists and their
intertwining personal relationships against the backdrop of the history of social
activism in Hong Kong over a period of time from the 1970s until the Tiananmen
Square Massacre in 1989, which shocked the world. Although containing
re-enactments of real incidents and social protests, the film is not a genuine
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 121

political film, nor was it explicitly intended as such (Li C. 1999: 20; Long 2003:
136–37; E. Cheung, Marchetti and Tan S. 2011: 68; Hui 2012a: 88). There are four
main characters: Yau (Tse Kwan-ho), a student activist-turned-politician; Sow
(Rachel Lee), an orphan girl from a fishing family; the marginalized local youth
Tung (Lee Kang-sheng); and an Italian priest Father Kam (Anthony Wong), who
is an adherent of Maoist principles. They are depicted as unlikely activists who
join Hong Kong’s social movements for their separate, personal reasons (V. Lee
2009: 60). Yau once condescendingly hoped to help the underprivileged, but
eventually turns into a power-hungry politician; Sow joins his camp because
she is in love with him. She later becomes Yau’s extra-marital lover after he has
married another woman. Tung benefits from Father Kam’s missionary work and
care for the poor. He later follows Father Kam to join in street protests. Tung
secretly falls in love with Sow and becomes her main carer after she is injured
in a car accident: the accident occurs after Yau has raped her in a fit of violent
emotion provoked by the Tiananmen Square Massacre. These characters can be
understood as representatives of various groups of social underdogs that usually
remain invisible in the public domain, since the lives they lead marginalize them
from the rest of the society.
Their stories are unveiled in three different plot segments entitled respec-
tively ‘To Forget’, ‘10 Years of Revolution’ and ‘Not to Forget’. The film is punc-
tuated by episodes showing a street theatre called ‘The Story of Ng Chun-yin’
(played most of the time solely by the leftist theatrical performer Gus Mok). The
performance depicts the life of a legendary Hong Kong leftist social activist and
his ultimate failure. Although this street theatre seems to have no connection at
all to the main story, the theatrical dialogues in it in fact add extra dimensions to
the film, enabling the audience to understand the background of Hong Kong’s
history of social movements. In addition, the theatrical dialogues also hint at the
main characters’ disappointments in life.
Hui has commented succinctly that Ordinary Heroes was a risky project (Hui
2012a: 88). This estimate is understandable in the context of the commercial
filmmaking environment in a city where political activism or anything remotely
related to politics does not guarantee a good box-office income. Financing the
film proved very difficult and it enjoyed only limited theatrical release, prob-
ably because its topic was unconventional for Hong Kong mainstream cinematic
practice. It was premièred at the forty-ninth edition of the Berlin International
Film Festival in February 1999 and was chosen as the opening film of the
122 . New Hong Kong Cinema

twenty-third edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, also in 1999.
Unlike Hui’s other films, which went to different parts of the world, Ordinary
Heroes was generally released only in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
Hui’s self-claimed emphasis on existentialism rather than on political stances
might easily become a source of other risks that the director did not intend,
such as unconsciously confining the social underdogs to circumstances in which
they are hopelessly stuck. This would counteract Hui’s good intentions in giving
filmic visibility to these neglected groups (S. Ho 1999: 18). On the other hand,
the film demonstrates indirectly the director’s revisit to a bygone historical era
that defined the best part of her youth and her directorial success (Hui 1999: 15,
2012a: 88; Po 2002: 121–23).
This is most evident in a sequence in which the director plays the role of an
unnamed television documentarist interviewing the characters (a role that Hui
used to perform in real life when she worked at the local television stations). In
this sequence, Yau is seen working on a campaign that has its real-life roots in
the sociopolitical incident of the illegal resident ‘boat brides’ – mainland Chinese
women who married Hong Kong men (usually fishermen) but were not granted
the same right of abode as their husbands and their Hong Kong-born children.
Yau has by now moved successfully into the political mainstream and become a
full-time politician. Hui, the diegetic television documentarist, is given the per-
mission to film at Yau’s office on the ground floor of a public housing estate
(shot on location in a real dilapidated public housing estate). This sequence
consists of Hui’s off-screen interviewing and on-screen grainy television footage
of Yau and Father Kam (in close-ups) giving standard answers. With televised
interview footage added to the normal screen frame, these characters are given
an initial double on-screen visibility to show clearly their facial expressions and
tone of speech. But all this unobtrusively reveals some deeper political agendas.
We no longer see the seemingly innocent social activists who are uncondition-
ally willing to sacrifice everything to help the underprivileged. Instead, the activ-
ists appear either as cunning politician (in the case of Yau) or as overly idealistic
protestor (in the case of Father Kam) who are unaware how naive they actually
are. This testifies to Hui’s own scepticism about politics, as she comments:

I understand that people participating in politics in 1960s and 1970s Hong

Kong actually only participated in it indirectly … because there was no such
ideology as democracy [in Hong Kong] back then. Hence, those who wished to
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 123

take part in politics were meant to fail. To them, revolution was only a dream
… Those so-called political campaigners in Hong Kong collapsed at once when
they were intimidated by actual politics, due to their naivety and ignorance
about politics. (An Interview with Ann Hui 1999: 28; my translation)

While Hui scrutinizes the real motives and moral integrity of these fictional-
ized social campaigners whose presence in the film might overshadow some
quieter, more ordinary heroes in society, her role as the unnamed documentarist
offers us clues to evaluate the function of the mass media as social watchdogs.
The most recent sociopolitical conflicts in the 2010s between various ethnic
Chinese communities in Hong Kong and mainland China, mostly televised and
mediated by the mass media, could be read as real-life footnotes to Hui’s cameo.
This cameo of Hui is one more piece of filmic evidence confirming the
similarities between Hong Kong filmmakers and the accented filmmakers, who
frequently use self-inscription in their films. Naficy argues that ‘self-reflexive
techniques distance the audience from the film, undermining full identification
with the diegesis and with its characters’ (Naficy 2001: 276). As we watch the
interactions between Hui and the characters in non-stylized medium shots com-
pletely stripped of ornate mise en scène, the camera reminds us of Hui once
working as a television programme director whose duties were to expose social
injustice through her camera. Those were the years when she started to gain fame
as a director with a good conscience, and the years when Hong Kong also started
to enjoy a positive public image globally. However, in this particular sequence in
the film, Hui’s camera seems like a silent, helpless observer, re-evaluating how
the mass media work with, and for, politicians and activists alike to unconsciously
marginalize those who are forever at the bottom strata of the society. As an intel-
lectual, Hui’s self-inscription and self-rediscovery appear as a humble yet excru-
ciating experience rather than as relaxing nostalgia about her career’s golden past:
Hui looks tired as she squats right outside Yau’s office, chatting with the fictional
characters, who stand around her in the diegetic shooting break (in full shot).

Johnnie To and Sparrow

While Hui’s cameo belies her supposed sympathy for these ordinary heroes and
fond memory of an innocent past, To’s Sparrow renders a more light-hearted
124 . New Hong Kong Cinema

version of a Hong Kong filmmaker’s personal record of the changes that have
taken place in Hong Kong society. The film was shot on and off for three years,
during which To was also working on other projects. It was released initially
through the film festival route in 2008, going to the Berlin International Film
Festival and the Barcelona Asian Film Festival before it was screened on its home
turf (Elley 2008: 29).
Sparrow is set in present-day Hong Kong. Its main characters are four pick-
pockets, who usually work as a group led by Kei (Simon Yam). They operate
mostly in the old neighbourhoods of the Wanchai and Causeway Bay districts on
the island side of Hong Kong. They live separately in old residential buildings and
usually ride on bicycles instead of in cars. When they are not busy thieving, they
like to dine in the neighbourhood’s old-fashioned tea restaurants. Although they
are thieves, they are generally good-natured guys and stick to their own princi-
ples in stealing. For example, they take people’s money, but never physically hurt
those they steal from. They are also on good terms with their neighbours. They
seem to represent something that is associated with an immediate past and is
now rarely found in hectic big cities. In fact, the film’s Chinese title Man Jeuk (in
Cantonese pronunciation, or Wen Que in Mandarin) in local Cantonese slang
means ‘pickpockets’. The term is more popular among working-class, middle-
aged to elderly groups than among the younger generations. The Chinese title
thus additionally gives a nostalgic feel to the whole film.
The calm life of this group of pickpockets is soon disturbed by a sparrow that
flies into Kei’s flat: everyone in the group considers this a bad omen. Before long,
they are separately approached by a mysterious, beautiful, Mandarin-speaking,
mainland Chinese girl (Kelly Lin) for their help.5 This is because her rich ‘sugar
daddy’ Mr Fu (Lo Hoi-pang) has kept her passport away from her in order to
stop her from going to join her true love, and so she asks the group of thieves
to steal it from Mr Fu for her. Mr Fu is a rich merchant, but he was once a pick-
pocket himself. The girl’s problem soon leads to a clash between two groups
of pickpockets – Kei’s and Fu’s – who, on a rainy night, fight it out for the girl’s
mainland Chinese passport. Kei’s group wins and Fu keeps his promise to release
the passport and the girl.
Compared with To’s other signature action or urban romance films, Sparrow
seems to have characteristics from both genres while transcending the genre
boundaries. Although this is a story about thieves and a femme fatale-like
figure, the film does not offer many action scenes or gunfights. The main thief
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 125

characters are all attracted to the girl, but there is no exciting romance between
them. The feelings are confined to the platonic level. This makes the film one of
To’s very few commercial films that cannot easily be fitted into any existing genre.
Aside from his commercial decision, To openly and specifically declares that he
employs the film to document a specific time and place, and to comment on the
disappearing cityscape of Hong Kong (10th Osian’s-Cinefan Festival 2008).6
This seems to be particularly true, considering the fact that the director shot
major parts of this film in old buildings and alleyways in Wanchai, Sheung Wan
and Central districts in Hong Kong. As To comments, Hong Kong has indeed
developed rapidly, but certain places and landmarks of the city are important
to be preserved as representatives of collective memories of the community.
Unfortunately, the local government has been incompetent in carrying out the
necessary local heritage preservation. To says that through Sparrow he wants
to record some parts of the history of Hong Kong on film before all the period
elements (such as neighbourhood shops, streetscapes and corners, buildings
and alleyways) completely disappear, and are replaced by newer buildings and
other kinds of city constructions.7 His personal mission of capturing the dis-
appearing present is precisely embraced by the character Kei, who happens
to be an avid amateur photographer like To himself (Cheng T. 2014). Kei likes
taking photos with his vintage Rollieflex twin-lens reflex camera, and develops
the negatives himself in a darkroom. In the scene where he is taking photos in
the neighbourhood, the taken shots are shown directly on screen as black-and-
white photos one after another in a still-shots slide show. There are photos of:
(1) a smiling elderly man, (2) overhanging shop signs of different Chinese herbal
shops in Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island, (3) quiet park amenities right next to
residential buildings, (4) workers taking care of recycled cardboards, (5) elderly
working-class people sitting and chatting in small parks, and so on. Shot from a
slightly high angle (except for the one with overhanging shop signs) to indicate
Kei’s riding on his bicycle, the subject inside each on-screen ‘photo’/frame is in
a well-balanced position. It blends neatly with the rest of the mise en scène to
project a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere. Within each frame, we do not
see any jarring props, costumes, make-up or lighting. The frames simply capture
what ordinary citizens can see daily in these serene parts of the city during the
day. They look so natural that we would mistake them for stand-alone, timeless
postcard photos. Although these black-and-white shots do not seem relevant to
the main story about pickpockets, in terms of the look and feel they go perfectly
126 . New Hong Kong Cinema

well with the rest of the (coloured) film, which is, among other things, a moving
picture album that keeps certain images unique to Hong Kong. More black-and-
white photos of different street scenes in Hong Kong are displayed alongside the
ending credits of the film.
To’s intention to authentically preserve the cityscape of Hong Kong on
screen is, however, challenged by the film’s finale, which shows a razor blade
fight between Kei’s group and Fu’s group in slow motion under a blanket of black
umbrellas. This sequence is stylishly rendered in a way unmatched by other parts
of the film. Inspired by The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, France/West
Germany, 1964), it reveals that the director’s original plan was to make this film a
musical.8 The encounter takes place in the districts of Sheung Wan and Central
(on location shooting). It starts with Kei carrying the girl’s passport in heavy
rain, paying attention not to lose it to the pickpockets on Fu’s side. As the fight
begins, the slow motion of breathtaking human movements and the effective
use of chiaroscuro cross-cutting, with claustrophobic close-ups of slow splashes
of raindrops displaying all the determining moments of this duel, render the
finale an exquisite neo-noir episode. As film music scholar Charles Kronengold
(2013: 278) notes, ‘In keeping with To’s group-oriented narrative strategies, this
sequence projects rhythmic structures based on one guy doing an action, then
another guy, then another, then another. And every character is shown at least
once in close-up with a changing expression that can read as purposefulness or
thoughtfulness’ (italics in original). The slow motion here then offers one more
level for us to appreciate To’s static shots used for freezing and slowing down the
fast moves typical for action scenes. According to the director, the static shots
allow audiences to cultivate the sense of movement in their imagination (Teo
2007: 234). It shows To’s distinctive action aesthetics, which had been evolving
over an entire decade before this film. Without filling the screen with gunfights
and gory scenes, To thus presents us with a graceful duel between Kei’s and Fu’s
pickpockets that is rich in rhythms. With more and more umbrellas and extra
pickpockets joining in this fight in Sparrow, the director turns Sheung Wan into
a theatre-like stage upon which the pickpocket characters perform something
not very different from a beautifully choreographed umbrella dance in the rain.
Their actions are accompanied non-diegetically by the French composers’ origi-
nal cabaret music, which further enhances the stage-like feel. This sequence is
probably one of To’s most elegant treatments of action in a non-blood brother-
hood film since The Mission (1999).
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 127

However, precisely because the director separates this sequence as a stand-

alone stage-like act, all the pickpockets suddenly shed their social underdog
status and don the limelight that only superstars would receive on stage. The
thin line that, until this point in the film, separated superstars from social under-
dogs is now completely effaced; and the amazed audience is admiring the actors’
splendid performance rather than thinking about what they stand for as char-
acters. The rendition, which is supposed to feature the virtuoso techniques of
pickpockets, then undermines and confuses the director’s purpose of spotlight-
ing these underprivileged personalities and the disappearing present of Hong
Kong.

Fruit Chan and His ‘Hong Kong’ Films

While Hui’s and To’s films might raise the question as to the effectiveness of
the directors’ self-inscription in film, Fruit Chan seems to have offered a more
authentic version of social underdogs in his award-winning independent film
production Made in Hong Kong. Spending about five years in preparation and
working with only five crew members around a shoestring budget of half a mil-
lion Hong Kong dollars, Fruit Chan completed the shooting within four months
(T. 1998: 54–57; M. Berry 2005: 466; Gan 2005: 5).9 All the major roles are played
by non-professional actors and actresses whom the director discovered on the
streets. This is a major point that distinguishes this social underdog film from
those of Hui and To. The choice of a non-professional cast certainly avoids
the potential drawbacks of hiring popular professional actors who might show
too much of their star personas instead of highlighting the marginality of the
socially underprivileged. Made in Hong Kong was shown at the 1999 Hong Kong
International Film Festival after being denied an entry early on (E. Cheung
2009: 3). Fruit Chan went on to release the film theatrically in October 1997
through his personal network in the Hong Kong mainstream film industry. The
general release schedule chosen for the film sharpened its political allusion to
the Handover (Richards 1999: 34; Lok 2002: 140; E. Cheung 2009: 131). Shu Kei,
veteran film critic and film distributor, has been given the credit of helping Fruit
Chan to distribute the film (M. Berry 2005: 466; E. Cheung 2009: 3).
Set in contemporary Hong Kong in the pre-Handover period, Made in Hong
Kong tells the story of four marginalized Hong Kong adolescents who live in
128 . New Hong Kong Cinema

public housing and are nowhere close to heroes. Moon (Sam Lee) is the triad
society member among the four but he works for bosses on petty jobs only,
such as debts collection. He appoints himself as protector to the intellectually
disabled Sylvester (Wenders Li). Moon meets Ping (Neiky Yim) while trying to
collect debts from the latter’s mother. The girl later reveals that she has terminal
kidney disease. The three teenagers all come from dysfunctional families (fea-
tured by the absence of their fathers), and due to their similar backgrounds they
become good friends. One day, Sylvester picks up two bloodstained suicide let-
ters left by Susan (Amy Tam), a high-school girl who has killed herself because
of a failed romance with her school teacher. The three then set themselves the
mission to deliver the two suicide letters to the addressees: the teacher and
Susan’s parents. Moon is constantly imagining and dreaming about how Susan
committed suicide. The director shows Moon’s obsession by repeatedly screen-
ing the moments before, during and after Susan jumps off a tall building, and
thereby turns her into the fourth major character. In the finale, Moon reveals
that he and his two friends have already died for various separate reasons, and
that the whole story has in fact been narrated and commented on by Moon in
his afterlife voice-over.
In giving these deprived youths the necessary visibility, Fruit Chan not only
allows their voices to be heard (the characters take turns to read out the suicide
letters in voice-overs at the finale), but also identifies with them by pondering
over his own situation of a helpless Hong Kong citizen living under broader polit-
ical circumstances, a citizen who might not welcome much the political reunifi-
cation of Hong Kong and China (E. Cheung 2009: 131–32). Such an identification
with the characters does not come easily, as there are no proper communication
channels that these youngsters can and are willing to use. Eventually, the director
chooses the suicide letters and the quiet images of dysfunctional television sets
(either turned off or screens filled with flickers of ‘snow’), which both bridge and
emphasize the gaps between individuals (Naficy 2001: 106; W. Cheung 2007).
Besides these two upsetting aesthetic icons, this film is full of other visual ele-
ments that indicate its bleakness: claustrophobic indoor scenes, various fences
and bars blocking the faces of the protagonists from the film audience’s view and
at times blocking the characters’ view as well, dim and faded colouring suggest-
ing a realist setting in a grass-roots community, and, of course, the hopelessly
disheartened facial expressions that every character carries around (see also E.
Cheung (2009: 105–7) for Fruit Chan’s ‘ghostly chronotopes’).
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 129

From the angle of political symbolism, we can see that the film aesthetics
might mirror the director’s despair and distrust, and that of many of his fellow
Hongkongers, regarding a future that is deemed to be China-oriented. Asian
studies scholar Shu-mei Shih (2007: 149) reads the allegory of this film as a ‘gue-
rilla tactic’ to appropriate, confiscate and usurp meanings of Hong Kong from the
control of both the British colonialists and the Chinese nationalists. The negative
feelings are verbalized at the end of the film by a surreal propaganda broadcast
coming from a Chinese communist radio station. From the angle of film produc-
tion, on the other hand, I tend to believe that the evident toning down of stylized
film aesthetics reflects Fruit Chan’s thrifty mode of filmmaking. The director’s
self-declared interstitial position at the margin of Hong Kong’s mainstream film
industry, then, aligns him with the accented filmmakers from Third World and
other postcolonial territories who attempt to survive politically and professionally
in the West. Yet, Fruit Chan’s interstitial position is not without a certain degree
of self-contradiction, as he is fully aware of his necessary reliance on the setup
of Hong Kong mainstream film financing, production, distribution and exhibition
(M. Berry 2005: 472), even when working in the mode of ‘independent’ filmmak-
ing. Seen from this perspective, Fruit Chan’s turning against the commercialism
of the Hong Kong film industry can be read as a way of promoting his film, rather
than as a real declaration of war against his ‘enemies’ in the mainstream: in fact,
he has never actually left the local mainstream film industry (Fong 1999: 52; Ye
2000: 23; M. Berry 2005: 467). Likewise, his visual style can be understood as part
of his film publicity exercise. Fruit Chan’s trumpeted independence did indeed
make the film an instant talk of the town, and among international film critics
(Fore 1999: 7; Rayns 1999: 47–48; Reynaud 1999: 8).
Although Made in Hong Kong’s seemingly unconventional mode of produc-
tion has always been a much commented feature, the film does play around
generic conventions and aesthetic elements that belong to the typical gang-
ster and juvenile delinquent Hong Kong films of the 1990s. 10 Fruit Chan adds
his mockery of the naive glorification of gangster heroism and makes Made in
Hong Kong stand out among these popular gangster films (How Does Made in
Hong Kong Produce the Legend of Independents 1997: 47; E. Cheung 2009: 135).
Esther M.K. Cheung (2009: 7, 18) calls Made in Hong Kong a genre piece of an
impure kind. Others from the ‘New Generation Directors’ tread in Fruit Chan’s
footsteps to make fun of the once-popular gangster films. For example, in 2010
the screenwriter-turned-film director Felix Chong made Once a Gangster (Hong
130 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Kong, 2010), an anti-gangster comedy mocking its characters, who have grown
from being the twenty-something triad society big brothers into middle-aged
men. The characters are disillusioned with their heroic deeds in the past and
are concerned now with the reality amid the Global Financial Crisis and glo-
balized economic restructuring. The comic effects are highlighted by the stars
Ekin Cheng and Jordan Chan, who used to play the main characters in the Young
and Dangerous series. Apart from the gangster genre, Made in Hong Kong also
explores the problem of growing up, and of life and death (E. Cheung 2009: 143).
Esther M.K. Cheung associates the film with the ghost genre due to its recurrent
theme of death and the main character’s afterlife voice-over.
In 2001, Fruit Chan made the second instalment of his Prostitute Trilogy,
Hollywood Hong Kong, which is the second of his independent films named
after Hong Kong (E. Cheung 2009: 136). Like Made in Hong Kong, Hollywood
Hong Kong was also created on a shoestring budget of HK$500,000 (£39,000
or U.S.$64,000), self-funded by Fruit Chan. Unlike the former film, Hollywood
Hong Kong did not bring profit and was a financial loss to the director (of about
HK$33,000, i.e., £2,600 or U.S.$4,000, in Hong Kong’s box offices), as it did not
enjoy wide release even in Hong Kong (E. Cheung 2009: 148). The film was pro-
duced by Fruit Chan’s Nicetop Independent Limited, together with Capitol Films
(U.K.), Golden Network (Hong Kong), Hakuhodo (Japan), Media Suits (Japan)
and Movement Pictures (unknown country).
The title of Hollywood Hong Kong suggests the film is a bookend closing the
period of Fruit Chan’s self-proclaimed filmmaking independence working on the
subject matter of ‘Hong Kong’. It tells the story of a Hong Kong local family
living in a shanty town Tai Hom Village and their relationships with a mainland
Chinese prostitute. The family consists of a fat father Mr Chu (Glen Chin), 11 a
fat teenage elder son (Ho Sai-man) and a fat younger son of primary-school
age (Leung Sze-ping). The mother is absent, a feature that resonates with the
absent fathers in Made in Hong Kong (although in the film there is a stand-in
mother figure – a female pig as their house pet). All three obese males and their
teenage neighbour Wong Chi-keung (Wong You-nam), who is a skinny, self-
confessed gangster, are attracted to the mysterious femme fatale-type mainland
Chinese prostitute Tong Tong (aka Hung Hung; played by Zhou Xun). Tong Tong
turns out to be a con artist and cheats these men (except the young fat boy) out
of huge sums of money. Before the men try to avenge themselves on Tong Tong,
she manages to escape out of Hong Kong and goes to the real Hollywood.
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 131

As far as the cast is concerned, the uniqueness of Hollywood Hong Kong

among Fruit Chan’s other independent films is his employment of two well-
established, professional actors. The fat father Mr Chu is played by Glen Chin,
an acclaimed Chinese-American actor working in Hollywood. Zhou Xun, playing
the female lead, is one of the most famous award-winning mainland Chinese
actresses. She frequently stars in China-Hong Kong mainstream co-produc-
tions, such as Temptress Moon (Chen Kaige, 1996); Perhaps Love; Painted Skin
(Gordon Chan, 2008) and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (Tsui Hark, 2011). Zhou
was certainly at the peak of her career when she was cast as the female lead in
Hollywood Hong Kong. Although she toned down her star qualities to play the
role of a mainland Chinese prostitute who speaks Cantonese with a strong main-
land accent, her presence in Hollywood Hong Kong did not help much to improve
the film’s box-office earnings. This specific cast of professional actors with non-
professional actors reflects Fruit Chan’s own oscillation between independent
film production and mainstream film production.
In the film, we also find Fruit Chan’s subtle comments on his fellow
Hongkongers’ sociopolitical situations, haunted by Hong Kong’s rapid redevel-
opment and China’s economic rise in the 2000s. While Tong Tong is trying to
earn enough money to go (for unknown reasons) to the real Hollywood, the
eventual move of the Chus (the family of fat men) only comes along as a con-
sequence of the local government’s redevelopment plan to pull down the whole
Tai Hom Village. This village was the oldest of its kind in Hong Kong (Long
2003: 148–49; M. Berry 2005: 477) and was located right across the road from
the newly built, luxurious, high-rise residential complex Plaza Hollywood before
being demolished. The village as portrayed in the film offers yet another dimen-
sion for the director to express himself on the difference between the rich and
the poor, the mainstream and the marginalized, the privileged and the under-
privileged, the good and the bad, the old and the new, Hong Kong and China,
and the Hong Kong film industry versus Hollywood (Chang 2002: 86–88; P. Feng
2011: 253). However, after having worked for a few years as Hong Kong’s inde-
pendent filmmaker, in Hollywood Hong Kong Fruit Chan seems to be looking for
a way out of the awkward in-between position among these binary sets. The film
conveys a less emotionally burdened sociopolitical message than the one we get
in Made in Hong Kong (How Come There’s a Hollywood in Hong Kong? 2002: 41).
Instead of focusing on stars, gangsters or ghosts, Fruit Chan highlights the black
humour in Hollywood Hong Kong by means of a stylized surreal touch: each of the
132 . New Hong Kong Cinema

male characters fantasizes in his own way about having an intimate relationship
with Tong Tong (Between Human and Pig 2002: 96).
In addition, there is an abundant use of symbolism in colours and props. For
example, the colour red is used throughout the film to symbolize eroticism as
well as to indicate the dangers menacing these men when they confront the
femme fatale (who, in turn, represents mainland China). The obsessive use
of the Internet by the teenage fat boy and his thin neighbour seems to have
widened their so-called online social circle, but has in fact only heightened the
boys’ wishful thinking about moving out of their current stifling situation in the
shanty town (W. Cheung 2007: 281). The symbolism in Fruit Chan’s realist-cum-
surrealist film, then, does have the effect of enhancing the cinematic visibility of
Hong Kong social underdogs and increasing social awareness regarding the local
government’s violent demolishment of buildings that are part of Hong Kong’s
history (represented here by the very existence of Tai Hom Village). Whether
Fruit Chan has effectively aroused greater public interest in these social under-
dogs and rescued them from their current situation in Hong Kong’s poorest
corner is another matter, given the film’s limited theatrical release and poor
box-office performance. With the benefit of hindsight of Fruit Chan’s subse-
quent career development outside Hong Kong, we can read the ending of the
film as suggesting an alternative solution to the characters’ problems (as well as
his fellow Hongkongers’ China-related problems): going away – admittedly an
implied theme in Fruit Chan’s works since Made in Hong Kong (Y-W. Chu 2013:
99). Going away might not reflect an entirely negative attitude. When the people
have learned a lesson from their past experience, it is time to let go and move on
to find a new path (Shin and K. Lam 2003: 90).

The ‘New Generation Directors’ and Gallants

Fruit Chan’s record of a forgotten corner of Hong Kong in Hollywood Hong Kong
is echoed by another film, Gallants. Both films find their own ways to connect
with an immediate past of the city. While Hollywood Hong Kong discloses the
history of the housing problems of Hong Kong’s grass-roots community, Gallants
talks about the Hongkongers’ interests in learning kung fu in the past. Gallants,
in particular, also conveys a more universal theme of a positive attitude to life.
The film was made in 2010 by two of Hong Kong’s newest generation filmmakers,
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 133

Clement Cheng and Derek Kwok, and was shot over a shooting period of only
eighteen days (Ambroisine 2010). In fact, Gallants was originally conceived as
a story not about kung fu but about a music band (Ambroisine 2010). In order
to sell the idea to potential investors, the two directors repackaged the film into
the present kung fu comedy. It was produced by veteran actor Gordon Lam and
co-produced by Andy Lau’s Focus Films, Sil-Metropole Organisation, Beijing
Polybona Film, and Zhejiang Bona Film and TV Production. The film’s world
première took place at the thirtieth edition of the Hong Kong International
Film Festival in March 2010, and was screened at other major international
film festivals such as Udine Far East Film, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, Vancouver,
Sitges, Tokyo and Berlin Fantasy Filmfest (Ambroisine 2011). It was the third
highest grossing film at its opening weekend in Hong Kong and received critical
acclaim.12 It won the Best Film Award at the thirtieth edition of the Hong Kong
Film Awards in 2011.
Gallants is mainly set in the present-day Hong Kong, where the city is domi-
nated by wealthy land developers who ignore the old traditions connected with
places and people. The film starts with references to some grainy visuals of old
sepia photos that capture moments of truth of boxing championships and kung
fu fights in the 1960s and the 1970s. It is narrated by Tam Ping-man (a veteran
actor/broadcaster whose voice is often associated with the golden period of
Hong Kong radio broadcasting in the 1960s) to bring in the idea of ‘survival of
the fittest’. Fast-forwarding to the 2000s, we see how the physically meek and
fragile Cheung (Wong You-nam) has performed badly in an office environment.
As a result, he is seconded by his land developer boss to do a disgusting job –
go to the New Territories to claim the properties for his client’s redevelopment
project. Cheung first meets Tiger (Bruce Leung Siu-lung) in the village where
the properties are located, when Tiger saves Cheung from being beaten up by
the local gang. Then Cheung meets Dragon (Chen Kuan-tai) at a dilapidated
tea restaurant. The place used to be a kung fu training school run by Master
Law (Teddy Robin Kwan) and is now operated as a local tea restaurant by his
loyal pupils Dragon and Tiger, so that they can at least keep the rented property
site for their master. It is revealed that during a kung fu competition thirty years
ago, Master Law suffered a stroke and has been in a coma ever since. The two
pupils, now in their sixties, are still waiting for their master to wake up. At the
very beginning, Cheung is hoping to learn kung fu from Tiger, but later he is
deeply moved by Dragon and Tiger’s loyalty to their master; he decides to defy
134 . New Hong Kong Cinema

his client’s plan and instead help Dragon and Tiger fulfil the last wish of the tem-
porarily awake Master Law – to have a good fight again in the boxing ring. Master
Law passes away eventually while sleeping, and the pupils insist on participating
in a kung fu challenge with their opponent, the clan of Master Pong, who runs a
modernized martial arts club. Although the fight ends with no winner or loser,
Master Law’s pupils complete the fight gracefully. They live up to their master’s
expectations of perseverance, integrity, respect for traditional kung fu principles
and keeping a positive outlook on life.
Featuring a collapsed kung fu school, Gallants inherits and pays tribute to the
traditions of Hong Kong kung fu comedies that were the mainstay of mainstream
Hong Kong cinema in the late 1970s. Some famous Hong Kong films of that time
include Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master, both directed by Yuen
Woo-ping in 1978 and starring Jackie Chan. Gallants’ Chinese title, Da Lui Toi (in
Cantonese) or Da Lei Tai (in Mandarin) literally means ‘fighting in a boxing ring’
and is the same as that of Kirk Wong’s Health Warning, which is a 1983 Hong
Kong sci-fi kung fu film. At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, the
directors of Gallants bring in their new vision in revisiting the kung fu film genre,
which includes the use of a specific cast and other stylistic elements.
The cast of Gallants includes some very popular actors of the Hong Kong
film industry of the 1960s and 1970s. Teddy Robin Kwan, playing Master Law, is
a veteran film director and actor (he was the singer and guitarist of an extremely
popular band Teddy Robin and the Playboys in 1960s Hong Kong). Siu Yam-yam
(aka Susan Siu), playing Master Law’s girlfriend Fun, was a sex symbol in the Hong
Kong film industry in the 1970s and early 1980s. The other main actors in Gallants,
including Chen Kuan-tai as the elder pupil Dragon, Bruce Leung Siu-lung as the
younger pupil Tiger, Lo Meng as Jade Kirin, and Michael Chan Wai-man as Master
Pong, were once the icons of Hong Kong kung fu/action films. In their heydays they
were closely associated with the Shaw Brothers studio. But at their present ages,
they are no longer the most sought-after in the local film industry. In working with
these senior action actors, who are now underdogs in the local film sector where
only the fittest survive, the film directors learn from these men’s principles in kung
fu and in life, and re-channel these virtues into their own situation of directorship
in a volatile filmmaking environment in the early twenty-first century (Ambroisine
2010). The senior cast is accompanied by a group of younger actors, who suggest
not only a revitalization of the old-school kung fu group but also a continuation of
an uncompromising attitude and belief in life.
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 135

The film directors also effectively project their childhood memory of kung fu
films in Gallants without using overtly stylized visuals to do so. Mise en scène,
costume and make-up, and lighting, are employed and changed following the
needs of the plot progression to give natural visual effects. For example, Tiger’s
lame leg and the knuckle calluses on one of his hands are highlighted in close-up
shots before his face appears in front of the audience. The visuals work to show
that Tiger is well-trained in kung fu but has probably been injured. Medium shots
and medium close-ups are used interchangeably with rapid cuts and occasional
slow motion during fights to demonstrate the beauty of the kung fu masters’
bodily movements. A blue hue under dim lighting in the last fight scene solidifies
the seriousness of the fight and what it represents about life and human virtues.
There are no complicated computer effects for enhancing the action scenes.
Every punch and kick is forceful and filled with strong kinetic energy, reminding
the audience of the beauty of actions that were once abundant in the kung fu
film genre in the 1970s. Moreover, the film’s Cantonese dialogues and nostalgic
song lyrics are often witty and full of wisdom. Even the seemingly old-fashioned
characters and their emotions, and the way they are filmed, generate in the audi-
ence a feeling of the good old days. Everything looks so down to earth, turning
the film into an on-screen album of these disappearing kung fu styles and char-
acters. Consciously or not, the two directors have made an important imprint on
the continuous development of Hong Kong’s kung fu films and cinematic prac-
tice in general. They have demonstrated the high degree of flexibility of Hong
Kong Cinema in responding to the latest developments in world cinemas.

Concluding Remarks

This chapter has focused on individual Hong Kong filmmakers’ authorial vision
and how different film directors inscribe themselves and their views in film. The
directors discussed have benefited from, and utilized, their own personal back-
grounds and professional training to build up their careers locally. They show
us how different generations of Hong Kong film professionals have made use
of their strengths and their own limitations to open a path and develop a cin-
ematic practice of their own. Established film directors under discussion, such
as Hui, are the first generation of Hong Kong filmmakers to start making films
genuinely for and about Hong Kong society. They were later joined by newer film
136 . New Hong Kong Cinema

directors (such as To and Fruit Chan) and, more recently, by the ‘New Generation
Directors’, in the search for and building of local identities through film. Unlike
their Hong Kong filmmaking predecessors in the 1950s and the 1960s, who were
heavily influenced by a strong desire to return to their homeland in China one
day (a typical wish of diasporic people), most of the Hong Kong film directors
working in the local film industry after the 1970s have chosen to free themselves
of this emotional and cultural constraint. For them, Hong Kong has become the
place where their roots are. In featuring social underdogs and inscribing them-
selves in their films in various ways, including reflexive cameo, on-screen photos
of ordinary people and their way of life, different props and re-enactment of tra-
ditional genre, these filmmakers have contributed to revisualizing the ‘collective
memory’ of the Hongkongers.
In the next two chapters, I will move above this local perspective to see how
the New Hong Kong Cinema fares on a broader, regional level as an integral
part of the continuous restructuring of East Asia’s film industries. Understanding
the New Hong Kong Cinema from a broader East Asian regional perspective
helps us expand our knowledge of this cinematic practice, which reflects mul-
tiple transitions in the society. I will start with the receiving end of Hong Kong-
related Chinese-language films – their Sinitic-speaking/writing, ethnic Chinese
audiences in the region – and probe their actual interpretations of these films.

Notes

 1. Probably as a way of repaying his mentor, To often recruited Wong to play respected
figures in his films. One notable role is that of Uncle Teng in Election. Wong passed
away in 2010 at the age of eighty-three.
 2. Information on the segments of Tales from the Dark (Part 1): A Word in the Palm
(directed by Lee Chi-ngai), Jing Zhe (directed by Fruit Chan) and Stolen Goods
(directed by Simon Yam).
 3. Personal interview with Li Cheuk-to, Artistic Director of the Hong Kong International
Film Festival (HKIFF), conducted by the author in Hong Kong on 7 July 2010 (within
the context of the ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ project at the University of St
Andrews).
 4. Similarly, the Chinese title Tian Mi Mi (literally meaning sweetie) of Peter Chan’s
Comrades, Almost a Love Story has a reference to Teresa Teng’s other famous song,
Tian Mi Mi.
 Hong Kong Filmmakers . 137

 5. In Sparrow (DVD) (Hong Kong version, bonus track), Johnnie To mentions that this
mysterious mainland Chinese girl represents new immigrants in Hong Kong hailing
from China.
 6. Source: interview with Johnnie To in Sparrow (DVD) (Hong Kong version, bonus
track).
 7. Source: interview with Johnnie To in Sparrow (DVD) (Hong Kong version, bonus
track).
 8. Source: interview with Johnnie To in Sparrow (DVD) (Hong Kong version, bonus
track).
 9. In Susanna T.’s interview with Fruit Chan, the shooting period of four months is men-
tioned in the Chinese version of the interview transcript. No such mention is found
in the English version.
10. Some famous Hong Kong gangster films made in the 1990s include the Young and
Dangerous series. See note 12 in Chapter One.
11. When read in the Cantonese language, the surname Chu is a homonym of ‘pig’.
Locals in Hong Kong often associate pigs with dirt, laziness and shabbiness.
12. Source: Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com (accessed 5 May 2015).
Chapter Four

Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences

The Red Cliff Experience in East and
South East Asia

Different Hong Kong-raised or Hong Kong-based ethnic Chinese mainstream

film directors may employ various cinematic devices to deliver their authorial
vision, and their concerns about the changes in Hong Kong’s sociopolitical envi-
ronment and the Hongkongers’ social-cultural-political status under the influ-
ences of the Handover. Generally, commercial film professionals are inclined
to refer to box-office statistics to determine whether a film is successful or not
(see, for example, Chan C. 2000; Shackleton 2012b; see also the ‘audience-as-
market’ paradigm in Ang 1991: 26–32; McQuail 1994: 288–89). On the other
hand, film audiences are often treated (or thought to be) in a passive position
to be impacted by the films they watch. If audience comments are available, they
are likely to be filtered by the organizers of audience survey, or be exploited as
free marketing tools for the films in question.
With the affordability, accessibility and, indeed, trendiness of advanced
technology in the form of cheap or free Wi-Fi facilities, increasingly light lap-
tops, inexpensive mobile devices and countless instant messaging apps, film
audience comments unofficially circulating through different social networking
media should not be overlooked. Cases when film audiences were the proactive,
driving force of certain films’ production and distribution have already aroused
intense discussions among different national and transnational film industries.1
Questions also arise as to how, when, why, to whom, by whom these audience
comments were made, what they were about, and what the impacts of the com-
ments were on the film viewers themselves and on others. As for the New Hong
Kong Cinema, audiences are important not only because they contribute to the
box-office income that sustains the operation of the film industry. Their spec-
tatorship (with which Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films are watched,
listened to, read, written about, translated and reinterpreted across national
boundaries) contributes a great extent to the New Hong Kong Cinema’s inter-
stitiality – in ways similar to how the archetypal accented films and the filmmak-
ers’ authorial vision are appreciated by their spectators (Naficy 2001: 4). For this
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 139

reason, there is an urgent need for systematic and in-depth investigations into
empirical audience comments on Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films,
which box-office figures or professional film critics could not inform. However,
there are no noticeable, systematically organized, independent, non-marketing
related and consistent channels to allow film audiences of the New Hong Kong
Cinema to register their views, not to mention that there are no such channels
specifically at the disposal of ethnic Chinese film viewers. Even rarer are those
platforms dedicated to individual films for similar purposes.
To address the above issue, in this chapter I trace the actual viewing experi-
ence and reception of ethnic Chinese film audiences of the New Hong Kong
Cinema. Their spectatorship, I argue, helps negotiate and articulate the cin-
ema’s state of transitions and interstitiality in recent years. I am particularly
interested in researching those traditional audiences of Hong Kong Cinema
found among ethnic Chinese communities in East and South East Asia – those
called overseas Chinese or diasporic Chinese in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand (Hau 2012), in addition to the cinema’s main-
land Chinese audience. I first review the existing studies on fans and film audi-
ences. I point out the lack of studies on non-Euro-American and non-white film
audiences. Establishing this lack in the field of Chinese-language film studies,
and in audience and fan studies, is imperative with respect to my own audience
surveys: I was prompted to conduct them when I could not find any informa-
tion about scholarly reception studies on ethnic Chinese film audiences. I then
detail the context, aims, methodology and data analysis of a series of original
fan-audience online surveys regarding the Chinese-language mega block-
buster Red Cliff (2008 and 2009) (as a representative of the New Hong Kong
Cinema), together with a follow-up study, which I undertook independently (see
R. Cheung 2011b).2 My empirical findings delineate a dynamic picture of how
different ethnic Chinese film audiences in East/South East Asia received this
film. Those diasporic Chinese viewing communities in the region magnified the
problematic Chineseness and diaspora-related aspects of Red Cliff, which did
not seem to have been acknowledged by the initial authorial vision of the film’s
director John Woo. Besides their distinct fandom, diasporic Chinese audiences
of the New Hong Kong Cinema living in the region and under my study testi-
fied to a reality of diaspora practice with their diasporic reading of Red Cliff: the
mentality of ‘diaspora’ has an expiry date (Shih 2011: 713–14, 717). Many of them
come from the second (or later) generation of ethnic Chinese settling in their
140 . New Hong Kong Cinema

present territories of residence. Unlike their grandparents or parents, they see

themselves and live their lives more as ‘locals’ than as ‘immigrants’ in where they
are. Their spectatorial responses to Red Cliff, which were based on their extra-
filmic experience, demonstrated the subtlety and complexity of the diasporic
Chinese’s mentalities and multiple attitudes to ‘China’ and ‘Chinese history’.
They added new dimensions to the interstitiality and liminality of the New Hong
Kong Cinema.

Hong Kong-Related Chinese-Language Films: Audience Reception

In the considerations of accented cinema by diaspora and film scholar Hamid

Naficy (2001: 23), not only the filmmakers’ but also the audiences’ deterritorial-
ized locations conduce to the accentedness of the films. Similar to the accented
filmmakers who, according to Naficy, are not only textual structures or fictional
figures in film but also empirical subjects, the audiences of accented films are
also real and actual. The ways these audiences watch, listen to, read, translate
and write about the films ‘are part of the spectatorial activities and competen-
cies that are needed for appreciating the works of these [accented] filmmak-
ers’ (Naficy 2001: 4; see also 25, 124–25). The audiences bring with them their
own experience of dislocations and displacements, and hence corresponding
demands for and expectations of certain ‘authentic’ and corrective representa-
tions, to consume the films that reflect the accented filmmakers’ own diasporic
existence (Naficy 2001: 6). As Naficy (2001: 35) remarks about the accented
filmmakers’ mode of production and authorship, ‘The interpretation of these
[authorial] signatures and accents depends on the spectators, who are them-
selves often situated astride cultures and within collective formations. Hence,
the figures they cut in their spectating of the accented filmmakers as authors
are nuanced by their own extratextual tensions of difference and identity’. The
accented filmmakers in turn use different cinematic devices to appeal to and
address directly the target audiences’ sense of morality and justice, providing
alternative discourses to official records (Naficy 2001: 114–15).
Here we can see that the accented filmmakers and their films’ audiences are
complementary. They rely on each other’s sensitivity, recognition and acknowl-
edgement to keep each other going and to sustain the qualities of the accented
cinema (Naficy 2001: 68–70). Applying this insight to the reception of the New
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 141

Hong Kong Cinema, I believe a thorough understanding of how different audi-

ences watch, interpret, talk and write about these Hong Kong-related Chinese-
language films is necessary for us to critically examine the New Hong Kong
Cinema. I am particularly interested to unearth the information among Hong
Kong Cinema’s traditional target audiences, i.e., the Chinese communities in
domestic and overseas markets in East and South East Asia. As Asian studies
scholar Caroline S. Hau (2012) notes, ‘In the early postwar era, the production
of Hong Kong films relied heavily on financing by overseas Chinese and pre-
selling to distributors in Southeast Asia’; and in the Cold War period, ‘Taiwan
emerged as the Hong Kong film industry’s main market and a leading source of
non-Hong Kong financing’ (see also G. Leung and J. Chan 1997; Chan C. 2000;
Li C. 2000: 13). In the following, I will first take a look at the essentials of audi-
ence and reception studies before I move on to discuss my own research on the
ethnic Chinese audiences of the New Hong Kong Cinema.

Audiences and Fans (Anglo-Saxon Concepts)

To understand film reception from the audience’s angle, the first question we
should ask ourselves is ‘what exactly is an audience?’ The answer to this seem-
ingly lucid question may reveal the background of different individuals and
the prevailing ideological concerns of a given historical period. To profession-
als working in cultural and mass media industries, audiences have long been
regarded as the submissive, vulnerable receiving end of a finished cultural prod-
uct, if they have not been objectified and quantified in terms of the ratings in
the television industry or the box-office earnings in the film business, for exam-
ple. Media academics have also historically tended ‘to treat media audiences as
passive and controlled’ (Lewis 1992: 1). Their attitude often reveals a ‘tendency
to privilege aesthetic superiority in programming’, their ‘reluctance to support
consumerism’ and their ‘belief in media industry manipulation’ (Lewis 1992: 1).
Cultural theorist Ien Ang, for instance, in Desperately Seeking the Audience (1991)
characterizes the media (television) industry dominance over the audience and
the lack of understanding of the audience in the message production/reception
environment as ‘colonized by … the institutional point of view’ (Ang 1991: 2). She
argues that this dominance has also influenced the ways academic audience
research is conducted (Ang 1991: 10–11; Hall 1993: 100).
In relation to film, the cinema audiences are ‘people who assemble to watch
films in cinemas and other venues, both public and private; and also those who
142 . New Hong Kong Cinema

consume films via alternative platforms such as video, DVD, home cinema, and
television’ (Kuhn and Westwell 2012: 21). The concept of ‘audience’ here points
to empirical viewers who nonetheless remain as rather passive entities along the
circuit of message (or media contents) production, circulation and reception.
They are not sufficiently understood by media text producers and the authori-
ties. What examinations there are of film audiences’ viewing experience and
context tend to be conducted from the perspective of the survey organizers for
perpetuating the purposes of the government, the film industry, marketing com-
panies and journalists alike (Ang 1991; Austin 2002: 24–25). Scholarly research
on the empirical film audience is still a minor area within the field of audience
studies and the larger field of film studies (Barker with Austin 2000: 8–31, 48–49;
Austin 2002: 1, 11–42).
The actual experience of everyday audiences seems an even more margin-
alized topic in the scholarly research of Hong Kong-related Chinese-language
films. In many existing academic studies, these films are primarily read with
regard to their aesthetic merits, literary qualities, cultural-historical implications,
philosophical inspirations, psychoanalytical revelations, political-economic
or even business concerns, while there are not many noticeable studies on
Chinese-language films’ audience reception, not to mention Chinese-speaking
audiences in particular.3 This certainly leaves our efforts to explore Chinese-
language cinemas incomplete, especially considering that Chinese-language
films have a history almost as long as the history of the motion picture itself.4
If we agree with film scholar Thomas Austin’s opinion that ‘film viewers are
productive agents in the creation of meaning, pleasure and use’ (Austin 2002:
2) within an intertwining nexus that also includes film text and corresponding
contexts, then film audiences and their empirical functions in the whole film
production/distribution/exhibition setup in relation to Chinese-language films
are too important to be treated on a level second to film texts, directorial styles
or production context.
Among different types of film audience activities, the most visible are those
of fans.5 Despite the ‘fan’ to be possibly found in all of us, the label ‘fans’ is often
negatively associated with those enthusiastic, extremely devoted yet brain-
less radical audiences of mediated texts, such as films, television programmes,
literary works, or celebrated film stars/directors/singers, etc. ‘Fans’ have only
started to receive close readings in the Anglo-Saxon academic setting since the
early 1990s in the vein of cultural studies practised by media scholars such as
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 143

John Fiske (1992) and Henry Jenkins (1992a) (see also J. Gray, Sandvoss and
Harrington 2007: 1–16). Although fans have thus been given the serious atten-
tion they have long deserved, early investigations of fan studies preserved the
stereotypical images of their subject: that the ‘fans’ are ‘abnormal’ social con-
structs, fanatic, non-legitimate, socioculturally deprived, 6 anti-institutional,
and people with issues related to their class, gender and age (Fiske 1992: 30).7
Jenkins, who was Fiske’s mentee, developed the concept of ‘fandom’ along these
lines in the early 1990s, although he held a different take on the term:

When my mentor, John Fiske (1992), said he was a ‘fan’, he meant simply that
he liked a particular program, but when I said I was a fan, I was claiming
membership in a particular subculture. Meaning-making in Fiske was often
individualized, whereas in my work, meaning-making is often deeply social.
(Jenkins 2013: kindle loc 200)

In his early fan-related works, Jenkins dissected ‘fandom’ into four levels: (1)
fans have a distinct mode of reception in the form of socioculturally informed,
ongoing, active meaning-production (Jenkins 1992a: 209–10, 1992b, 2013: kindle
loc 395, p. 3 and p. 45), (2) fans are specific interpretative communities with their
own ‘reading protocols and structures of meaning’ (Jenkins 1992a: 210–11), (3)
fans are involved in their own creative and artistic productions, called ‘textual
poaching’, for which they use materials from original mediated texts (Jenkins
1992a: 211–13, 2013: kindle loc 328, p. 23), (4) fans form their own communities,
which are different from the ones they live in in the real world (Jenkins 1992a:
213).
While Fiske and Jenkins were instrumental in introducing fan studies to
Anglo-Saxon academia, they only discussed the kind of fans who fit in the domi-
nant ideological framework of self and ‘other’.8 Germinal fan investigations did
not explore fans who keep their fandom to themselves and do not label them-
selves as such, fans who only love one single film or one single literary clas-
sic for a certain while, or fans who behave in their everyday lives no differently
than non-fans (see also J. Gray, Sandvoss and Harrington 2007: 1–4). In many
research works following these first studies, ‘fans’ as a collective noun remains a
specific label for enthusiastic audiences/readers/followers/collectors of fandom
objects, while fans’ regular identities, professions, other interests and hobbies,
family backgrounds, ethnic origins, educational characteristics, language skills,
144 . New Hong Kong Cinema

religions, political stances and the potential changes to any of these traits are
largely taken for granted or hidden in the research assumptions. ‘Fans’ are by
and large scrutinized as a singled-out subsection of a society, which seems not
to have any direct effect and affect in relation to its surroundings (for example,
wars, natural disasters, job market decline, Global Financial Crisis, etc.). How
the various fans might actually be affected by, and respond to, the vicissitudes in
micro and macro milieus (economic, political, environmental and so forth) has
only recently started to draw the attention of academic researchers (see Austin
2002; Hills 2002; Chin 2007; Napier 2007; Larsen and Zubernis 2012; Jenkins,
Ford and Green 2013; among others).
Above all, there is the problem of a lack of studies on non-white fans and
fandom, and how ethnic-historical-cultural-geopolitical-specific factors might
have influence on non-white fans in their particular thinking and behaviours as
fans, and in other areas of their everyday lives. Although a small body of works on
non-white fans and fandom is gradually starting to grow, the problem is that they
attract insufficient academic attention – a problem recognized, in passing, as
early as 1992 by Fiske and which remains unresolved to this day (Harrington and
Bielby 2007; Y. Chow and de Kloet 2008; Chin and Hitchcock Morimoto 2013 (in
particular endnote 5); see also Ciecko and H. Lee 2007; Punathambekar 2007).
This lack indirectly mirrors the bias still often found in the Euro-American-
centric conceptual and methodological approaches to audience studies (and
film studies in general).
In spite of the above context of audience and fan studies, fans’ constantly
changing fandom, their relationships with different media texts and with these
texts’ official producers, and their interpersonal relationships within and beyond
their own fan communities give us a promising entry point to understanding the
supposedly passive audiences and their empirical reception of contemporary
Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films. Some of the most obvious viewing
communities of these films are the ethnic Chinese audiences living in East and
South East Asia (Hau 2012). Regrettably, more than twenty years have passed
since the first waves of fan studies in academia and there is still a lack of sys-
tematic, qualitative investigations of non-Anglophone fans and their reception
of film texts (Jenkins 2013: kindle loc 677–83). The lack of empirical qualitative
information on film reception of ethnic Chinese audiences in Chinese-language
film studies, and in audience and fan studies, hence inspired me to conduct a
series of online surveys with the aim of finding out about actual reception among
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 145

ethnic Chinese audiences of the New Hong Kong Cinema. The complete version
of the Chinese-language mega blockbuster Red Cliff as a representative of this
cinema was chosen to be the anchorage of my research, due to the film’s heavily
promoted East and South East Asian reach.

Red Cliff, History and John Woo

Officially, Red Cliff has multiple places of origin: China, Hong Kong, Japan, South
Korea, Taiwan and the United States. It was a co-production project funded
entirely by four East Asian film equity investors from China, Japan, South
Korea and Taiwan respectively (Frater 2008; M. Lee 2008; Thompson 2008).
They were China Film Group Corporation (China), Showbox Entertainment
(South Korea), CMC Entertainment (Taiwan) and Avex Entertainment (Japan).
Their investments were matched against a bank loan taken out by the film’s
producer Terence Chang (Thompson 2008). With a budget of U.S.$80 million
(£49 million), Red Cliff is thus, by far, one of the most expensively produced
Chinese-language films catering to mainstream audiences. Most of the other
Chinese-language blockbusters are known to have had budgets below U.S.$50
million (£31 million) (see Table A.1 in the Appendix for a summary of the budgets
of Chinese-language blockbusters produced between 2000 and 2010, a period
during which China started to turn out its own blockbusters). 9 In mainland
Chinese publicity terms, blockbusters are referred to as dapian (literally meaning
big films), which are ‘costume pictures with martial arts, big budget, big stars, big
directors, big special effects and backing from the authorities’ (Yeh 2010: 193).
According to film scholar Darrell William Davis (2010: 125), Chinese-language
blockbusters ‘enjoy around 80 per cent of the annual domestic box office rev-
enue’.
Red Cliff was generally released for its target audience markets in East and
South East Asia, including China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia,
Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand on dates that coincided with two
separate, monumental Chinese cultural events. Part I opened in these markets in
July 2008 (except in Japan where it opened in November 2008), a time near to
the Beijing Olympics held in August 2008. Part II opened in the same geographi-
cal region in January 2009, close to the time of the Chinese New Year holidays
that year (in Japan it was generally released in April 2009). Both releases were
146 . New Hong Kong Cinema

backed by a blanket of strategic film marketing efforts across the whole region.
Part I runs for 146 minutes; and Part II for 142 minutes. The film was the box-
office champion at its opening weekend in most of its target markets, indicating
that the film would likely recoup most of its investments from East and South
East Asia (M. Lee 2008).10 The two instalments of Red Cliff were compressed
into a single, 148-minute version with minimized back story for release outside
Asia in 2009. According to the director John Woo, some major scenes were
deliberately trimmed to produce this condensed version for audiences not well
versed in the history of the Three Kingdoms re-presented in the film (Bunch
2009; Chow C. 2009; Solomons 2009).
Red Cliff depicts historical incidents and separate battles that led up to the
famous Battle of Red Cliffs (aka the Battle of Chi Bi), which took place in the
winter of ad 208–9 during the Han Dynasty in Imperial China. The film starts
in the period when China was practically a divided country nominally under
the rule of the political figurehead Emperor Xian, the last emperor of the Han
Dynasty. The actual rule was in the hands of warlords who had absolute power
over their respective territories. In the plot, the most powerful warlord, Cao Cao
(Zhang Fengyi), has newly united the northern frontier and has been appointed
chancellor. He asks the emperor for support in order to wage more wars in the
south on individual warlords and to reunite the country. In effect, Cao has taken
over all the imperial power and is controlling an army of as many as 800,000 sol-
diers. While marching south, Cao’s army meets the allied forces of two warlords,
Liu Bei (a distant cousin of Emperor Xian; played by You Yong) and Sun Quan
(Chang Chen). The two opposing factions fight with each other in the Battle of
Red Cliffs (the place of the battle is believed to be located on the south bank
of the Yangtze River, somewhere between the present-day cities of Wuhan and
Yueyang). The film ends with Cao, who is badly defeated, being forced to retreat
back to the north.
The Battle of Red Cliffs and the subsequent period of the Three Kingdoms
are of great importance from a historical perspective. Historians believe that the
Battle of Red Cliffs decisively changed the course of Chinese history as it made
each of the three warlords aware that they lacked the military power to gain
complete control single-handedly over the whole country. Cao was frustrated
and had to confine his control to the north of the Yangtze River, whereas the
allied forces of Liu and Sun secured control over their respective lands to the
south of the Yangtze River. The battle thus directly led to a situation in which
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 147

the three camps divided China into a tripartite territory and started the historical
period of the Three Kingdoms (ad 220–80), one of the most infamous periods of
disunity in China’s history. However, since the official and unofficial records for
that period of Chinese history vary, what its valid sources are remains debatable.
The Records of the Three Kingdoms (aka Sanguo Zhi or三國志) written by Chen
Shou in the fourth century is believed to be the authoritative record covering
the history of Red Cliffs and the Three Kingdoms. Yet, the related events and
people were dramatized and made popular by the classic work of Chinese litera-
ture Romance of the Three Kingdoms (aka Sanguo Yanyi or三國演義) written by
Luo Guanzhong in the fourteenth century. Folklore traditions, myths, classical
art and popular cultural forms (such as stage operas, poems, Chinese paintings,
films, television series and computer games) related to the stories of the Three
Kingdoms and the personalities involved were adapted mainly from these two
works, especially the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In recent times the Three
Kingdoms stories are often included in the school curriculum in Chinese com-
munities. In short, the tales of the Battle of Red Cliffs and the Three Kingdoms
have for centuries been household stories among Chinese people living around
the world as well as among nationals of other countries (for example, Japanese
and Koreans) who have been exposed to Chinese history and culture.
The screen interpretation and representation of the Battle of Red Cliffs by
Woo offers one of the numerous glimpses of how people in our time may think
of and imagine the distant past. It also indirectly displays Woo’s worldview, bio-
graphical background and his earlier filmmaking career. Similar to many Hong
Kong film directors I discuss in other chapters of this book, mainland China-born
Woo has a diasporic background. He moved to Hong Kong at the age of five with
his family, who then lived in the slum area in Hong Kong for a number of years.
Woo was lucky to be sponsored by an American family to go to a local Catholic
school, where he received his education and was inspired by the Christian reli-
gion. Starting from 1969, Woo worked in the local film industry in Hong Kong as
an assistant. His work at the Shaw Brothers studio and his assistantship to action
cinema master Chang Cheh (aka Zhang Che) would have a lasting influence
on Woo’s subsequent directorship. By the mid 1980s, Woo had become a film
director for Golden Harvest studio and made several comedies. But his early
films did not do well in local box offices. The initial failure caused him to go to
Taiwan in the early 1980s to work as a director; this was a kind of self-exile from
the booming Hong Kong film industry. In 1986 he had the opportunity to return
148 . New Hong Kong Cinema

to Hong Kong to direct A Better Tomorrow, the film that would soon become one
of the classics of contemporary Hong Kong Cinema. The filmmaker’s success
in the late 1980s in Hong Kong attracted the interest of Hollywood, and in 1993
Woo got a contract to work there. This coincided with the period when, in con-
nection with the approaching Handover in 1997, the Hongkongers were generally
considering whether to migrate or stay behind. Woo took up the Hollywood job
and stayed in the United States until 2008. He did not have an incredibly suc-
cessful career there, and Red Cliff marked Woo’s major comeback to Asia and
his decision to make films on his home turf again. Contrary to his Hollywood
experience, which often involved levels of discussions with film producers and
investors before decisions could be made, Woo has enjoyed much greater direc-
torial control in his Asia-made films (Renowned Director 2005; Li L. and Chen
X. 2008).
Red Cliff, as Woo confirms in media interviews, carries his own personal
romanticization of historical incidents that are factually based on the official
Records of Three Kingdoms (Chow C. 2009; John Woo 2009).11 Important per-
sonalities in history are introduced on screen with little information about their
names and backgrounds. The result is that the film relies heavily on the history
knowledge of the viewers in order for the story to be understood; those who
are not familiar with that part of Chinese history can easily lose track at certain
points in the film. In detailing the interpersonal relationships of these historical
characters, Woo inscribes in them his other favourite themes, such as social col-
lectivism, male bonding, courage and bravery, and anti-war idealization. Above
all, the film conveys a strong urge for national unity similar to what the rulers of
China would have been eager to achieve at all costs, leaving no space for think-
ing otherwise. Moreover, the evocation of Chinese national pride and nation-
alistic ideals in the film ignores different choices of lives people would hope to
pursue, and the complex history of China/Chinese civilization (characterized by
wars, colonization and the succession of different ruling dynasties and races of
people – Hans, Mongols, Manchus). This is particularly problematic when we
consider historian Robert A. Rosenstone’s argument (2006: 39) about history
and historical films that ‘[t]hey are what help to create in us the feeling that we
are not just viewing history, but actually living through events in the past, expe-
riencing (or so we think, at least momentarily) what others felt in times of war,
revolution, and social, cultural, and political change’. In Woo’s interpretation of
history presented in Red Cliff, Liu and Sun represent the good guys who unite
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 149

together to fight for a righteous cause. The good guys finally defeat Cao and
his army, the bad guys, and their ambition to bring further turmoil to the coun-
try. This seemingly politically correct interpretation of past events in fact brings
forth a perpetuation of that version of history having been passed down by the
winners and dominators, who themselves had to kill and stifle the voices of their
opponents barbarically to become the winners. Who then were good and bad?
The diegetic call for Chinese national unification and unity in Red Cliff can
also be found on a non-diegetic level via its cast, whose members come from
different territories in East Asia. Regardless of where the actors and actresses are
originally from, they all play Chinese nationals in the film, dress in Chinese period
costumes and are dubbed over as speaking ‘perfect’ Mandarin Chinese. This lin-
guistic treatment is different from what Ang Lee does in Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon, in which the director preserves the different accents actors speak within
the film and reattaches himself to a ‘China’ he actually has never known from
his diasporic perspective (Klein 2004: 25). As Asian studies scholar Shu-mei
Shih (2007: 2) remarks on the accents with which the actors speak in Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon, ‘the accents break down the idea that the characters live
in a coherent universe’.
Instead of representing effectively a national wholeness, Red Cliff’s star-
laden cast ironically aggravates the Sinocentric problem coming through the
film. The places of origin of individual actors and actresses in the context of
working on this film induce informed audiences to draw parallels between the
restaged battle and the present-day situation in East Asia, as well as to speculate
on deeper geopolitical implications beyond the diegetic scenarios. To be exact,
multiple award-winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai from Hong Kong and Kaneshiro
Takeshi from Taiwan (he was born to a Japanese father and a Taiwanese mother)
play the two male leads, Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang respectively. While Zhou is
the viceroy of Sun’s camp, Zhuge is the strategist working for Liu. Both Zhou
and Zhuge (the righteous, good guys) work together trying to fight off the inva-
sion of Cao’s camp (the arrogant, bad guys). Cao, on the other hand, is played
by renowned mainland Chinese actor Zhang Fengyi. These three major roles
are supported by a constellation of East Asian film stars who were already very
famous before acting in Red Cliff. For example, Sun Quan is played by Chang
Chen (Taiwan). Sun’s sister is played by Vicki Zhao (aka Zhao Wei), who is from
China. She is one of the two main female characters in the film, the other being
Xiaoqiao, played by Lin Chiling (a model-turned-actress from Taiwan). While
150 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Hu Jun (China) plays Zhao Yun (military general on Liu’s side), Nakamura Shido
(Japan) plays Gan Xing (military general on Sun’s side). What we are prompted
to see here, then, is more than just the interaction of the stars in the film. It inevi-
tably also involves associations with the often difficult international relations
among the places of origin of the stars.

Empirical Audience Research among Ethnic Chinese

Before I detail my independent study on the audience reception of Red Cliff, I

should say that my initial interest in researching audiences was a by-product of
my contribution to The Epic Film in World Culture (Burgoyne 2011). The idea of
studying Chinese-language epic film audiences came along after I had watched
the full two-diptych version of Red Cliff (in its Hong Kong-version DVD format),
and had had mixed feelings about it, before the film was generally released out-
side Asia. As a film researcher, I was impressed by Woo’s stylistic achievement
and technical competence in this Sinitic epic film. But as an ethnic Chinese
film viewer who has a different understanding of ‘Chinese’ identities, I was not
(and still am not) convinced by Woo’s simplistic interpretation and urging for a
national unity through his approach to romanticizing the debatable historical
incidents and personalities in the film. The way that Woo conceals the disunity
of the places of origin of the cast by means of giving them a unified ‘Chinese’
look in their costume and spoken language (speaking ‘perfect’ Mandarin Chinese
without an accent) reminds me of the cultural Sinocentrism and the concomi-
tant feeling of national superiority. This kind of cultural/national essentialism
has been notoriously a top-down practice, encouraged by the Chinese authori-
ties and perpetuated by those who fail to see the danger in such an ideology
in a period when China is expanding its hard and soft power worldwide (see,
for example, R. Chow 1993; Ang 1998, 2001; Chua B. 2012; Jacques 2012). My
mixed feelings for this box-office winner thus prompted me to explore the view-
ing experience of other ethnic Chinese spectators of the film (complete, two-
part version), especially those not living in mainland China and having their own
ideas of what ‘China’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Chineseness’ might mean. As I mentioned
earlier, there were in fact no such qualitative film audience investigations availa-
ble in the field of Chinese-language film studies, and in audience and fan studies.
This discovery inspired me to conduct one myself, via a series of online audience
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 151

surveys (see R. Cheung 2011b). My online investigations proved very useful for
obtaining first-hand audience reception data that would have been expensive
and time-consuming to gather through conventional focus group discussions or
in-depth personal interviews. I will now discuss my methods of gathering these
audience opinions.

Methodology: Online Surveys 2009 and 2013

My investigations followed the tradition of cultural studies. The main aims were:
(1) to uncover ethnic Chinese’s spectatorial responses to Red Cliff (complete,
two-part version) that might or might not have been influenced by the audi-
ences’ own historical awareness and diasporic consciousness, (2) to discover
whether such spectatorial responses were equal to or differed from Woo’s
directorial vision in restaging a past of ‘China’, and (3) how the audiences might
contemplate the future as a result of watching this film. Spectatorial responses
to the condensed version of Red Cliff were not considered, as this shortened
version has left out important parts of the restaged history. The first round of
studies was conducted in 2009, and the follow-up was in 2013.

First Surveys, 2009

During two randomly chosen months, March and August of 2009, I designed
and conducted a series of online studies on major social networking websites
and fansites. My investigations were based on online participant observation,
and on content and linguistic analysis of fan-authored messages posted on
these websites in the first year after the general release of Red Cliff (Part I) in
East and South East Asia. My research had two levels. The focus at the first level
was the film itself. It included finding out audience comments on the film’s offi-
cial websites.12 Among them, only the China and the U.S. sites had sections for
audiences’ comments, which were ‘shared’ externally from other online forums.
Whereas the one on the China site linked to blogs hosted by sina.com.cn, Red
Cliff’s U.S. site was linked to Facebook pages that were dedicated to the film. I
also did similar investigations to dig out online comments and discussions on
Red Cliff on five of the world’s most popular social networking websites at that
time – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendster and Bebo (see Table A.2 in the
Appendix for the accumulated statistics up until 24 August 2009).
I conducted the online surveys through my personal registration as a member
of these social networking media. Owing to my language capacity, I considered
152 . New Hong Kong Cinema

only audience comments and discussions written in English and Chinese (simpli-
fied and traditional scripts) at this initial stage of investigations. Besides English,
I am fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, and can read and write equally
well in traditional and in simplified Chinese scripts. These language skills enabled
me to distinguish the nuances in the writings of Sinitic speakers/writers in par-
ticular from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively, who write with
words, tones, grammar and syntax unique to their own respective geopolitical ter-
ritories. While traditional Chinese characters are used by Sinitic writers in Hong
Kong, Macau, Taiwan and among older generations of Chinese immigrants in the
West, simplified Chinese characters are officially used in the PRC and Singapore,
as well as among Sinitic writers in Malaysia. Shih uses the term ‘Sinophone’ to
align the Chinese linguistic heterogeneities and multiplicities that occur in various
degrees across Sinitic-speaking ethnic Chinese communities settled in East and
South East Asia as well as along the Pacific Rim (Shih 2007: 7). According to Shih
(2007: 4), ‘Sinophone’ depicts ‘a network of places of cultural production outside
China and on the margins of China and Chineseness, where a historical process
of heterogenizing and localizing of continental Chinese culture has been taking
place for several centuries’. Shih’s idea thus echoes Ang’s argument (1998: 225)
that there are ‘many different Chinese identities, not one’. Language in the case of
Sinophone regions is not related so much to the ethnic-cultural origins of people
as to these people’s everyday encounters in their present places of residence (for
example, consider the difference in the use of written/spoken Chinese languages
between those ethnic Chinese living in Hong Kong and Taiwan). ‘Sinophone’ is
thus place-specific. It refers to multiplicity not only in verbal but also in script
forms (Shih 2011: 715). Most importantly, the concept of ‘Sinophone’ refuses the
hegemonic call of Chineseness that has its political roots in a hollow Sinocentrism.
‘Sinophone’ sets an ‘expiration date’ for those in diaspora to become locals in their
host countries (Shih 2011: 713–14, 717).
To keep my research manageable, this initial stage of online investigations
served to filter out non-essential online audience messages that were not what
I set out to look for. In particular, the findings from the five popular social net-
working media were far from inspiring. Some of these media, for example Twitter,
having strict word limits for posts, only displayed very brief written messages
from Red Cliff’s audiences. They could not reveal much of these audiences’
thoughts. As many of these messages were written in non-Sinitic languages such
as English, they did not tell easily the ethnic-cultural-geopolitical origins of the
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 153

post writers. They also did not tell clearly whether the claimed locations of the
post writers were real and whether these post writers had watched the complete
version of Red Cliff (which was only shown in designated markets in East/South
East Asia).
I discovered long blog posts written solely in simplified Chinese characters on
the film’s official website in China. The way in which these posts were written
suggested the mainland origin of the writers. In terms of content, most of these
audience comments were positive (indicating to a certain extent the film market-
ing efforts behind the so-called interactive forum). They focused primarily on the
spectacular battle scenes that feature tens of thousands of soldiers in military
formations. This discovery was in striking contrast with those mainland Chinese
media reports that stressed dissatisfaction of the film among its mainland Chinese
audience. According to these media reports, film viewers in China thought that
Red Cliff deviated noticeably from the supposedly ‘true’ history. The characteri-
zation of famous historical personalities on screen also raised an issue as to how
thorough Woo’s understanding of Chinese history was (Li L. and Chen X. 2008;
John Woo 2009). If the mainland Chinese audience dislikes Red Cliff mainly for its
‘unfaithfulness’ to the ‘history’ that the audience is familiar with, how would dif-
ferent opinions among diasporic Chinese audiences attest to the effects of their
diasporic experience and to the impacts of the ‘historical process of heterogeniz-
ing and localizing of continental Chinese culture’ on them (Shih 2007: 4)?
This brings us to the second level of my research, which revolved around the
fans and their fandom dedicated to Kaneshiro Takeshi, one of Red Cliff’s male
leads. As Chin (2007: 215) mentions, fandom in East Asia is practised differ-
ently than in the West. Rather than focusing their energies on a particular film
text or characters in films or television programmes, fans in East Asia are ‘idol-
driven’. East Asian fans enjoy building up imagined ‘intimacy’ with their star idols
(Yano 2004: 44; see also the concept of the ‘imagined communities’ in Anderson
(1983)). By default, they will be the first to see the films, television programmes
and commercials in which their idols are involved, and will buy the music albums
that their idols turn out.13 These fans demonstrate profound knowledge of their
idols’ likes, dislikes and the mundane details of their lives, and often show this
knowledge off to their fellow fans. Instead of displaying grass-roots resistance
to the media texts produced through official channels (Fiske 1992), fans in East
Asia show dedication and 100 per cent support for their idols and their idols’
activities. Among these fandom efforts, online fansites are often mounted to
154 . New Hong Kong Cinema

give the fans a place to express their love for their idols, to discuss their idols’
works in detail, to interact with each other and build communion over the love
they share for the same stars.
My choice of Kaneshiro as the centre point of the second level of my
research owed much to his being an interesting figure. Unlike other major actors/
actresses in Red Cliff, Kaneshiro has an ambiguous ethnic-cultural background.
He was born in 1973 in Taipei, Taiwan to a Taiwanese mother and a Japanese
father. Whereas Kaneshiro was raised, educated and later started his entertain-
ment career in Taiwan, which the star often declares publicly to be his real home,
he is officially a Japanese citizen. His Japanese nationality, however, made him
ineligible for the competition of the Outstanding Taiwanese Filmmaker of the
Year Award in the forty-fifth edition of the Golden Horse Awards (the Taiwan
equivalent of the Oscars®) in December 2008 (M. Lim 2008). On the other hand,
the handsome Kaneshiro has good command of Cantonese, English, Japanese,
Mandarin and Taiwanese, and is welcomed by fans from different territories in
East Asia. These fans find it easy to build a close ethnic-cultural connection
with the star.
In order to understand what Kaneshiro’s fans thought about his role in Red
Cliff and about the film, and in a further attempt to find out different opinions of
diasporic Chinese audiences on the film, I examined the fan pages and member
groups dedicated to Kaneshiro on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendster and
Bebo (see statistics in Table A.3 in the Appendix). Again, the brevity of the mes-
sages and the dubiety of the ethnic-cultural-geopolitical origins of the post writ-
ers on these online media made the found audience comments not ideal vehicles
for understanding the views of diasporic Chinese audiences on Kaneshiro’s role
in Red Cliff and on the film itself. I also investigated nine of Kaneshiro’s fansites.
The Chinese-language fansite with the URL www.takeshikaneshiro.net stood
out from among the rest as carrying the useful information I was looking for, for
further audience reception analysis. It was an extremely well-organized fansite,
built and managed by a Hong Kong-based fan-cum-administrator. The interac-
tive forum on this fansite allowed registered visitors (other fans of Kaneshiro) to
communicate to each other freely, mainly in Chinese (simplified and traditional
scripts) and, to a much lesser extent, in English. Through this online forum,
Kaneshiro’s fans posted their comments on the star and all kinds of activities the
star was involved with. Between 11 October 2006 (when the first message was
posted on the interactive forum on this fansite) and 26 August 2013, there were
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 155

fifty-six threads (aka topics) of comments (each thread with an original post and
numerous replies) about the fan-audiences’ viewing experience of Red Cliff, out
of a total of 321 topics regarding Kaneshiro’s various professional activities. The
language use on this site and the post contents confirmed the ethnic-cultural-
geopolitical origins of the post writers, who claimed to reside in East and South
East Asian territories and mentioned watching the two-part version of Red Cliff.
This fansite thus became a useful information source for exploring insightful
diasporic Chinese fan-audience opinions on Red Cliff.

Follow-up Survey, 2013

In August 2013, exactly four years after my first online surveys on Red Cliff’s audi-
ences, and a time that marked the fifth anniversary of the general release of Red
Cliff (Part I) in East and South East Asia, I conducted a second online study
to follow the first one up. The film had by then already been widely available
on DVD, Blu-ray Disc; through television reruns; legal or illegal online stream-
ing platforms and so on. Instead of using the film’s official China website as a
springboard for my follow-up research, I conducted content analysis on Sina
Weibo and Tencent Weibo, the two most popular China-based microblogging
spaces in most recent years (when written in Chinese script, weibo is 微博; the
two words form the Chinese term for microblog). They are subscribed to mainly
by mainland China-based users. Sina Weibo was launched in August 2009 and
quickly became the market leader in China. Members of Sina Weibo use the
platform as a hybrid version of Facebook and Twitter. Tencent Weibo (beta ver-
sion) was launched in April 2010. Tencent QQ, the umbrella portal of Tencent
Weibo, covers even more online aspects for users to choose from, ranging from
a Facebook-like profile page, tweet-like weibo posts, to gaming and shopping
conveniences. My research on these two new virtual platforms was imple-
mented from 23 to 24 August 2013. I made use of the respective search engines
on these two microblogging platforms to search for posts that were concerned
with Red Cliff (see statistics in Table A.4 in the Appendix). The posts I found
had a similar format and word limit to that of a tweet on Twitter. Those I closely
examined had been published between 31 March 2010 and 24 August 2013. 14
I then juxtaposed the results with the fan-authored opinions on Red Cliff at
www.takeshikaneshiro.net, which I revisited on 26 August 2013. Posts on this
fansite related to Red Cliff or Kaneshiro’s role in the film had not been updated
since my first online surveys in 2009.
156 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Methodology Strengths and Limitations

My independence in undertaking these online surveys gave me freedom to stay
away from any possible pre-existing institutional bias and agendas. Also, the
online survey methods that I employed were more cost and time effective than
other conventional qualitative research methods. They allowed me to have
complete control over what I was studying and the choice of time at which
I conducted the investigations, as long as I had access to the online forums.
However, my independence as a lone researcher also meant that I was inevitably
subject to constraints in terms of human and financial resources for carrying out
more comprehensive research on the topic. Given the parameters of the online
environment, my investigations were unable to draw opinions from Red Cliff’s
audiences that were financially disadvantaged, technically less competent, or
simply did not use online platforms to express their views publicly. In addition,
although online forums allow participants to share their opinions in a supposedly
‘participatory culture’ in which ‘fans and other consumers are invited to actively
participate in the creation and circulation of new content’ (Jenkins 2008: 331), as
individual users of these Internet platforms we can never know how many indi-
vidual messages have actually been published, accessed and archived by organ-
izers of the forums. This is because most of these online forums are empowered
by large corporations that have their own corporate agendas (Jenkins 2006: 157,
2013: loc 136, pp. 1–2). China-based forums offer us examples of such corpo-
rate self-censorship (if not politically required state censorship) of grass-roots
interventions exercised online. Furthermore, due to the problem of verifying the
Chinese and diasporic status of the post writers if they wrote only in English
or other non-Chinese languages on online platforms, their comments, even
if insightful, were filtered out at the early stage of the 2009 surveys to avoid
misrepresentations of diasporic Chinese comments on the film. This inevitably
reduced the pool of useful online audience comments for my further analysis,
which I will turn to in the next section.

Understanding Ethnic Chinese Audiences

Notwithstanding these methodological constraints, my two rounds of online

surveys in 2009 and 2013 respectively showed that there were indeed differences
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 157

between Woo’s directorial intent, and the empirical reception and interpreta-
tion by Red Cliff’s target Chinese audiences in the region. As the two rounds
of online surveys yielded similar results about the distinct use of film text by
the film’s mainland Chinese audience and East/South East Asia regional fan-
audiences respectively, they also indicated discrete fandom of declared fans of
certain (mediated) texts and stars. Firstly, the age, class and gender of the fan-
audiences under discussion did not appear to have an overarching influence on
their fannish activities, in contrast with what Fiske emphasizes (1992: 32–33).
These audiences might read against the grain of Red Cliff, but they were not
ready to do anything antisocial, anti-institutional or readily artistic (again, as
opposed to what Fiske (1992) and Jenkins (1992a) discussed about the U.S.-
based fans). Secondly, in the case of declared fans of Kaneshiro, their online
sharing and support for the star displayed the distinctive fandom of ‘intimacy’ in
the East/South East Asian context (as identified by Yano (2004), and Y. Chow
and de Kloet (2008)). Thirdly, many of those audiences I surveyed conformed
to, and confirmed, the dominant ideology and their identification as ethnic-cul-
tural Chinese people regardless of their places of residence. Whether based in
mainland China or in Sinophone regions along the Pacific Rim, these audiences
were eager to apply their cultural-historical knowledge to judge Red Cliff on (re)
presenting Chinese history and historical personalities. As far as Sinophone
fan-audiences living in East/South East Asia are concerned, they also displayed
prominently their acceptance of multiplicities in Chinese languages and their
negotiations of their ethnic-cultural identities as Chinese descendants not living
in the geographical mainland of China. This helped turn them into cultural-his-
torical agents to make sense of a bygone past while living an empirical present.
Accordingly, how much these audiences in various locations differed from
each other can be detected in two key areas: their practice of fandom and spec-
tatorship in East/South East Asia, and the intellectualization of their ethnic-
cultural existential conditions (Safran 1991: 87). The discussion of these two key
areas below is supported by extracts from microblogger posts and fan-authored
online messages posted under the post writers’ public screen names, when avail-
able.15 No information as to the real personal identity of any individual micro-
blogger or fan is available. The time and place of postings are given as they were
shown on the public online platforms. The online messages were originally writ-
ten in either traditional or simplified Chinese characters and are translated here
by me.
158 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Practice of Fandom and Spectatorship in East/South East Asia

Whereas in the West we can easily find long-running television programmes
(e.g., Star Trek, Doctor Who or X-Files) gathering a large group of fans over time,
audiences in East Asia do not demonstrate the same degree of attachment to
their favourite film or television texts. Rather, they would choose to be fans or
simply defenders of traditional literary works, star idols, film directors, etc. In
fact, their impressions of a film seem to quickly fade away with time, no matter
whether they loved it or not at the beginning. Compare the following two sets of
negative comments on Red Cliff that I found in my 2009 and 2013 online surveys
respectively:

(Comments found in 2009 from Red Cliff’s official website for its China-based
audience market):

‘Yihua’ (posted 7 January 2009, 19:53): … Like other Chinese costume block-
busters, Red Cliff, whether Part I or Part II, are earning heaps of renminbi from
its viewers in China amid waves of audience disapproval. Viewers are not happy
with the film narrative, characters’ lines, and the role of Xiaoqiao played by Lin
Chiling.

‘Jiang Xiaoyu’ (posted 16 January 2009, 13:20) [in a mocking manner]: … The
quality of this no-good film is really bad … many well-known historical scenes
are badly treated … many lines are laughable and do not make any sense. They
do not match with what was there in history …

Examples of medium-length to quite long harsh criticisms written in simpli-

fied Chinese characters by the mainland Chinese audience abounded on the
film’s official China website, albeit there were fewer of these than the positive
messages on the same site. My excerpts here highlight some of the major con-
cerns the mainland Chinese viewers had with the diegetic environment of the
film when it was newly released. These mainland viewers found faults in char-
acter presentation, anachronisms in conversation style and lifestyle, and so on.
These harsh comments continued to find their way onto the newest microblog-
ging platforms, like Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, in the 2013 China-based
cyber environment:
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 159

‘Jiangnan Zhaojin’ (posted 14 March 2013, 13:00): Many people thought that
Red Cliff was not good. John Woo was sworn at. Kaneshiro Takeshi speaks
funnily in his role as Zhuge Liang. What’s wrong with the scriptwriter?

These challenges were primarily made by the mainland Chinese film viewers
who thought they were familiar with the folk stories and myths about the Battle
of Red Cliffs and the Three Kingdoms. The details of the stories they turned to
had come through grass-roots circulation over the centuries and had been part
of the modern-day school curriculum for Chinese history and classical literature.
Apparently acting as the defenders of the ‘most genuine’ version of history they
knew about, the mainland Red Cliff viewers became offensive in criticizing Woo’s
romanticized adaptation of the historical past in film. Other post writers I found
on these China-based online platforms used wordings such as ‘insults to the
nation’, ‘destroying our history’, ‘pleasing the West only’ to condemn Woo and
Red Cliff for not being ‘Chinese’ enough. For instance:

‘Yihua’ (posted 7 January 2009, 19:53): … John Woo’s battle spectacles in the
film are ok. After all, he made himself famous in the West by his unique vio-
lence aesthetics … Woo makes this blockbuster based on the Western way of
thinking. No wonder the mainland Chinese audience finds it hard to accept …

‘Friend of Sina.com’ (posted 5 April 2009, 22:34): Red Cliff has insulted the
traditional culture of China. It distorts our history in front of foreigners. It is a
classic example of forgetting about the past.

‘Wangzun’ (posted 9 January 2009, 13:45): What a detrimental adaptation

from the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the Romance of the Three
Kingdoms! The wisdom of the Ancient Chinese classics is destroyed. Blame
commercial blockbusters! … If the characters were played by Westerners, and
the setting became what it looked like in Ancient Greece or even the Medieval
period in Europe, it would make more sense. I think Red Cliff is basically a film
made for Western audience …

What these post writers highlighted was their anger at a Chinese-language

blockbuster that violated the ethos of the so-called Chinese cultural essence.
Their implicit statement was that film adaptations of Chinese history or classic
160 . New Hong Kong Cinema

literature needed to be faithful to the original. Otherwise, the film would be

‘laughable’, ‘disrespectful’ and essentially ‘non-Chinese’. While dismissing Red
Cliff as a film not for Chinese people, these viewers expressed between the lines
their unyielding stance regarding Chinese history and their entrenched cultural-
essentialist conformity to Sinocentrism, which they had embodied and further
confirmed.
The anger thrown at Red Cliff by the film’s mainland Chinese viewers seemed
to calm down after a few years. Microbloggers on Sina Weibo and Tencent
Weibo on the whole were reluctant to live with the fact that Woo had made a
Chinese historical epic that had gone ‘wrong’ in its treatment of history. But as
time went by, they were more eager to embrace a wider international outlook,
and to talk about the global film business and how Chinese blockbusters might
be able to fit in it. For example:

‘Zhou Yundong’ (posted 11 March 2013, 17:18): … The market scale is not
mature enough for Chinese epic blockbusters that cost more than US$1 billion
[£61,000]. Whereas Hero is a martial arts epic, Red Cliff is weird and uncat-
egorized …

‘Xige’ (posted 2 December 2012, 13:55): There are more and more Chinese block-
busters like Red Cliff, The Flowers of War, Back to 1942 and The Last Supper
that employ ‘history’ as their topic.16 Experts disapprove of this phenomenon,
believing that Chinese films are giving up their pursuit of artistic ideals …

‘Fan’ (posted 10 October 2012, 16:37): … Chinese people are too proud of them-
selves + Chinese filmmakers lack international influence – it is not surprising
to see Red Cliff not being received well globally …

In each of the above cases, none of the writers said explicitly whether they were
or were not fans of specific film texts, stars or directors. If East Asian fans are avid
admirers of stars, hoping to build imagined ‘intimacy’ with their objects of adora-
tion, the mainland Chinese film viewers of Red Cliff (or any Chinese-language his-
torical epic film for that matter) could also fit the bill for becoming a type of fan.
However, their fandom did not build for the film but for what they were defending
– a dead past of Chinese history, which, according to them, must not be ques-
tioned, surpassed or revisited from today’s perspective.
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 161

In contrast, the fan-audiences of Kaneshiro that were based in China or in

neighbouring territories did not bother to pay too much attention to the film’s
departure from ‘real’ history. Their focus was ultimately on their idol in the film.
Consider these examples:

‘HoneyChou-Destiny’ (posted 8 August 2013, 06:55): The flaws in Red Cliff

do not just include the horse that is called Meng Meng. They should also
include the role of Zhuge Liang who always makes funny remarks.

‘Jinger’ (posted 11 July 2008, 10:09): … The battle scenes in Red Cliff are really
spectacular. Costumes and props are beautifully made, matching with history
… Takeshi is gorgeous in the film. Dressed in white robe, Takeshi looks so fine.
His way of conversing is excellent. Every word is pronounced so well. I can tell
that he must have been working hard on it …

‘Jinger’ (posted 10 January 2009, 19:00): The most exciting sequence is the one
that portrays Zhuge using straw boats and scarecrows to snatch arrows from
the Cao camp. This story is so famous in history … Takeshi is so great in that
scene. He strongly resembles the Zhuge in the minds of readers of the
Romance of the Three Kingdoms …

‘amy’ (posted 11 July 2008, 22:31) [claimed place of origin: Hong Kong]: … The
character [Xiaoqiao, a little-known figure in history] played by Lin Chiling
cannot be cut out … because it is mentioned in the film that Cao wages the
war because of her …

While ‘HoneyChou-Destiny’ was a microblogger on China-based Sina Weibo

and did not declare any particular fandom on his/her post, ‘Jinger’ was a self-
declared female member at www.takeshikaneshiro.net and a devoted fan of the
star. The writing style these bloggers used in their posts suggested that they
hailed from China. ‘HoneyChou-Destiny’ displayed the typical mainland Chinese
dislike of the film. ‘Jinger’, on the other hand, did not criticize Woo. In fact, this
fan made a great effort to praise the film in which her idol plays a key role. The
fan-audience’s love for the Japanese-Taiwanese star thus overshadowed history
issues. This feeling aligned ‘Jinger’ closer to ‘amy’ (another declared Kaneshiro
fan active on the same fansite), who hailed from Hong Kong and probably had
162 . New Hong Kong Cinema

had a different cultural upbringing under British colonial rule than ‘Jinger’s’
fellow mainland Chinese viewers of the film. Both ‘Jinger’ and ‘amy’ were more
eager to appreciate Woo’s way of representing renowned historical figures from
a completely new angle, even when this might conflict with common knowledge
about them.
In addition, ‘Jinger’ also demonstrated an East Asian style of fandom by
attempting to build ‘intimacy’ with her idol. This was revealed via her address-
ing Kaneshiro on a first name basis, which is quite an unusual manner in the
East Asian social milieu, unless both the addressor and addressee are well
acquainted. Saluting someone by his/her surname is a more acceptable form of
social etiquette in East Asia, where, rather than just ‘Takeshi’, it would be more
usual to address the star as ‘Mr Kaneshiro’,17 as in the following example from the
post of another Kaneshiro fan on the same fansite:

‘A-Guan’ (posted 13 July 2008, 13:42): I like watching Red Cliff but the voice-
dubbing is horrible. I can’t hear Mr Kaneshiro’s deep voice in the film. I need to
calm down. [Note: in real life, Kaneshiro has a strong Taiwanese accent. He
has been dubbed over in Red Cliff to sound like he is speaking the so-called
standard Mandarin Chinese.]

Intellectualization of Ethnic-Cultural Existential Conditions

Intervention and Language Use

When expressing various emotions related to Red Cliff, the fans of Kaneshiro
in particular and the film’s audiences in general adopted a more restrained
way of intervention on these online platforms than the period film fans in an
Anglophone setting would have done (Monk 2011: 452–53). Fan fictions, fan arts,
fan-generated music or fan videos, if any such were at all created for Red Cliff by
fan-audiences, were not as easily found as online comments and discussions in
written text form. One of the main reasons for this could be that there had not
been any noticeable fan base for Red Cliff in the Sinitic-speaking/writing world,
although I would not rule out the possibility that there might be some individual
fans of the film out there. Nor were there any declared non-fans or anti-fans of
the film. These written web posts thus became a major source of information
for us, whereby we could delve deeper into the backgrounds of fan-audiences.
They represented the ‘audience-as-text’ (Hills 2002: 177), an extension of the
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 163

film through the actual viewing experience of fan-audiences, together with their
activities afterwards, that amounted to the self-representation and self-perfor-
mance of people in these web posts.
Nonetheless, access to interactive online platforms is not as much of a prob-
lem in the case of Anglophone fans as it has been in China, where the govern-
ment has banned some of the world’s most popular social networking media,
including Facebook and YouTube. This might be one of the main factors that led
to the launch of Renren (a Chinese version of Facebook) in 2005 and Youku (a
Chinese version of YouTube) in 2006. The use of these new China-based online
platforms by the mainland Chinese has been closely watched by the Chinese
government, and is also under the self-censorship of the service providers. At
the time when I conducted my audience survey, the mainland Chinese residents
needed to submit their identification details when they registered as users of
Tencent’s online platforms. These personal details would then be passed directly
via Tencent Weibo’s registration page onto the Chinese authorities’ authorized
websites for further processing.18 As a result, many microbloggers were often
found paying extra attention in wording their comments on Red Cliff (the film
was sponsored by the government-endorsed China Film Group Corporation), to
the extent that the posts sometimes read awkwardly. There were some appar-
ently self-contradicting comments written by the mainland Chinese post writ-
ers, such as this one:

‘Bixue Danxin’ (posted 1 March 2012, 21:59): Red Cliff is really a rubbish film.
But then several scenes have been restaged successfully the truth of history.

In the context of ‘audience-as-text’ and the fan-audience web comments being

an online extension of Red Cliff, the interactive forum on the Hong Kong-based
fansite at www.takeshikaneshiro.net offered us thought-provoking insights. The
fan-audience posts found there enabled us to study the writers’ intellectualiza-
tion of their existential situations as mainland or diasporic Chinese people. Also,
the fans’ continuous negotiations of their own ethnic-cultural identifications let
us appreciate once again the transition aspect of the New Hong Kong Cinema
through its audiences. One of the ways these fan-audiences made their continu-
ous identity negotiations was through written Chinese web messages on the
fansite. See the following sets of online exchanges between the Shanghai-based
fan ‘Jinger’ and two of her fellow fans:
164 . New Hong Kong Cinema

‘Jinger’ (posted 14 July 2008, 14:08) [‘Jinger’ quoting ‘amy’ in the first few lines
before she mentioned about her own idea of the restaged war in Red Cliff]
‘amy’: ‘The character played by Lin Chiling cannot be cut out … because it is
mentioned in the film that Cao wages the war because of her. But the sex scenes
are really not necessary … (When I saw the film, I felt like I was watching 300).’19
The director invented all the extra stuff in the film. When men waged wars,
they were motivated by their ambitions and greed for power. Once they
became emperors, they could have as many beautiful women as they wanted.
Claiming to fight a war because of a woman is really a bad excuse. This point
has caused some complaints from among Cao Cao’s fans …

***

‘Jinger’ (posted 14 July 2008, 13:44): … Last Friday I went to see Red Cliff
again, at least this time I did not laugh because I was already fully prepared
psychologically for those laughable scenes. The first time I saw the film, it was
for its narrative. This time I studied more details in the film …

‘A-Pei’ (posted 14 July 2008, 22:19) [claimed place of origin: Malaysia]: Jinger
has seen it for three times [sic], bravo! This Thursday, Malaysia, general
release all over the country.

On the surface, the fans voiced their comments in these posts in written Chinese
and they seemed to understand each other perfectly well.20 The first set above
contained two different opinions regarding the character Xiaoqiao and the dubi-
ous part she plays among other more important historical personalities in the
narrative – for Xiaoqiao is actually a little-known figure in history. The second
set was basically a showing off of how quickly the fans had gone to see the film
and support their idol Kaneshiro. Note that ‘Jinger’ did not have a published
place of origin in her screen information. She only told her fellow fans that she
was based in Shanghai in some of her posts, whereas ‘amy’ in her earlier post had
a screen place of origin marked as ‘Hong Kong’. ‘A-Pei’s’ screen place of origin
was Malaysia. In effect, some nuances in their linguistic usage, which are lost in
English translation, confirmed their social-cultural-geopolitical origins and their
mutual respect for each other on this egalitarian platform.
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 165

‘Jinger’s’ posts were especially interesting. She published all her posts in tra-
ditional Chinese characters but wrote them in a tone that prevails in the writ-
ing style of the mainland Chinese. It was not clear why a mainland Chinese fan
would be using traditional Chinese script on an online forum that can support
both traditional and simplified Chinese language interfaces. It could have been
a way for ‘Jinger’ to show rapport for her fellow fans who wrote principally in
traditional Chinese script, but there could be a number of other reasons. Even
more fascinating was ‘Jinger’s’ complete understanding of an earlier post by
Hong Kong-based ‘amy’, and her sensible answer to ‘amy’s’ post. ‘amy’ wrote
in traditional Chinese script and in a Hong Kong Cantonese style that could be
regarded as colloquial by speakers and writers of the ‘standard’ (Han) Chinese
language used in China and Taiwan. As Cantonese speakers/writers use a mix-
ture of Cantonese, English and Chinglish (which is itself a mixture of Chinese
and English that originated during more than 150 years of British colonial rule
over the territory), ‘standard’ Chinese speakers/writers would find it hard to
understand what ‘amy’ meant. Yet, China-based ‘Jinger’ had no problem under-
standing ‘amy’ in this Internet conversation. This fact is in contradiction with
cultural and media studies scholars Yiu Fai Chow and Jeroen de Kloet’s argu-
ment (2008) in their study of the respective Hong Kong-based fans of a Hong
Kong star and the Netherlands-based fans of a Dutch star. The authors argue
that the Cantonese way of speaking/writing is a way for the Hongkongers to
‘mark out [their] own virtual territory’ and to deny access to non-Hong Kong
Cantonese users, such as those from China and Taiwan. On the other hand, as
in the second example above, ‘A-Pei’ from Malaysia, who wrote in simplified
Chinese characters, also had no problem understanding the traditional Chinese
characters in ‘Jinger’s’ post.21
Their online written exchanges thus displayed an interesting and inclu-
sive Sinophone virtual zone on this fansite, in which speaking and writing the
hegemonic ‘standard’ Chinese was not of top priority as long as fans under-
stood each other. In this way, participants in this Sinophone virtual zone, which
involved users writing in various Chinese languages and therefore included the
mainland Chinese residents outside Shih’s Sinophone network (Shih 2007: 4),
unintentionally subverted the cultural and national uniformity urged by Woo in
Red Cliff. Fan-audiences’ Sinophonic dissonance in real life was harmonized and
smoothed over in this virtual enclave by the fans’ unwavering love for their idol.
Such amicable communications had nothing to do with Woo’s wishful thinking
166 . New Hong Kong Cinema

when the director created a filmic, all-in-one, uniform ‘China’ in Red Cliff – the
kind of ‘China’ that would be welcomed by the Chinese authorities.
Yet, one may also argue that, precisely because this Sinophone virtual zone
was inclusive, it was also inevitably exclusive and inaccessible to non-Chinese
speakers/writers, thus engendering Sinolinguistic-centric effects in a non-Sino-
centric context. This then attests to Fiske’s argument that ‘[f]ans discriminate
fiercely: the boundaries between what falls within their fandom and what does
not are sharply drawn’ (Fiske 1992: 34). This fansite was primarily created by
a Sinitic-writing Kaneshiro fan for a group of fellow Sinitic-writing fans of the
same star. Although there was no clear declaration of official language used on
this fansite, the posts, shared contents and news items appearing there were
almost entirely written in Chinese characters, traditional or simplified. The
only exceptions were four threads of thematic posts that carried excerpts of
Kaneshiro-related articles about his role in Red Cliff, published originally in the
English-language press. Not surprisingly, these four threads of posts attracted
far fewer replies to the topic starter’s original post in each thread.

Existential Conditions
Having said that, the multiplicity and heterogeneity of these fan-audiences were
not so much manifested by the encoding and decoding in and among differ-
ent Sinitic languages as they were by the fan-audiences’ awareness of their own
existential conditions, especially in the case of the diasporic Chinese audiences
born and/or raised outside mainland China. This specific awareness was crystal-
lized in the differing attitudes displayed by fan-audiences regarding Chinese his-
tory on film and films on Chinese history (Rosenstone 2006: 39), thus creating
intra-zonal dynamics in this Internet Sinophone enclave. The following string
of online chats demonstrates this point. It was generated after a China-based
Kaneshiro fan, ‘Beijing Cat’, had shared a sarcastic, negative film review of Red
Cliff, originally posted somewhere else:

‘sara’ (posted 16 July 2008, 18:28) [replying to ‘Beijing Cat’s’ shared review]:
I haven’t seen the film. This film review seems to suggest that Red Cliff is a
summer vacation comedy.

‘Beijing Cat’ (posted 16 July 2008, 22:13) [claimed place of origin: Beijing]
[replying to ‘sara’s’ post above]: Depends. The reviewer no doubt understood
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 167

the scriptwriter’s intention – just see Red Cliff as if you were watching Pirates
of the Caribbean22…

‘sara’ (posted 29 July 2008, 16:44): … It depends on what you expect to see in
Red Cliff. If you anticipate watching a real history on screen, you will be dis-
appointed … Although the lines delivered in Red Cliff sound contemporary, I
didn’t find them laughable. I watched the film at around noon on a Tuesday
on Hong Kong Island. The cinema was 90 per cent full that day. All spectators
took the film very seriously and didn’t laugh at its historical inaccuracies … I
really don’t understand why the audience on the mainland complain so much
about this film.

‘Floating Cloud’ (posted 30 July 2008, 02:22) [replying to ‘sara’s’ post imme-
diately above]: … I agree with sara … On the sources of this film, director Woo
said many times in media interviews that he had collected information from
legitimate, historical texts as well as anecdotes and fictions in order to re-
create a group of personalities from the period of the Three Kingdoms. Woo is
very creative in re-interpreting the stories of that historical period. Now we see
all the good guys from the angle of Liu and regard the others, such as Cao, as
bad guys. How about if we stand in the position of Cao, will it make any dif-
ference to our understanding of these historical figures? …

From the publication times and dates of ‘sara’s’ two posts, we can identify a
change of stance in her reading of the film. She was initially introduced to Red
Cliff by her mainland counterpart ‘Beijing Cat’, who, like many mainlanders,
judged the film against the accepted wisdom of ‘real’ history. What the mainland
audience thought of as ‘real’, however, had not been examined by them closely.
To those mainland viewers who disapproved of the film, the version of ‘real’ his-
tory came as part of the package of the Sinocentric hegemony imposed on them
without their realizing the ‘cultural violence’ (R. Chow 1993: 26) and danger of
cultural essentialism it involves. This Chinese hegemony, however, faced a direct
challenge in this Sinophone virtual zone at www.takeshikaneshiro.net, where
overseas or diasporic Chinese could openly express different understandings of
the concepts of ‘Chinese’, ‘Chineseness’, ‘China’ and ‘Chinese history’. As Shih
powerfully argues:
168 . New Hong Kong Cinema

… Sinophone articulations … contain an anticolonial intent against Chinese

hegemony. The Sinophone is a place-based, everyday practice and experience,
and thus it is a historical formation that constantly undergoes transformation
reflecting local needs and conditions. It can be a site of both a longing for and
a rejection of various constructions of Chineseness; it can be a site of both
nationalism of the long-distance kind, anti-China politics, or even nonrela-
tion with China, whether real or imaginary. (Shih 2007: 30)

‘sara’s’ insights in her second post above, dated 29 July 2008, exemplified her
empirical use of the Sinophone site to express her ideas in Hong Kong-style
Chinese writing (all written in traditional Chinese characters), while she unin-
tentionally assumed a role of a historical agent having a function to reinterpret
and re-appreciate that part of Chinese history in her own way. Her possible
British colonial and ideological upbringing, and her local existential experience
in Hong Kong, had certainly led her to have a degree of appreciation for the film
unlike that of other Red Cliff audiences. ‘sara’s’ post was agreed with by ‘Floating
Cloud’, another Kaneshiro fan on this fansite, who did not say where he/she was
from but whose writing style strongly suggested a Sinitic Taiwanese background.
In publishing these two posts, both these diasporic fans showed a clear sign
of re-mediating the historical past in their unique ways without any fear of, or
submission to, the pressure of the Chinese hegemonic ‘other’. They raised ques-
tions in their posts in hopes of furthering their understanding of the received
knowledge of the Chinese historical past, which in turn would reflect/affect their
present selves and attitudes towards the future.
Of course, the intrinsic functions of the Sinophone virtual site were such that
I could easily find other kinds of discussions having nothing to do with the topic
of history. For example:

‘A-Pei’ (posted 18 July 2008, 03:00) [claimed place of origin: Malaysia]: …

Why is there censorship here? Why can’t we watch the scene where Zhuge
delivered the cow [sic: horse] of a calf? … The Malaysian government just cen-
sors whatever is important in the film. The DVDs released here will also be like
this. I am angry. I will get the Taiwan version of the film’s DVD …

***
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 169

‘sara’ (posted 3 November 2008, 17:25): A poll in Japan shows that Takeshi’s
Zhuge Liang is the most popular role in Red Cliff. Takeshi wins the hearts of
the Japanese people easily because he is of Japanese background. He is also
attached to Taiwan but he was disqualified from competing in the Golden
Horse Awards … Boo … Taiwan has broken Takeshi’s heart.

‘A-Guan’ (posted 3 November 2008, 17:52): Mind you! The Golden Horse
Awards ceremony is different from the place Taiwan. I believe Mr Kaneshiro
still loves Taiwan very much, as Taiwan is his home … but I really don’t under-
stand why he is not there at the event …

***
‘Never-ending Kingdom’ (posted 23 October 2008, 17:59) [claimed place of
origin: Taiwan]: … Don’t you think that there are some hideous romantic
attractions among Zhuge, Sun Quan, Zou Yu and Sun’s younger sister?

‘Bububei’ (posted 22 October 2008, 23:27): … in the scene where Zhuge and
Zhou play the musical instruments together, I can smell some unnamed
attraction between the two men in the air …

Among the threads of posts by Kaneshiro’s fan-audiences about their view-

ing experience of Red Cliff, ‘A-Pei’ from Malaysia groaned about the issue of
the Malaysian government censorship, which had truncated her experience of
watching a supposedly complete film. What is predominantly interesting in her
post here is her remark that she planned to buy the Taiwan version of the film’s
DVD and not the version released in Hong Kong or Japan. Arguably, ‘A-Pei’s’
remarks revealed a common belief among diasporic Chinese communities that
the Republic of China in Taiwan, and not the PRC, had been the more capable
preserver of the authentic Chinese cultural heritage (Shih 2007: 4). ‘China’ in
‘A-Pei’s’ case was evidently not equal to the polity on the mainland.
Through their concerns about Kaneshiro’s disqualification from the Golden
Horse Awards competition, Hong Kong-based ‘sara’ and another Kaneshiro
fan, ‘A-Guan’, demonstrated their China-less ‘diasporic consciousness’ and the
effects of their existential conditions on their thinking and viewpoints. ‘A-Guan’
did not disclose his/her place of origin. It could not tell clearly from this fan’s
posts where he/she was from because in different posts he/she wrote in the
170 . New Hong Kong Cinema

styles of Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, and in traditional Chinese charac-

ters. Yet, the content of this particular post suggested that the fan had a special
attachment to Taiwan. The writer of the post highlighted that Kaneshiro’s home
being Taiwan was what enabled the fan to build his/her imagined ‘intimacy’ with
the star. In their exchanges, ‘sara’ and ‘A-Guan’ only mentioned Kaneshiro’s
Japanese and Taiwanese background, making no reference at all to the star’s
Chinese roots. Thus, their conversations served to illustrate the innate subver-
sion of the hegemonic Chineseness concept taking place on this Sinitic Internet
platform and, apparently more important to them, their positive attitude towards
negotiating a justifiable, diasporic present-day existence of their own. In the last
set of exchanges above, ‘Never-ending Kingdom’ (claiming to be from Taiwan)
and ‘Bububei’ (showing no clear place of origin in the post but writing in a way
that was close to the Sinitic Taiwanese style) offered yet another topic unrelated
to history. They read against the grain and detected the homosexual atmosphere
in the film, a theme not openly intended by Woo in his films but widely accept-
able in today’s globalized world (see, for example, Woo’s interview in the film’s
Hong Kong-version DVD bonus track, as compared to scholarly discussions of
Woo’s film masculinity and possible homosexuality concerns (Stringer 1997)).

Concluding Remarks

In this chapter I have examined New Hong Kong Cinema’s interstitiality from
the perspective of film audiences. How the viewers in Hong Kong Cinema’s tra-
ditional East and South East Asian markets consumed new Hong Kong-related
Chinese-language films provides us with an angle to interrogate the effects of
transitions on Hong Kong and its local film industry in recent years. These audi-
ences and their spectatorial responses thus serve as another piece of evidence
to justify and identify the New Hong Kong Cinema as a Cinema of Transitions.
My interests in finding out how ethnic Chinese audiences responded to
Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films grew out of my dissatisfaction with
the way Red Cliff urges national unity, the representation of which would likely
encourage Sinocentric ideology. After discovering a lack of previous empiri-
cal surveys on relevant Chinese audience reception in the academic fields
of Chinese-language film studies, and audience and fan studies, I undertook
an independent audience research to accomplish this task. My investigations
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 171

consisted of two rounds of online surveys. They helped generate provocative

information on the empirical reception of Red Cliff (as a representative of the
New Hong Kong Cinema), especially among its Sinitic-speaking/writing ethnic
Chinese audiences in East and South East Asia. Both arrived at similar results
and revealed diverse audience opinions on Woo’s treatments of the concepts of
‘China’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Chineseness’ and ‘Chinese history’ via the film.
In contrast to investigations in the field of fan studies, many of which are
still Euro-American-centric and which often take for granted the language
skills and the sense of history among their research targets, in my online sur-
veys, written language skills and knowledge of Chinese history were identified
as the two most prominent requirements for the Sinitic diasporic Chinese audi-
ences to be able to participate effectively in their online written discussions on
Red Cliff (Jenkins 2013: kindle loc 677). In the case of Kaneshiro fans, these two
important elements helped the fan-audiences to share with one another their
experience of watching Red Cliff in an exclusive Sinophone enclave in the cyber
world. The space there allowed them to continuously negotiate their deterrito-
rialized and hybridized versions of Chineseness in their positions as members
of different segments of the Chinese diaspora. Their spectatorial responses to
Red Cliff showed that they had been immersed in different degrees of hetero-
genization and localization of Chinese cultures in their present places of resi-
dence. Through their online discussions, they became historical agents to help
reinterpret and advance the understanding of Chinese civilization and history
from various viewpoints. These fan-audiences’ own existential conditions and
interstitiality, then, function as an extension of the New Hong Kong Cinema to
consolidate and reflect the latter’s state of transitions and interstitiality. In the
next and final chapter of this book, I will scrutinize further the transitions of the
New Hong Kong Cinema by situating it in the middle of continuous changes
in the macro political-economic environment in East Asia – changes that have
governed the most recent developments of the film industries and film business
activities in the region.

Notes

 1. One of the most widely known cases is Snakes on a Plane (David R. Ellis, United
States, 2006). The producers added new scenes to the film after fans heatedly dis-
cussed it on the Internet during the production stage. In China, a recently released
172 . New Hong Kong Cinema

romance comedy Tiny Times 1.0 (Guo Jingming, China, 2013) made headlines not
only because it earned huge box-office takings in its first several weeks of release in
late June 2013, but also because its millions of China-based fans openly defended
on the Internet the so-called corrupt, hedonic ideology prevailing in the film (China
is still notorious for its strict online censorship) (At the Box Office 2013; Tsui 2013).
 2. My ‘independence’ here means that I did not receive institutional funding or research
support of any kind for undertaking the online surveys. The only resources I used in
conducting the studies were my spare time and the already paid for home broadband
facilities.
 3. Since the 1980s, there have been a number of widely recognized and quoted mono-
graphs, anthologies and journal articles on Chinese-language cinemas. In chrono-
logical order of their publication dates, they are Chris Berry’s Perspectives on Chinese
Cinema (1985, reprinted in 1991 and 2003); John Lent’s The Asian Film Industry
(1990); the study by Nick Browne et al. New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities,
Politics (1994); Rey Chow’s Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography,
and Contemporary Chinese Cinema (1995); Sheldon H. Lu’s Transnational Chinese
Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender (1997); Stephen Teo’s Hong Kong Cinema: The
Extra Dimensions (1997); David Bordwell’s Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and
the Art of Entertainment (2000); Poshek Fu and David Desser’s The Cinema of Hong
Kong: History, Arts, Identity (2000); Esther C.M. Yau’s At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema
in a Borderless World (2001); Yingjin Zhang’s Screening China: Critical Interventions,
Cinematic Reconfigurations, and the Transnational Imaginary in Contemporary
Chinese Cinema (2002); Sheldon H. Lu and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh’s Chinese-language
Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics (2005); Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar’s China
on Screen: Cinema and Nation (2006); Gina Marchetti’s From Tian’anmen to Times
Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens, 1989–1997
(2006); Michael Curtin’s Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience: The Globalization
of Chinese Film and TV (2007); Darrell William Davis and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh’s
East Asian Screen Industries (2008); and the study by Tan See-Kam, Peter X. Feng
and Gina Marchetti Chinese Connections: Critical Perspectives on Film, Identity and
Diaspora (2009) among others. While many of these studies do not focus only on
Hong Kong Cinema but also on other Chinese-language cinemas, such as those of
mainland China and Taiwan, all of them prominently cover examinations of Hong
Kong films. Nonetheless, the actual viewing experience of average audiences (not
opinion leaders such as professional film critics and academic film researchers) of
Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films is rarely discussed explicitly and ana-
lysed thoroughly in the existing studies (see, for example, S. Yu 2010: 135–51; see also
Y. Zhang 2002: 43–113).
 4. China-based film audiences are believed to have existed before Chinese-language
films were ever made. As early as the 1890s, newspaper advertisements in Hong
Kong (dated 18 January 1896) and Shanghai (dated 10 August 1896) respectively pro-
moted screenings of films from the West. There is no record indicating what these
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 173

films were and who made them. While the Lumière Brothers, who were the earliest
filmmakers in history, took their first films (made in 1895) to travel around the world
in 1896, there is no written record showing that they included China or Hong Kong
among their destinations (L. Pang 2006b: 67–68).
 5. I use the term ‘fans’ here in a generic way to depict avid viewers/recipients/readers
of certain mediated texts.
 6. On this assumption, my mother, who is a Hong Kong native, now in her seventies and
enjoying her relaxed retirement life in Hong Kong, would certainly protest bitterly
against it, given the fact that she has been an avid fan of Cantonese opera in Hong
Kong for decades. Once considered a grass-roots entertainment in postwar Hong
Kong, Cantonese opera has gained a much improved social status in recent years in
the south of China. However, most members of the audience of this Chinese tradi-
tional art form nowadays come from the elderly age group. Apart from Cantonese
opera, I am also thinking about the affluent middle-class fans of Bruce Springsteen
in order to challenge Fiske’s argument on fandom (see also Cavicchi 1998).
 7. The concern with fandom and gender is one of the most popular topics in fan stud-
ies. It has been revisited over the last two decades in numerous investigations on fans
(see recent ones such as Busse 2009, 2013; Coppa 2009; De Kosnik 2009; Hellekson
2009; Lothian 2009; Russo 2009).
 8. The introduction of fan studies into Western mainstream academia was not a
straightforward one. Fan studies scholar Matt Hills opens his book Fan Cultures
(2002) with critiques of the dubious status and stances of the earlier generation of
fan studies scholars. In discussing Jenkins’ Textual Poachers, Hills challenges Jenkins’
stance as using fandom institutionally and politically as a tool to fit prevailing ‘aca-
demic institutional spaces and agendas’ (Hills 2002: 10). Hills’ discussion thus unveils
yet another layer of power struggles surrounding the topics of ‘fans’ and ‘fandom’.
 9. According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in the United
States, the average cost of producing and marketing a (Hollywood) studio film in
2007 was U.S.$106.6 million (£64.3 million). Since 2008, MPAA has stopped report-
ing filmmaking budget figures due to the fact that the ‘increasingly complex nature
of film financing and distribution made it difficult to obtain reliable data’ (Verrier
2009).
10. The box-office data of individual target markets for Red Cliff in East and South East
Asia were obtained from Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com (accessed 5 May
2015).
11. Source: interview with John Woo in Red Cliff (DVD) (Hong Kong version, bonus
track).
12. There were six official websites built for promoting Red Cliff to the respective audi-
ences in China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.
These coincide with the territories where the film’s equity investors and production
companies are based.
174 . New Hong Kong Cinema

13. It is worth noting that, unlike stars in the Western context having the tendency to
concentrate on only one or a few areas of the entertainment business, stars in East
Asia are often multitasking and appear to excel in numerous areas of show business
simultaneously. They act in film and television programmes, and perform as pop
singers, alongside other kinds of show business campaigns online and offline.
14. There were streams of posts about Red Cliff published in the first few months of 2013,
partially triggered by Woo’s resuming filmmaking for the first time after making Red
Cliff – his long absence was due to health reasons. In July 2013, Woo was reported by
mass media to be making his latest film entitled The Crossing, in which the director
again features Kaneshiro as one of the male leads (Frater 2013b). The film is available
in two parts. The Crossing: Part 1 (China/Hong Kong, 2014) was theatrically released in
China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam in December 2014. The Crossing:
Part 2 (China/Hong Kong, 2015) is scheduled for general release in the summer of
2015 (latest information at the time of writing).
15. These public screen names are given here as they appeared on screen if they had
anglicized names or if their Chinese names could be translated literally into English.
Those Chinese screen names that could not be translated literally are Romanized
here in pinyin format.
16. Film Information: The Flowers of War (Zhang Yimou, China/Hong Kong, 2011); Back
to 1942 (Feng Xiaogang, China, 2012); The Last Supper (Lu Chuan, China, 2012).
17. In Japanese, the salutation would be ‘Kaneshiro san’; in Mandarin Chinese it would
be ‘Kaneshiro xian sheng’, and ‘Kaneshiro sin saan’ in Cantonese.
18. The information regarding the processing of the users’ personal details was obtained
from reg.t.qq.com/certification.php (accessed 24 August 2013). The registration
instructions of concern were written in simplified Chinese characters.
19. Film information: 300 (Zack Snyder, United States, 2007).
20. The following are the originals of these translated fansite conversations:
靜兒 (發表於2008-7-14 14:08): amy: ‘林志玲呢個角色唔可以唔要 … 因為戲中提
及曹操係因為她才會攻打劉備軍 … 不過場床戲真係有d多餘 … (睇既時候，我覺
得有d似戰郎300既感覺)’
那都是導演杜撰的啦，男人發動戰爭通常都是爲了權利和野心，只要能當上皇帝
那天下所有的美女不都是他的，怎麽可能爲了小喬出兵，這點也引起曹操粉絲的
不滿。

***
靜兒 (發表於2008-7-14 13:44): … 周五又去看了遍《赤壁》，覺得比第一遍好多
了，起碼沒那麽笑了，因爲有心理准備知道哪些地方會笑場。第一遍看劇情，
第二遍就看一些細節了 …
阿佩 (發表於2008-7-14 22:19): 静儿看了3遍了，厉害！星期四，马来西亚，全马
上映 …
21. If the text is originally written in a style prevailing in the ‘standard’ Chinese, speakers
of any Sinitic languages can understand the text easily by using convenient language
 Ethnic Chinese Film Audiences . 175

software products online or offline to convert the script from traditional to simpli-
fied Chinese characters, and vice versa, to suit their needs. But if the text is originally
written in a style prevailing in spoken Cantonese, non-Cantonese speakers may not
understand it easily even after a simple script conversion, because of the more com-
plicated syntax and tone of the Cantonese language.
22. This comparison between Red Cliff and Pirates of the Caribbean is meant to be a
derogatory remark to reject Red Cliff’s specific treatment of the historical subject
matter. Pirates of the Caribbean is an adventure fantasy comedy series produced by
Walt Disney Pictures, and originally released in a trilogy: Pirates of the Caribbean: The
Curse of the Black Pearl (Gore Verbinski, United States, 2003); Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man’s Chest (Gore Verbinski, United States, 2006); and Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World’s End (Gore Verbinski, United States, 2007). A sequel of the Pirates series,
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall, United States, 2011) came
out some time after ‘Beijing Cat’ had made this remark about the series. Another new
sequel, entitled Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Joachim Rønning
and Espen Sandberg, United States, 2017) is scheduled for general release in 2017
(latest information at the time of writing).
Chapter Five

Film Policies and Transitional Politics

The Newest East Asian Film Business Network

In the previous chapters we focused our attention on new Hong Kong-related

Chinese-language films, what they tell about the people and the society they
represent, the vision of these films’ directors and the ethnic Chinese audiences
who watch and interpret these films. Being aware of these various aspects of the
New Hong Kong Cinema allows us to appreciate the transitions and interstiti-
ality embodied in this cinematic practice. But these different aspects may be
perceived as piecemeal concerns if we do not also take into account the condi-
tions of the surrounding geopolitical-economic environments. East Asia is one
such environment in which Hong Kong and its cinema occupy a distinct position
economically, politically and culturally.
If the accented filmmakers and their films are interstitial because they thrive
by working both astride and in the cracks of social formations and cinematic
practices (Naficy 2001: 4, 46–47), by adapting and extending this logic we can
likewise locate the New Hong Kong Cinema’s interstitiality astride and within
the interstices of an East Asian film arena in its latest phase of development in
the post-Asian Financial Crisis era. In this supranational sphere, we see syner-
gies, connections, integration, extension, overlaps, as well as competition and
disintegration among the operating filmmaking countries/territories, most nota-
bly China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Participants (i.e., indi-
vidual film industries) in this regional arena engage in cross-border film business
activities (ranging from film financing, film production, idea/talent/technique
exchanges, to post-theatrical screening activities) that are motivated by causes
beyond purely national, cultural and artistic ones. This sphere of film activities
is highly unstable and by no means a level playing field, complicated further
by the participation (through collaborating and competing with individual East
Asian filmmaking territories) of Hollywood and other non-Asian (trans)national
cinematic practices. The main purpose of this chapter is to understand how the
New Hong Kong Cinema operates in East Asia liminally and interstitially, espe-
cially astride and within the metaphorical interstices left open or covered up by
the workings of individual filmmaking systems in the region.
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 177

My discussion centres on film policies and film business politics among the
major players in contemporary East Asia – Hong Kong being one of them. This
chapter starts with a bird’s-eye view of the most recent situations within the East
Asian film business environment, which I call the ‘newest East Asian film busi-
ness network’. It is the ‘newest’, given the long history of film-related activities
carried out among individual territories in this region. In order to discern how
this network works and what kinds of intertwining relationships are in existence
among major filmmaking territories in the region, I identify six cities – the nodes
– where East Asian film businesses tend to concentrate. Based on their levels of
importance, I call five of them (Beijing, Busan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo)
the main nodes, and Taipei the sub-node. For each of these nodes, I take a brief
retrospect of its past governmental film-related policies and actions, before
investigating the latest national/subregional film policies that support the city’s
film business architecture and workings. Comprehending the setup of individual
nodes and their combined situations is necessary, as it allows me to situate the
New Hong Kong Cinema within the unofficial nexus that these cinematic hubs
have created. It also enables me to analyse the effectiveness of the supportive
film policy in Hong Kong, which has only started to exist since 1997.1 As it turns
out, Hong Kong and the other cinematic nodes in the newest East Asian film
business nexus thrive by keeping a close watch on each other’s endeavours and
countering the power imbalance among themselves in their complicated, mul-
tilayered, multidirectional, interweaving relationships.

Mapping the Newest East Asian Film Business Network: Several Issues

The New Hong Kong Cinema is by no means an ‘island’. Its connections with
other cinematic traditions and practices in the world are noted by different stud-
ies that may or may not revolve around ‘Hong Kong’ itself (for example, see
Morris, S. Li and S. Chan 2005; Marchetti and Tan S. 2007; Ahn 2009: 84–85).
Although Hong Kong has a prominent position in East Asia’s actual and imagined
communities, Hong Kong Cinema’s functions and operations within East Asia’s
cinema-scape (to borrow theorist of globalization studies Arjun Appadurai’s
‘-scapes’ concept (1990, 1996)) has only started to attract researchers’ atten-
tion recently in studies that are primarily concerned with East Asian cultural
industries/exchanges (see, for example, Curtin 2007; Davis and Yeh 2008; Chua
178 . New Hong Kong Cinema

B. 2012). There is certainly still a lot waiting to be discovered with regard to the
New Hong Kong Cinema’s most recent engagement in its immediate geo-cul-
tural-economic-political vicinity – that is, East Asia in the post-Asian Financial
Crisis period. As a prerequisite for carrying out the scrutiny related to the New
Hong Kong Cinema in East Asia, in the following I will first put forward various
interrelated issues that affect East Asia’s regional film activities before I move on
to discuss the particulars of each major player in the region.

Film Business
Film business comprises the commercial activities and economic architecture
of the film sector (Squire 2006). It refers to the economic value of films, gained
by passing through a value chain in the process of production/co-production,
distribution, exhibition and consumption. In his book The International Film
Business (2010), film business executive and commentator Angus Finney puts
forward a film value chain model for independent film business that consists of
the following components: consumer (end-users or audience of film); exploi-
tation (through various exhibition channels such as theatrical release, DVD
sales/rental and other long tail opportunities); distributor (e.g., international
sales agents and film marketers, who receive a commission in return for their
work); shoot/post (actual film production and people involved); financing (e.g.,
funds, funding providers, insurance); and development (related to the process
of developing a film concept and hiring/developing talent) (Finney 2010: 11).
These elements are interlinked. Each of them helps add economic value to a
film as a commercial product ready to be transacted.
Money is always one of the key aspects of film business, whether we are
talking about film financing, film investment capital, cost of production/distribu-
tion/marketing, sales volume or profit margins. Film business executives are, by
default, concerned with profit-making, ticket sales and presence at important
film marketplaces. They engage with other film buyers/sellers in the trade of
films. Audiences are generally regarded as the end-users of the film product:
they pay a certain sum of money to see the film, and they are thus the ‘market’
to be developed by film executives/distributors/exhibitors. In the Internet age,
the audiences may take up other roles, such as investors through crowdfunding,
and volunteer/unpaid film marketers through their online word-of-mouth rec-
ommendations. Seen in this context, a country/territory that has a film industry
does not necessarily have robust film business activities (for example, the PRC
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 179

before its economic reform in 1978 had a film industry but no noticeable film
business activities), whereas a country/territory that is involved in film business
activities will most likely have already developed some sort of film industry of
its own.

Film Policies
Film business activities across national borders can only become possible with
suitable sets of film-related policies that the governments of the trading coun-
tries implement. Depending on the contexts and the kinds of governments
involved, not all the policies turn out to be beneficial to the cross-border film
business. Film policy expert Albert Moran (1996) classifies two main models of
film policies often used in Europe since the First World War (see also Guback
1969). They are protective and supportive measures (Moran 1996: 7). Protective
barriers may include screen quotas, quotas on the number of imported films,
censorship of, and tariffs levied on, imported films. The protective measures
have had variants in other parts of the world at different times. Post-WTO
China, for example, has imposed a restrictive policy with regard to imported
films, allowing only thirty-four foreign films (mostly from the United States)
per year to enter the mainland Chinese audience market on revenue-sharing
terms. By the standards of the PRC, this already represents a relaxation, as
before February 2012 China allowed the importation of only twenty foreign films
per year. In addition, these foreign films have to be distributed within China by
the state-owned film distributors China Film Group Corporation (CFGC) and
Huaxia Film Distribution (China Agrees 2012; SIFF Debates 2012). The regular
blackout periods in China are a part of the protective measures. During those
periods, only mainland Chinese films can enjoy general release in China. This
effectively allows mainland Chinese films to maximize their box-office takings
in the domestic market.
The supportive and promotional film policies that Moran identifies may
include a government’s financial assistance to its domestic film production,
active participation in the sectors of film production and distribution at home
and abroad, as well as the conclusion of international treaties to stimulate cross-
border co-productions. This has resulted in many multilateral film industry activ-
ities and networks (Elsaesser [2005] 2005: 120). Film scholars Darrell William
Davis and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh (2008: 9–37) chart the film policies, Hollywood
influence and transnational cultural flows among East Asian cinemas. The South
180 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Korean film industry in the late 1990s benefited from both the deregulations
and heavy government support. The changes to South Korea’s film industry ulti-
mately triggered neighbours such as China to follow suit. Supportive film policies
may not just be the means of improving a territory’s GDP. For many countries,
especially those newly independent nation-states or territories striving for inde-
pendence, this type of film policy has been used as a nation-building tool of the
state apparatus. The New Scottish Cinema shows a prime example of this type
of film policy having been put in place (Petrie 2000: 153–69).
Besides protection and support, there are two other film policy models.
One is to exercise film censorship and control with respect to a country/ter-
ritory; the other is the laissez-faire model, in which domestic film industry is
left to survive without much interference from the government (Kim H-j. Circa
2006). As we shall see below, different governments in East Asia may change
from implementing one film policy model to another during different periods of
the countries’ film industry development. At times this might come in response
to the changes in the larger political-economic environment; at other times it
might occur as an initiative of the authorities to open up new film industry and
business trends. Combinations of different film policy models might also be in
use for a certain period of time.

Soft Power Competition and Network

The latest development, as we know it, in the film business landscape of East
Asia originated around about 1997 – the year of Hong Kong’s sovereignty hando-
ver, which I have widely discussed in this book. For the whole of East Asia, the
year 1997 was a year of pain, as it marked the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis,
which attacked almost all the economies in the region and shifted the economic
and power relations of several major regional players – namely, China, Japan
and South Korea thereafter. These major East Asian powers are neighbours and
share Confucianism as their common philosophical belief. Yet, they have also
been fierce competitors in areas such as economics, politics, the military and
culture. Sociologist Chua Beng Huat (2012) sheds light on their relationship in
the cultural production sector by evoking the concept of ‘soft power’ proposed
by political scientist Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (2004) to investigate their export and
import of popular cultural products (e.g., films, television drama series, songs
and stars) to and from one another. At its core, ‘soft power’ refers to a country’s
ability to affect the views in other countries/territories/peoples by using cultural
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 181

devices, not coercion (Chua 2012: 7, 120). According to Chua’s elucidation (2012:
121):

To achieve soft power, the exported pop culture must be able to shift its audi-
ence’s perceptions, preferences, interpretative frameworks and emotions, i.e.,
a set of cognitive processes, towards a generally positive disposition and
attraction to the exporting country, which is the applicant of soft power.

Chua remarks that these regional powers are in ‘soft power competition’,
which is combined with various forms of mutual collaboration and amicability,
as well as animosity at times (Chua 2012: 7–8). His study illuminates our under-
standing of how the East Asian triumvirate has been involved in laying out the
fabric of the regional film network in contemporary period.
However, we should not forget that such a relationship in the cultural sector
of major nations in East Asia reflects a phenomenon that dates back to the early
twentieth century. Filmmaking was one of the main areas that witnessed the
start of the soft power relationship in the region long before the concept of ‘soft
power’ was invented. Japanese studies scholar Yau Shuk-ting, Kinnia (2010) has
tracked the filmmaking collaborations between Japan and colonial Hong Kong
from the 1930s to the 1970s, noting that there was a film network in Asia initiated
by Japan during the wartime period in the 1930s. This network, which Chinese
film companies joined for various reasons, is a blueprint for the present-day East
Asian cinematic grid (Yau S. 2010: xviii–xxi). We can find exchanges of ideas,
personnel, money, techniques and so on among participants in this network.
The prominence of Japan in this sphere of activities continued after the Second
World War via individual filmmakers’ personal business networks, pushed for-
ward in the 1950s and the 1960s by Shaw Brothers (HK) Limited founded in
Hong Kong in 1958 by the sixth Shaw brother Run Run (1907–2014). He hired
many Japanese film industry practitioners to go to Hong Kong and help improve
the postwar Hong Kong Cinema in areas like film directing, lighting and visual
effects (Yau S. 2010: xxii; see also S. Chung 2003, 2011). In fact, Shaw Brothers
can be seen as a continuation of Tianyi (aka Unique) Film Productions, founded
in Shanghai by the eldest Shaw brother, Runje (1896–1975). As early as the 1920s,
Runje sent his third brother Runme (1901–85) and Run Run to go to South East
Asia (Singapore and Malaysia primarily) to build up the Shaws’ film distribution
and exhibition network. Apart from the Shaws, Daiei Studio’s Nagata Masaichi
182 . New Hong Kong Cinema

initiated the South Asian Motion Pictures Producers Association (established

in 1953) and its annual event, the Southeast Asian Film Festival in 1954 (Yau S.
2010: xxi; S. Lee 2011: 242).2 Run Run Shaw served as the co-founder of this film
event. Mainly a film publicity exercise for films made by the biggest studios in
the East/South East Asian region at that time, this was the first film festival in
East Asia (R. Cheung 2011c: 203–4).3 Meanwhile, there were more exchanges
going on between film industry practitioners from Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Filmmakers in Hong Kong at that time mostly hailed from pre-war Shanghai.
Besides studio owners Runme and Run Run Shaw, some important Chinese-
language film directors, like Li Han-hsiang and King Hu, worked in both Hong
Kong and Taiwan at different stages of their careers.
Due to regulations and deregulations, and the rise of other cinemas in the
region, from the 1970s onwards the prominence of personal film business net-
works has given way to a distinct establishment of bridgeheads in six strategic
nodal points of film business in the region (Yau S. 2010: xxii). I further identify,
in alphabetical order, Beijing, Busan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo as the five
main nodes, and Taipei as a sub-node. Since 1997, each of the main nodes has
continuously been actively involved in film production, distribution and exhibi-
tion, and, even more proactively, engaged in organizing and developing global-
scale film marketplaces held every year in these cities as major film business
platforms. The volumes of film business, film production and co-production,
distribution and exhibition taking place in and beyond the East Asian geopoliti-
cal region help define the gridlines of this network of cities. As engaging in the
film business rather than concentrating purely on film industrialization in East
Asia has taken on new meanings (Fu 2003; Hu 2003; Zhang Z. 2005; Yau S. 2010;
S. Chung 2011; Sugawara 2011), I call this most recent network the ‘newest East
Asian film business network’.

Nodes and Media Capitals

What makes the most recent East Asian film business network distinct, I argue,
is that instead of taking individual nation-states as units of concern, the newest
round of industry and business restructuring in film in East Asia is built upon the
connections and disjuncture between the identified six major filmmaking cities.
Their relationships can be understood both from a historical and a present-day
perspective, for it is important to remember that parallel film business networks
involving similar cities and territories (e.g., Shanghai and Japan) had already
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 183

been formed in East Asia before the Second World War (Sugawara 2011: 117).
Hence, I opt to see these major East Asian film cities as the current connec-
tion points in this constantly mutating, transitional, semi-supranational, regional
network saturated with local traits. My approach is thus different from theoreti-
cal frameworks, such as ‘translocal’ (Y. Zhang 2011: ix; Greiner and Sakdapolrak
2013), ‘translingual’ (S. Lim 2011: 17–22), ‘intra-regional’, ‘inter-regional’ (V. Lee
2011a: 1) and ‘transnational’, which can be employed to examine the spatial
spread of this film business network.
There is no doubt that the six metropolitans found in this network have sup-
ported most of the film business activities of their respective countries or ter-
ritories in the late twentieth to the early twenty-first century. They are in turn
buttressed by their own clusters of talent, capital, film industry systems, demo-
graphic profiles (including residents and visitors), geopolitical infrastructures
and the special backing of domestic governments. Not all of them, for example
Busan, are or can be comparable to ‘global cities’ in the sense referred to by soci-
ologist Saskia Sassen – cities that have turned from national industrial centres
into major global providers of ‘highly specialized services and financial goods’
(Sassen 2001: 5). However, each of these metropolitans that I have chosen to
highlight does have its own tradition of filmmaking. Each has its own uniqueness
and superior interconnectedness that have enabled it to become prominent
in the latest regional film business network, which, in turn, is part of the world
political-economic system. Since film markets attached to the international-
scale film festivals are held annually in these cities, they are the most popular
stops for any film executive who works and travels along the film festival/film
market circuit in that region. Moreover, these metropolitans are interdependent
in that each rivals and works with the others through film deals and ideas/per-
sonnel/techniques/money interchange to gain the limelight, diming the advan-
tages Hong Kong once enjoyed exclusively as the ‘Eastern Hollywood’. At the
same time, they are trying to protect their own film activities from other nodes
in the network, other neighbouring cities or provinces, as well as from the big-
gest player in the global film business, Hollywood, while developing themselves
so they might one day become some of the biggest players in the field, if not the
single biggest. Discerning their correlations from historical, cultural and politi-
cal-economic perspectives, we can also single out a Greater China subregional
network formed by Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei. In this view, the
relationships of these cinematic nodes show the newest regional film business
184 . New Hong Kong Cinema

network as ever more complex, unbalanced, unstable and, at times, messier than
it ever was in any previous periods.
It is important to note that by highlighting these cinematic nodes in the East
Asian region in contemporary period, I do not mean they are constant stars;
nor do I intend to marginalize other cities in the region that are in the process
of building their burgeoning film industries and film trade activities. I have writ-
ten elsewhere that ‘Asia’ as a concept and a geopolitical region is continuously
being revisited and re-created (R. Cheung 2011a: 42–43). There are cities, such
as Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Manila (the Philippines), Pyongyang (North
Korea) and Vladivostok (Russia), in East Asia bordering North East or South
East Asia respectively that might one day become some of the brightest nodes in
the future East Asian film business network. I should also note that Singapore is
considered by some researchers to be part of the current East Asian film/cultural
zone (V. Lee 2011b: 235–48; Chua B. 2012). Singapore has traditionally played
the role of film consumer, and more recently film co-investor and co-producer,
in the geopolitical East/South East Asian region. Its role as film business ini-
tiator and facilitator, however, remains ambiguous. This was made evident by
the launch of ScreenSingapore (in 2011), which is neither a film festival nor a
film market but some sort of ‘hybrid cinema event’ featuring film launches and
seminars (Noh 2011a, 2012a). Therefore, I do not include it in the discussion of
the latest East Asian film business network, but do not rule out the possibility
of it becoming part of the network in future rounds of East Asian film business
realignment.
Media scholar Michael Keane (2006) analyses the media capacity in con-
temporary East Asia by examining the situations of major media production
cities within the framework of Asia itself. Keane (2006: 842–48) identifies that
East Asia has emulated the advancement of the West mainly in five ways. The
first way is through deterritorialization, or the adoption of a ‘world factory model’
(referring to their role of being used by advanced Western countries as low-cost
outsourcing locations for production). The second is ‘mimetic isomorphism’, a
term especially used in relation to small-sized cultural production companies
and the way they imitate, or clone, the successful ways of others. The third
method is by means of the transfer of cultural technology. Through joint ven-
tures or franchising, local media companies in East Asia learn from international
companies in the areas of talent training, employment and infrastructure invest-
ments. This knowledge will eventually help the local companies develop their
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 185

own media industries. The fourth way is by creating niche markets and using
multiple channels of innovation, production and distribution. The fifth method
is via building culture/industry and creative clustering in designated localities
(usually important cites) that are termed ‘media capitals’.
I would like to expand on the concept of ‘media capital’ a bit more at this
juncture, as it helps to understand the reasoning behind my choice of the six
cinematic nodes in the newest East Asian film business network. The concept
of ‘media capital’, as communications scholar Michael Curtin (2003) posits, was
initially inspired by the cross-border, transnational flows of television program-
ming from particular cities. Curtin refers to these cities (e.g., Bombay, Cairo and
Hong Kong) as ‘media capitals’. They are usually the ‘centers for the finance,
production, and distribution of television programs’, ‘centers of media activity
that have specific logics of their own; ones that do not necessarily correspond
to the geography, interests or policies of particular nation-states’ (Curtin 2003:
203). These cities can be understood as being ‘positioned at the intersection
of complex patterns of economic, social and cultural flows’ (Curtin 2003: 204).
Importantly, their development ‘hinges on their ability to register and articulate
the social experiences of their audiences’ (Curtin 2003: 205). A media capital is
a ‘nexus or switching point, rather than a container’ (Curtin 2003: 204). In this
sense, ‘media capital’ is also a relational concept, requiring these particular cities
to be examined with regard to the operations of other, perhaps less prominent,
cities nearby (Curtin 2003: 205).
Incorporating Curtin’s ‘media capital’ concept, Keane’s model allows us to
understand the major characteristics of the six film nodal points in present-day
East Asia. While we may still find traits of the first two ways of achieving success
in Keane’s proposition present in these cities, it is the latter three ways in his
idea that chiefly characterize these nodes in the latest East Asian film business
realignment. However, what is not coming to the fore in Keane’s discussion, but
in reality is becoming an increasingly acute issue, is the power imbalance within
a fragmented East Asia (in the political and cultural sense), which shows through
the implementation of national policies for the support of individual film indus-
tries and business. I argue that, in order to appreciate how things work within
and beyond the newest East Asian film business network, this power imbalance
should not be ignored. It needs to be understood as the backbone and the pre-
requisite of how film business can be conducted at both the city and national
levels. I will highlight below what Beijing, Busan, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo have
186 . New Hong Kong Cinema

that justifies their being considered the nodal points in this most recent film
business network in East Asia. My emphasis is placed on each city’s correspond-
ing national governmental policies in promoting film industry development at
a local level. These operations found at the local/city level congruously point
towards the advancement of their national film and other creative industries,
and the related supranational activities individual countries are involved in. This
will be followed by a separate section on what Hong Kong has done since 1997
with regard to its supportive film policy.

East Asian Film Business: Main and Sub-Nodes

To delineate the involvement of the identified nodes in the newest East Asian
film business network, for each of them in this section I give information of early
film activity engagement. This will be juxtaposed by the node’s present situ-
ations, which reflect the corresponding national/subregional film policies and
relevant film industry arrangements.

China: Beijing (Main Node)

Beijing’s involvement in the early Chinese film industry was far from certain (Y.
Zhang 2002: 157; Hu 2003). Apart from some extant information on the first
China-made film, The Battle of Dingjunshan (aka Conquering Jun Mountain) by
Ren Jingfeng via Fengtai Photography Shop (Beijing) in 1905, there is a lack of
archival material to show any film production and exhibition activities in Beijing
between 1906 and 1920 (Teo 1997: 3; Y. Zhang 2002: 157; S. Chung 2011: 154; Feng
X. 2011: 142). Gliding through time to the twenty-first century, nonetheless, we
have strong reasons to secure Beijing’s nodal position in East Asia’s cinema-scape
and film business network on three fronts: talent, political power and money.

Talent
If Beijing was the birthplace of the first Chinese film, the Beijing Film Academy
(BFA) and the Central Academy of Drama (CAD) are the ‘hatcheries’ of cel-
ebrated members of China’s film talent. Both state-run higher education institu-
tions were established in 1950 to offer university degree courses in film-related
areas. Over the years, the BFA has produced internationally renowned gradu-
ates, including Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige of the Fifth-Generation directors;
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 187

Jia Zhangke and Wang Xiaoshuai of the Sixth-Generation directors; and impor-
tant actors/actresses such as Vicki Zhao (aka Zhao Wei) and Huang Xiaoming.
The CAD specializes in professional training in drama and visual arts, and
has graduates such as Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi. Each year, the two institutions
together provide the quickly expanding mainland Chinese film industry with a
large pool of talent, who in turn attracts film labourers from other places to work
in Beijing. As Curtin argues, migration (and thereafter agglomeration) of creative
labour is one of the principles for regarding a place as a media capital (Curtin
2003, 2007: 14–19, 23). In Beijing’s case, the clustering of film talent in the city
definitely makes it a well-positioned film business node in East Asia.

Political Power and Money

Besides film talent, Beijing as the current seat of China’s highest authorities gives
the city a distinguished advantage to exert political-economic influence on the
East Asian regional film sector, following the country’s WTO accession in 2001.
Not only do serious film investments accumulate in Beijing, the biggest Chinese
film companies and institutions (whether state-owned or privately run) are
based there. By 2011 they accounted for more than 70 per cent of China’s film
industry (S-l. Yu 2011a). Among them is the newest international film festival in
the region, the state-run Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF) and its affili-
ated Beijing Film Market (BFM) (both established in 2011).4 These Beijing-based
organizations draw major international film companies to the city to build their
China offices so as to work closely with their Chinese partners to explore the
vast Chinese audience market. Among them, we see the prominence of CFGC
in China’s highly regulated mediascape.
The Chinese authorities founded CFGC in February 1999 on the eve of
China’s accession to the WTO, by merging the former China Film Corporation,5
Beijing Film Studio and six other formerly separate film-related government units.
CFGC has direct support from the State Administration of Press, Publication,
Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT; formerly the State Administration of
Radio, Film and Television (SARFT)), which is the country’s highest government
arm supervising relevant industries.6 Through CFGC, which operates with a ver-
tical integration business model, the Chinese government can actively engage
in film production, Sino-foreign co-productions,7 film distribution and exhibi-
tion, and film import and export (A Description of China’s Film Industry 2007;
Han Sanping: Biography 2009). With a total asset value of more than RMB2.8
188 . New Hong Kong Cinema

billion (£283 million or U.S.$461 million), CFGC produces annually more than
thirty feature films, some 400 television series and over 100 television films (Yeh
and Davis 2008: 42).8 During the period from 2010 to 2012, CFGC’s domestic
film distribution accounted for a 34 per cent market share, while foreign films
it distributed enjoyed 47 per cent of the total Chinese market box-office earn-
ings (Liu Y. 2012). China’s state-run National Film Capital further boosts CFGC’s
financial muscle (China’s NFC 2012). Yeh and Davis (2008: 38–44) argue that
those supposedly commercial mega enterprises like CFGC in effect allow the
Chinese authorities to secure strong profits from the market while continuing
their control over propaganda organs – now from a backstage position. Termed
‘film marketization’ for rejuvenating the Chinese film industry, the practice
actually heightens ‘re-nationalization’ and ‘hyper-nationalization’. The authors
believe that in engaging in such a practice the Chinese state can avoid the risks
involved in a real market economy (China Becomes 2002; Meng 2014). On the
ideological/cultural/political level, CFGC can be considered as extending China’s
influences across East Asia through heavy involvement in pan-East Asian (espe-
cially Chinese-speaking) co-produced mega blockbusters.9

China: Shanghai (Main Node)

Journalist and historian Martin Jacques (2012: 252–58) points out that because
of China’s huge territory and population its central authorities de facto run the
country like a federal system lest the state face governance difficulties. This may
explain why nowadays in mainland China there are two film business centres
located closely together. In the north-east lies Beijing; in the mid east there is
Shanghai. Both are municipalities under the direct control of the central govern-
ment.10 They are competitors and also sister cities in China, and in the East Asian
film business circle.
Shanghai’s importance as a city began more than a century ago (Xiong
1996: 101–2). It is where the first film was shown in China (in 1896) (Hu 2003:
198–99),11 where the first film production studio was established (in 1909)12
and where the first talkie was made.13 By the mid 1920s, the early Chinese film
industry had been fully formed with numerous new studios emerging every
year, and was dominated by privately run, commercialized enterprises (Zhang
Z. 2005: xiii, xviii; Sugawara 2011: 97–98). The establishment of the joint ven-
ture United Film Exchange (aka Liuhe Film Company) in June 1926 by leading
film companies14 in Shanghai would soon bring the business mode of vertically
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 189

integrating film production, distribution and exhibition to maturity (S. Chung

2011: 157–58; Sugawara 2011: 104–15). Their films in various genres enriched the
local and overseas markets (particularly in East/South East Asia), while facing
fierce competition from films imported from the West (Sugawara 2011: 103).15
Shanghai’s early filmmaking sector reached its peak during the 1930s and 1940s,
accommodating more than 150 film production companies and producing more
than 100 films annually (Zhang Z. 2005: xiv; Yao 2013). But the bombing raids
carried out by Japan on 28 January 1932 and, subsequently, Shanghai’s fall to the
Japanese invaders in the Battle of Shanghai in 1937 badly damaged Shanghai’s
film industrial infrastructure, literally bringing the early Shanghai film industry to
a halt. Filmmakers soon moved their business to Hong Kong or abroad, leading
to the multiple trajectories of Chinese-language cinemas in the postwar period
(Zhang Z. 2005: xiv; Yao 2013).
In the twenty-first century, the move of China restructuring and consolidating
its large, overly bureaucratic state-owned enterprises gave rise to the present form
of Shanghai Film Group (SFG), which has been instrumental in shaping Shanghai’s
participation in the newest East Asian film business network. As the second larg-
est state-owned film group in China after Beijing’s CFGC, SFG houses a bundle
of formerly separate film-related companies, bringing Shanghai’s film production,
talent management, post-production and distribution efforts all under one roof
(Who to Know in China 2011).16 Although this corporate restructuring may lead
to the problem of monopolization, the consolidation extends SFG’s international
expansion via co-production and co-financing, and enlarges its profitable exhibi-
tion networks (Goodridge 2003; Shackleton 2005a, 2006a, 2012a; Noh 2006; SFG
2010; Disney 2012).17 It signifies Shanghai’s readiness to take part in the current
dramatic changes in China’s and East Asia’s film business landscapes.
Another important constituent of Shanghai’s film industry in the present era
is the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF),18 which houses an affiliated
film market, the SIFF Market (Jones 2007).19 The SIFF was inaugurated in 1993,
and in 1994 it obtained an A-category accreditation as one of the ‘Competitive
Feature Film Festivals’ by the International Federation of Film Producers
Associations (FIAPF). It is the only China-based festival in the same category
as major festivals such as those of Berlin, Cannes and Venice. The SIFF (with its
film market) is now the major platform from which news of important film deals
and international partnerships of the Chinese film industry are often announced
(Shackleton 2006a, 2006b; CJ 2010; SFG 2010).
190 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Japan: Tokyo (Main Node)

Japan’s capital, Tokyo, is the major location of the country’s film and video pro-
duction (Sugaya 2004: 7). It is the home of the headquarters of Japan’s major
film studios Kadokawa, Nikkatsu, Shochiku, Toei and Toho. These studios have
forged close ties with Japan’s public broadcaster Japan Broadcasting Corporation
(NHK) and key commercial television stations based in Tokyo. These major
players in Japan’s film sector operate according to the principles of market com-
petition, and without the government’s direct administration and support. The
city also houses the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF). The festival has
been running since 1985 and is an ‘A list’, FIAPF-accredited competitive fea-
ture film festival.20 Its affiliated multi-content market, TIFFCOM (launched in
2004),21 is reputed among international film executives to be another important
film trade event in East Asia.
The first Japanese film is believed to have been made before 1900 (Sharp
and Arnold 2002; Miller 2011). After the Second World War the Japanese
government essentially adopted a laissez-faire approach to formulating film-
related policies, despite separate initiatives such as the restrictions on exporting
Japanese Yen (1950s) and the Japan Arts Fund’s subsidizing of certain film pro-
jects (1990s), which were employed to assist the Japanese film industry when
it was not performing well (Gerow 2006). This reflects a general unenthusiastic
attitude of the Japanese government at the time towards film, which was not
considered a high art (Sugaya 2004; Gerow 2006; see also Chua B. 2012: 124).
In the late 1990s, the Japanese government started seriously formulating
policies to help the domestic film industry catch up with the initiatives that
neighbouring countries and territories had already taken (Gerow 2006).22 In the
meantime, Japan started to realign its internal film industry infrastructure and
external connections with other countries to promote its film industry and film
contents. It joined the Asian Film Commissions Network (AFCNet) in October
2004 as a founding and regular member.23 In 2005, the government-founded
Association for the Diffusion of Japanese Film Abroad24 joined the organizers
of the TIFF to form the Japan Association for International Promotion of the
Moving Image (UNIJAPAN), which would be responsible for organizing the TIFF.
However, there has been no central governmental organization and at times
no clear direction to implement any comprehensive scheme for supporting the
Japanese film industry (Sugaya 2004: 9). One may argue that the spread of film-
related activities among different government units and government-supported
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 191

non-profit organizations allows the film industry in Japan to mould its own com-
petitiveness without too much interference from the federal government. This
practice certainly worked when Japan was the world’s second-largest box-office
territory (Pulver 2013). But when the film trade environment began to change,
Japan’s film industry would be exposed to a range of challenges. This has pre-
cisely been the case in Japan’s Tokyo-led film sector since the 2000s. There is no
doubt that Tokyo has been striving hard to catch up with other film industry and
business pivots in East Asia, and has led a change of national attitude towards
cross-border film business. But the changes have been carried out under the
Japanese government’s overall cautious attitude and swaying approach between
seeing ‘film as culture’ and ‘film as business’ (Schilling 2003; Sugaya 2004: 15;
Gerow 2006). This makes Tokyo appear as a relatively lacklustre node compared
with other main cinematic nodes in the region, which are thoroughly equipped
and prepared to engage in developing a sophisticated regional nexus of film
business in the twenty-first century.

South Korea: Busan (Main Node)

South Korea offers an interesting case showing that a media capital might not
necessarily accord with the popular rendezvous of international film executives.
Although the capital city Seoul has been the favourite home for most segments
of the South Korean film industry and related companies (Han 2010e: 21),25 the
second largest city Busan (with the annual Busan International Film Festival
(BIFF) and its affiliated film market, Asian Film Market (AFM)26) is the preferred
place for domestic/international investors, film executives and other film prac-
titioners to gather annually to network, negotiate film deals and probe the latest
trends of Asian films. The festival, known formerly as the Pusan International
Film Festival (PIFF), was launched in 1996 and has become one of the most
established film events in East Asia (Ahn 2012: 34, 38–42, 48–49).27
Experienced East Asian cinema journalist and critic Darcy Paquet (2009b)
believes that the success of the PIFF has made it easy for the city of Pusan (now
Busan) to launch itself as a filmmaking hub. Indeed, the intention of the present
South Korean government to turn Busan into a fully integrated city of film in the
twenty-first century is clearly revealed in a government document on national
territorial planning, published in 2013 by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance
and supervised by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. It shows
that, for the period of 2006 to 2020, Busan has been chosen as an ‘innovation
192 . New Hong Kong Cinema

city’, which will be turned into the centre for ocean, film and finance in South
Korea (Moon et al. 2013: 69).28 One immediate result of this territorial plan was
the move of the headquarters of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) from Seoul
to Busan in October 2013. This relocation is likely to have a far-reaching effect
on South Korea’s future film policies as well as on the development of film busi-
ness in East Asia.
The KOFIC, formerly the Korean Motion Picture Promotion Corporation,
was established in South Korea in 1973 under the auspices of the Ministry of
Culture, Sports and Tourism in a period of authoritarian political rule (Ahn 2012:
115).29 With the later changes in South Korea’s political system, the organization
changed its responsibilities from being a film censorship agency to supporting
and promoting (South) Korean Cinema (Kim H-j. Circa 2006: 351). The current
KOFIC was launched in 1999 as part of the promotional film policy. For a cin-
ematic tradition that started in 1923 with the first feature, The Border (directed
by Won San-man) but was not fully industrialized until the 1980s, the current
KOFIC can be viewed as a particularly supportive governmental response in the
aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis to boost the local film industry (Kim H-j.
Circa 2006: 352; Kim M. and An J. Circa 2006: 19; An Y. and E. Kim 2008: 22–24;
Ahn 2012: 34).30
Among its major initiatives, the KOFIC supports South Korea’s film produc-
tion by building financial support programmes for independent feature films,
short films and documentary films; running an online screenplay market; sup-
porting research and development for film companies; subsidizing independent
and art-house film theatres; financing co-productions between South Korea and
other countries; and supporting South Korean films/filmmakers to attend inter-
national film festivals and film markets. The KOFIC also serves as a central point
for supplying information on the South Korean film industry to international
film practitioners and researchers (Davis and Yeh 2008: 20; Kim H-c. 2011: 10).31
Infrastructural changes have been made in Busan to coincide with the
KOFIC’s recent relocation to this city. New facilities will be built, such as a head-
quarters building, new Busan Cinema Studio, outdoor sets and other film produc-
tion facilities (W. Kim 2013: 69). Seen in this context, while the physical move of
the KOFIC from Seoul to Busan seems to be a decentralization of administration,
it certainly also suggests the increasing importance of Busan not just in the South
Korean film industry but also within the most recent East Asian film business
network.
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 193

Taiwan: Taipei (Sub-node)

Taipei is where we can find the concentration of Taiwan’s film industry.
Historically, it was the seat of the then Government Information Office (GIO),
the government unit whose major responsibilities included regulating domestic
film and other media sectors. Taipei also hosts the annual prestigious film event,
the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards. The festival was created in
1962 by the GIO. However, without the support of consistent promotional film
policies over the years and, more importantly, a proper film marketplace like
those affiliated to the biggest international film festivals in East Asia,32 Taipei is
outcompeted by other film business nodes in facilitating international film busi-
ness exchanges (Frater 2013c). Hence, I refer to Taipei as the sub-node, and not
the main node, of the newest East Asian film business network.
Taiwan’s film development has been closely related to its political sector.
Although film was introduced to Taiwan in 1901 during the Japanese colonial
period (1895–1945), it was not until 1925 that the first film was made by and for
local Taiwanese, under the strict supervision and censorship of the Japanese
colonial government (1925: Taiwan Gets into the Game: n.d.; R. Chen 1998: 48).
The early films made in Taiwan were propaganda tools used by the Japanese
colonizers to spread the culture of Japan among its Taiwanese subjects (R. Chen
1998: 47). They were produced by major Japanese film studios, such as Nikkatsu,
Shochiku and Toho (Yeh and Davis 2005: 16).
In the post-Second World War era, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT, aka the
Chinese Nationalist Party) of the Republic of China was defeated and forced to
move out of mainland China by the Chinese communists in the civil war. After
taking over Taiwan, the authoritarian KMT government established the major
film studio, Central Motion Picture Company (CMPC), in Taipei in 1954. The
early missions of the studio were mostly anti-communist.33 However, there was
a neglect of film policy (Yeh and Davis 2005: 17). In the 1960s, the KMT govern-
ment began to devote more efforts to supporting Taiwan’s local film industry.34 In
1975 the government set up the Foundation for the Development of the Motion
Picture Industry under the GIO. Taiwan’s political-economic transformation
from authoritarian rule to democratization in the mid 1970s through to the 1980s
spurred the establishment of independent and privately owned film companies.
This period also witnessed the golden period of Taiwan Cinema. A total of 2,150
Taiwan films were produced in the 1970s (R. Chen 1998: 54–55). In the 1980s,
Taiwan films faced strong competition from Hong Kong films, which took away
194 . New Hong Kong Cinema

much of Taiwan’s domestic market share and Taiwanese private financial invest-
ments (R. Chen 1998: 56, 61). Although there was encouragement from the Taiwan
government for members of the New Taiwan Cinema movement (1982–86), such
as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang and Wu Nien-jen among others who worked
on art-house films (M. Berry 2005: 253), their number of outputs remained small.
Taiwan’s mainstream film industry continued to be fragile until recently.35
Entering the twenty-first century, Taiwan started to restructure its film
industry (Gao 2009: 432–33). Between 2003 and 2010, the Taiwan government
introduced a series of improved film funding schemes, subsidies, tax break
and related policies to help domestic mainstream film industry and art-house
cinema, to encourage Taiwan-foreign co-productions, and to make Taiwan an
attractive choice for foreign filmmakers to carry out location shooting in the
territory.36 All these different kinds of financial support seem to have come at
the right time to rescue Taiwan’s domestic film production from dying (domestic
production occupied 0.1 per cent of the Taiwan local market share in 2001; 3 per
cent of the Taiwan local market share in 2002; only twenty-three mainstream
Taiwan films were produced in 2004, as compared to 230 films in 1969 during the
golden period of Taiwan’s film history (from the 1960s to the 1970s)) (R. Chen
1998: 61; Shackleton 2003; Gao 2009: 428). However, following the GIO’s dis-
solution in 2012 and its replacement by the newly formed Taipei-based Ministry
of Culture, there was a series of severe film subsidy cuts.37 The still fragile Taiwan
film industry would feel the negative effects immediately (Cremin 2013, n.d.).

Hong Kong as a Main Node in the Latest East Asian Film Business Network

Hong Kong Film Policy Overview

We have just seen how contemporary film-related policies in Beijing, Shanghai,
Tokyo, Busan and Taipei fit in their respective, current stages of film industry
and business development, and how each city’s structural, infrastructural and
institutional arrangements have been modified so as to cope with the needs
of the film sector. Unlike these other nodes, Hong Kong has achieved its nodal
position in the latest East Asian film business network not as a result of any sys-
tematic and coherent local government support, but mostly through the persis-
tent efforts of the local film practitioners over the years. Its being a major node in
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 195

this film business network reflects the way in which the New Hong Kong Cinema
carves out a niche of its own astride and within this network’s interstices left
open (or sometimes covered up) by the workings of the other nodes. To justify
my point, in the following I will take a look at Hong Kong’s different sets of film-
related policies in different time periods. This will be followed by an analysis of
Hong Kong’s most recent film-related policies and relevant conditions.
As part of the overall non-interventionist approach to administering Hong
Kong during the colonial era, the British colonial government there adopted a
type of laissez-faire policy towards the local film sector, which has been built by
private enterprises on the principles of a market-oriented economy (J. Chan,
Fung and C. Ng 2010: 24). Zhuangzi Tests His Wife was the first Hong Kong fea-
ture film ever made, directed by Lai Man-wai (aka Li Minwei) in 1913. The film
was an adaption of a Cantonese opera. Lai Man-wai, his brother Lai Pak-hoi
(aka Li Beihai), cousin Lai Hoi-san (aka Li Haishan) and theatre actor/direc-
tor Liang Shaobo founded Minxin Film Company in Hong Kong in 1923. It was
the first Chinese-owned film company in the territory. In the following year the
company relocated to Canton (now Guangzhou) because of an unsuccess-
ful land rent application with the colonial government, before moving further
north to Shanghai in 1926 amid the Canton-Hong Kong strike. In 1930, Minxin
became part of the Lianhua Film Company in Shanghai (Teo 1997: 3). Before the
Japanese invasion of Shanghai in the Second World War, the Hong Kong film
sector remained secondary to the more glamorous Shanghai film industry. The
fall of Shanghai to the Japanese indirectly breathed new life into the Hong Kong
film industry, for many Shanghai film practitioners moved their capital, talent,
technologies and expertise to Hong Kong to continue their filmmaking ventures.
The 1950s and the 1960s saw the dominance of Chinese tycoon-led film
studios such as Shaw Brothers in the Hong Kong film sector. These filmmak-
ers also continued their personal film business networks they had built in East/
South East Asia in the pre-war period (Teo 1997: 7–8; S. Chung 2003). The lack
of active government intervention together with the overall prosperity of the
Hong Kong economy and other unique film industry elements represented the
competitive edge of the Hong Kong film industry at that time (see also K. Ng
2009). The local film industry reached its pinnacle in the late 1980s and the early
1990s, with an annual output quantity comparable to Hollywood and Bollywood.
The annual output peaked at 239 films in 1993 (Chan C. 2000: 457). This period
also witnessed the structural change in the Hong Kong film industry from a
196 . New Hong Kong Cinema

domination of big film studios to a proliferation of small- to medium-sized inde-

pendent film companies lacking huge capital backups. For various extrinsic and
intrinsic reasons, however, the local film industry started to plummet in 1994.
Since 2002, the number of local films released has been less than 100 annually,
with an average of fifty films in recent years. In 2014, a total of fifty-one Hong
Kong local films were released (S. Chan 2015).
Meanwhile, the British colonial government in Hong Kong continued to keep
the local film industry at arm’s length. Before the 1997 Handover, relatively limited
administrative procedures such as the local film censorship and film classifica-
tion system were carried out by the then Television and Entertainment Licensing
Authority (TELA).38 The Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), one of
the important film events in the city, was organized and financially supported by
different government units between 1977 and 2004 (R. Cheung 2009: 100–1).
According to Li Cheuk-to, Artistic Director of the HKIFF, before the festival’s
corporatization in 2004 it was thought by many Hong Kong film industry prac-
titioners as a government-sponsored event that served only a small number of
cinéphiles. The festival was thus not considered a structural part of the local
mainstream film industry that was there to produce grass-roots entertainment
for the general public (R. Cheung 2011c: 205–6).39
After the Handover in 1997, Tung Chee-hwa, who was the first chief execu-
tive of the newly formed Hong Kong SAR government, started to show some
signs of support for the deteriorating film sector following a persistent lobby
of the local government by representatives from the mainstream film industry.
A series of film-related policies as well as financial and infrastructural arrange-
ments have accordingly been implemented since then. In the area of funding, in
1999 the Hong Kong government put together the Film Development Fund with
an initial sum of HK$100 million (£7.9 million or U.S.$12.9 million) for enhanc-
ing the professional and technological capabilities of the local film industry (J.
Chan, Fung and C. Ng 2010: 25–29). International marketing scholar Zhihong
Gao (2009: 431) notes that ‘[r]ather than directly subsidising film production,
the fund supports projects that promote dialogues and co-operation among film
professionals’. In 2003, a sum of HK$50 million (£3.9 million or U.S.$6.4 mil-
lion) was drawn from the Film Development Fund to form the Film Guarantee
Fund, which is to be applied for by local film companies as backup funding when
they take out loans from banks or lending institutions to cover their filmmaking
costs.40 In 2007, the government injected another HK$300 million (£23.7 million
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 197

or U.S.$38.7 million) into the Film Development Fund so as to offer financial

support to small- and medium-budget film productions.41
The Hong Kong SAR government has also made some structural adjust-
ment within the government architecture for helping the local film industry.
In April 1998, the government established the Film Services Office (FSO) to
facilitate film production, building a database on location shooting and post-
production facilities in Hong Kong.42 In 2004, the HKIFF was corporatized after
having been run by the local government for twenty-seven years, starting from
1977 (R. Cheung 2009; C. Wong 2011: 216–17). Its partner film marketplace, the
Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART; launched in 1997),43
remains an annual event organized by the Hong Kong Trade Development
Council (HKTDC). The HKTDC is a statutory body in Hong Kong aiming to
promote Hong Kong’s trade, but it does not belong to the governmental struc-
ture, although some of the members of the council are current senior govern-
ment officials (R. Cheung 2011c: 201–3).44 In 2007, a non-statutory advisory
committee, the Hong Kong Film Development Council (HKFDC), was founded
to incorporate established film practitioners to provide strategic advice to the
government. The council also administers the two government-controlled
film funds via the FSO.45 In June 2009, a new agency, the Create Hong Kong
(CreateHK), was set up under the auspices of the Commerce and Economic
Development Bureau of the government to overlook the policies and related
arrangements for creative industries. Since then, film-related matters have been
placed side by side with other local creative industries, such as design and digital
entertainment, under the administration of this new agency. While the FSO now
goes into the organization chart of the CreateHK, the HKFDC, still functional, is
not included in the CreateHK’s official profile (see Figure 5.1).46
To tap the mainland China market, in 2003 the Hong Kong SAR government
and the PRC government signed the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic
Partnership Arrangement (CEPA). The CEPA was updated ten times between
2004 and 2013, allowing a total of twenty-eight sectors (including film) of Hong
Kong to become ‘partly liberalized’ – that is, to be allowed to conduct busi-
ness activities in mainland China, with conditions attached.47 For the film sector,
films co-produced by Hong Kong film companies with their mainland Chinese
partners under the CEPA will be treated as mainland films when they are dis-
tributed in mainland China. Chinese-language films produced in Hong Kong are
also allowed to be imported for distribution in the mainland on a quota-free
 198 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Figure 5.1 The Organization Chart of the CreateHK

Source: The CreateHK’s official website (English), www.createhk.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 199

basis, after China’s censorship approval (when distributed in China, Hong Kong-
made films that were not co-produced were treated as foreign films in the time
after the political reunification and before the signing and implementation of
the CEPA) (J. Chan, Fung and C. Ng 2010: 72–74). Initially welcomed by Hong
Kong’s film practitioners, this series of government endeavours (being some
of the newest elements in the development of the New Hong Kong Cinema)
turned out not to be especially beneficial. Many critics and film professionals
even view them negatively (V. Chow 2013). What has gone wrong?

Analysis
Ostensibly, the Hong Kong SAR government has been responding to the urgent
requests of the film industry practitioners to save the industry from dwindling
further. All these long overdue supportive measures in the form of financial
setups, institutional arrangements and political infrastructures have been put
in place since the new Hongkonger-led government was formed. However, it is
worth noting that the Hong Kong SAR government has, from the outset, treated
Hong Kong Cinema as a sector of the Hong Kong economy only (in particular,
emphasizing its moneymaking ability). The local government has confusedly
and narrowly defined the artistic and cultural sectors of Hong Kong, and there-
fore has not considered film as part of these two sectors.48 Hence, whatever
kinds of measures the government implements with regard to the film sector, the
first priority is always of economic and not cultural concern. These government
interventions have thus met with severe criticisms from both within and outside
the local film industry.
In examining the efficacies of Hong Kong’s film-related policies, scholars
of mass media Joseph Chan, Anthony Y.H. Fung and Chun Hung Ng (2010:
31) remark that these policies have thus far been ‘mostly sporadic and passive
responses to the industry’s requests’ and there is still ‘no coherent long-term
planning, nor any strong rationale underlying the measures’. To be more spe-
cific, the Hong Kong SAR government has not made any ambitious plans to
enable Hong Kong Cinema to take another major leap along the value chain in
the global film business context. Also, understandably trying to avoid displeas-
ing the Chinese authorities, the new set of Hong Kong film-related policies does
not display a clear mission of facilitating Hong Kong film production in building
distinctive local identities and ideologies for the Hongkongers. We can see, for
example, that the objectives of the two film funds focus only on fulfilling the
200 . New Hong Kong Cinema

budgets, promotion, talent training and audience development of ‘Hong Kong

films’. They do not state clearly whether the sponsored films need to reflect
the lives and thinking of the locals. The two funds have strict application cri-
teria and only support feature films. A total sum of HK$4.13 million (£325,000
or U.S.$533,000) from the Film Development Fund was awarded to Hong Kong
film projects between July 2007 and March 2013 for taking part in film festivals,
and thereby generating publicity (V. Chow 2013). About half of this sum – that
is, around HK$2.21 million (£174,000 or U.S.$285,000), went to forty-three films
directed or co-directed by twelve filmmakers who were already very estab-
lished. Five of these films were directed by Johnnie To, accounting for a total
of HK$1.13 million (£89,000 or U.S.$146,000) of this award sum. Two films were
directed by Ann Hui, accounting for HK$380,000 (£30,000 or U.S.$49,000).
And two were directed by Wong Kar-wai, accounting for HK$190,000 (£15,000
or U.S.$25,000). Many of these films were produced and distributed by major
film companies, which have strong capital reserves. They were not in urgent
need of award money as might be the case with smaller film projects/companies.
As it turns out, the government sees its role as an investor rather than a pro-
vider of subsidies (Chui and R. Wong 2010: 20). Those film projects that promise
higher returns will get a better chance to win the government funds. Filmmakers
having less directorial experience, small-budget films and non-feature films (e.g.,
shorts, microfilms and documentaries) that are also part of Hong Kong Cinema,
on the other hand, have not had much chance to get governmental financial
support, for the current system favours star-laden feature films (V. Chow 2013).
The ambiguity of Hong Kong’s film-related policies points directly to the
core of the problem – the government lacks a proactive attitude towards, and
a forward-looking vision for, a truly diverse local film sector that has helped
build Hong Kong’s economy and identity over the past several decades. Even
worse, the establishment of the HKFDC and, later, of the CreateHK reveals a
deep-seated governance problem: there are constant changes being made to
the direction of what the local government hopes it would be able to achieve
for local filmmaking – a sector in the society that for ages has not been high
on the government’s political and administrative agendas. Yiu-Wai Chu (2013:
77–79) observes that the CreateHK was set up to show the Hong Kong SAR
government’s determination to ‘make Hong Kong a creative capital’, which is
actually part of the Brand Hong Kong marketing strategy and not a campaign
dedicated wholeheartedly to developing Hong Kong’s creative industries.
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 201

Frequent changes to the newly established set of film-related policies there-

fore often generate confusion rather than help for the local film professionals
in Hong Kong. When we look at the membership list of the HKFDC (the term
running from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2017), more questions arise as to how rep-
resentative these members are in a diverse society.49 Whereas there are mostly
government officials, film practitioners and business sector representatives on
board, there is only one film professor, Cheuk Pak Tong,50 representing the local
film education sector (or filmmaking, as he was part of the first Hong Kong New
Wave) and no representative from the viewing public (see Gerow (2006) for a
similar criticism on the Committee on Film Promotion in Japan).
As a result, although there seems to be a set of film-related policies in Hong
Kong, in effect it does not make a significant contribution to the rescue of the
local film sector. Hong Kong film practitioners continue to do things accord-
ing to the proven best industry practices, without resorting to the government’s
assistance. For example, most of the filmmakers in Hong Kong continue to seek
film funding from equity investors and pre-sale agreements of distribution rights
instead of making use of the Film Development Fund and the Film Guarantee
Fund. The Hong Kong film industry continues to be dominated by several film-
makers, such as Ann Hui, Johnnie To, Tsui Hark and Derek Yee, who established
themselves during the golden period of the industry. The less successful Hong
Kong film practitioners may have quit the Hong Kong film industry completely.
Mainland China could be an option for them to restart their professions, but
there is still no guarantee that they would succeed there because China tends to
welcome those Hong Kong filmmakers who are already well known (Elley 2012;
A Quarter 2013; Y-W. Chu 2013: 79). Film-talent training offered and supported
by the Hong Kong government is far from adequate. Many newcomers (except
a few of the better known, newest Hong Kong filmmakers) continue to drop out
of the field after having worked on one or two local film projects (J. Chan, Fung
and C. Ng 2010: 30–31).
The number of local film outputs continues to be low. Polarization in the film
sector is getting more and more serious. Filmmaking is characterized by either
mega blockbusters, which are usually China-Hong Kong co-production projects
under the CEPA with a heavy dose of ‘China’ element and insufficient defin-
ing characteristics/creativity of Hong Kong local films (A Quarter 2013; Y-W.
Chu 2013: 104, 109–112; Xing 2014), or cheaply produced local films that lack
overseas market potential. China-Hong Kong co-productions ‘have become the
202 . New Hong Kong Cinema

predominant genre in the Hong Kong film industry’ after the CEPA was signed,
as Chu (2013: 105) observes. Even with the CEPA signed between Hong Kong
and China, which on the surface has made it easier for Hong Kong films to reach
the mainland audience market, many Hong Kong filmmakers still find it hard to
truly incorporate themselves and their productions into the mainland film indus-
try system. This is because these Hong Kong filmmakers are unfamiliar with the
highly regulated and opaque mainland film distribution and exhibition network,
film industry statistics, legal enforcement, censorship criteria and approval gate-
ways (Gao 2009: 429–30; J. Chan, Fung and C. Ng 2010: 30). This is evident in
the Supplement X to CEPA, signed in August 2013. It stipulates a vague condi-
tion for the audiovisual sector of Hong Kong, which might be interpreted differ-
ently by different parties:

To allow the dialect version of motion pictures produced by Hong Kong and
co-produced by Hong Kong and the Mainland to be distributed and screened
in the Mainland, after being examined by and obtaining the approval of the
relevant authorities in the Mainland, on the condition that standard Chinese
subtitles are provided on screen.51

The Hong Kong SAR government continues to neglect the interests and the
further development of the local audience. Yet, it cannot ignore the possibility
that because of geolinguistic closeness, the Hong Kong mainstream film audi-
ence’s likes and dislikes can easily influence other communities of audience
based nearby on the mainland, such as the neighbouring areas within the Pearl
River Delta region (Curtin 2003: 221; J. Chan, Fung and C. Ng 2010: 94–95). It
follows that not fulfilling the interests of the local audience in Hong Kong would
eventually also lead to dissatisfaction among other viewing communities resid-
ing in the south of China, thereby counteracting the positive results of opening
the mainland audience market that the CEPA could normally bring to the Hong
Kong film industry. Commenting on the local government’s failure in nurtur-
ing a truly interested audience for creative industries, Chu (2013: 85) notes that
‘[w]ithout a solid audience base, creative industries cannot be fully developed’.
Therefore, in terms of institutional, political-economic and cultural effective-
ness, it is not difficult to conclude that the film-related policies in Hong Kong
still have a long way to go before their missions are fully accomplished.
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 203

The incompetent film-related policies in Hong Kong may not help the local
film sector immediately, but neither are they likely to hurt it further. I attrib-
ute this to the mature film business relationship that Hong Kong has built with
its business partners over the decades. In the next section, I will explore the
interrelationships of the cinematic nodes in the newest East Asian film business
network, and how Hong Kong’s resilience in transitional circumstances could
possibly help the local film industry to renew and re-strengthen its position
among other cinematic nodes in the region.

The Logics of a (Counter-)Imbalance of Power

China’s rise and its huge audience market have created international film busi-
ness hype for exploring this undertapped gold mine. The biggest beneficiaries
seem to be the nearby cinematic nodes in China’s home region in East Asia,
where there is an ongoing high volume of cultural and film business traffic.
These neighbouring nodes seem to rely on Beijing and Shanghai to sustain the
long-term growth of their film sectors. We begin to see an asymmetry of power
in the hexagonal film business relationships: Beijing and Shanghai seem to be the
engines of growth of the newest East Asian film business network, while Busan,
Hong Kong and Tokyo are just surviving (or struggling); Taipei is unfortunately
fading away in importance in this network, despite the fact that major film fund-
ing in the East Asian region often comes from Taiwanese private investors. But
can their relationships be read as simply as this?

Economic Arrangements and Co-production Treaties

In discussing the soft power configuration and confrontation of the three larg-
est East Asian powers in the present era, Chua (2012) notes a certain inequality
between China, Japan and South Korea in their use of pop culture to accomplish
their missions. While Japan and South Korea are the two big exporters of pop
culture, China as the major importer has the advantage of its huge consumer
market. To exploit this biggest single market on earth, consisting of a population
of over 1.3 billion people, regional cultural producers will need to co-produce
with China in order to bypass its import quota, state bureaucracies and other
business obstacles. South Korea seems to be allying with China because of the
lingering effect of Japan’s past colonization of Korea. Yet, China accuses South
204 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Korea of stealing its cultural traditions and using them as their own in South
Korea’s television drama series. Japan is trying to maintain its superior position
as the originator of the manga culture, but its government has failed to employ
public policies to develop its soft power resources in a timely manner (Chua B.
2012: 7–8, 124, 127–28, 135).
Down at the level of individual cities, and focusing primarily on the film
sector, we can detect yet another picture of power imbalance – or, we might
even say, a power counter-imbalance among the identified regional cinematic
nodes. As a whole, China is a magnet for international filmmakers, who use
all sorts of ways to become part of the rising Chinese film empire. The ways
they use to get involved range from building joint ventures with their mainland
Chinese partners, to opening offices in strategic locations in China (staffed with
Chinese employees). Their presence (mainly in Beijing and Shanghai) in turn
helps China at the nascent stage of its international film business development
in the post-WTO era, when China is requiring the know-how, management skills
and funnelling of international film funding to its film business undertakings.
Under such circumstances, China’s two major cinematic nodes, Beijing and
Shanghai, will be the first to benefit. Beijing in this context is in a better posi-
tion than Shanghai, for the state-run National Film Capital Company Limited
(NFC) is located in the capital city. According to a business partner of the NFC,
the fund is deployed for financing ‘larger projects with global commercial ele-
ments’ (China’s NFC 2012). It has recently announced a plan of injecting a sum
of U.S.$230 million (£141 million) into a collection of film projects, a number
of which have Hollywood partners (Frater 2012). Not surprisingly, a part of the
amalgamation of funds was raised from Hong Kong, besides inputs from public
and private investors in mainland China.
One of the formal procedures for working with China nowadays is for other
countries/territories to sign special co-production treaties or economic arrange-
ments with the Chinese authorities. Concluding such treaties has become a
common phenomenon since the 2000s. As part of the Hong Kong film-related
policies to support the ailing local film industry, the CEPA, first signed in 2003,
enables Hong Kong filmmakers to make co-produced films with their mainland
Chinese partners. The final products can then be categorized as mainland films,
which will enjoy quota-free distribution in mainland China on the condition that
they fulfil the approval requirements laid down by the Chinese authorities (the
process of approval is, however, notoriously unclear to filmmakers, and is subject
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 205

to change). The part of the CEPA that is related to the film industry is not recip-
rocal, and there are no requirements or strings attached as to how many main-
land Chinese films have to be imported into Hong Kong. Other kinds of trade
treaties, for example the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)
signed between the Taipei and the Beijing governments, act as two-way tracks.
The ECFA was signed between the two governments in June 2010. It helps break
down the long-term political animosity, and open up mutual economic benefits
and trade opportunities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Under the ECFA,
Taiwan films are exempt from being subject to the foreign film import quota
that China imposes on foreign films entering the mainland audience market. In
return, ten mainland films are initially allowed to enter the Taiwan market every
year (China Opens up 2010; Liu W. 2012). This is likely to be a win-win situation.
On the one hand, Taiwan Chinese-language films will have a chance to tap the
huge mainland Chinese audience market. On the other hand, China can utilize
China-Taiwan co-production projects to absorb investments, young directors
and actors from Taiwan (Shackleton 2010a). However, it is still too early to con-
clude whether ‘China’ is the solution for sustaining Taiwan’s film industry and
film business opportunities in the long run, given Taiwan residents’ strong oppo-
sition in March–April 2014 against the ECFA’s follow-up treaty on service trade
between China and Taiwan. Many protesters from Taiwan worried that such a
pact with China might ‘harm the territory’s small businesses and erode its politi-
cal autonomy’ (Kaiman 2014; see also J. Lee and Culpan 2014).
South Korea has also jumped on the bandwagon. In October 2013, the coun-
try signed a film and television co-production treaty with China, following a ten-
tative agreement signed in June of the same year. Co-produced films under this
treaty are expected to be treated as local or national by both countries.52 This
treaty is likely to have similar results to that of the ECFA signed between Taiwan
and China: China opens the door of its huge domestic audience market to allow
South Korean films to enter it, in return for the opportunities to gain access
to the reserves of South Korea’s film subsidies, talent, contents and technolo-
gies that are available only to South Korean national films (Frater 2013a; Lee H.
2013). The treaty can again be understood as part of China’s strategy to build up
international film finances and other resources for its embryonic film business.
On the other hand, South Korea also shares the victory. After Korean cultural
products such as film and television series have entered into China, they will
likely be dubbed in the Chinese language or carry Chinese subtitles before being
206 . New Hong Kong Cinema

redistributed via formal and informal (e.g., fan-based) channels to the diasporic
Chinese communities worldwide. South Korea’s soft power in the form of its pop
culture (the Korean culture hype, dubbed the ‘Korean Wave’ by the mass media;
or hanliu in Mandarin Chinese) will be further consolidated, albeit through indi-
rect channels and at times through submission to China’s Sinocentric ideol-
ogy when South Korea is working to develop a pan-East Asian cultural identity
(Chua B. 2012: 130, 140). A case in point is South Korea’s participation in the
Chinese-language pan-East Asian co-production film, Red Cliff (see my discus-
sion in Chapter Four).

Film Commission Networks

While co-production treaties are signed by the central governments in the case
of Taiwan and South Korea, the major cinematic cities of Taipei and Busan in
these two territories are likely to be the first at the city level to benefit via the
establishment of film commissions. Local film commissions started to become a
distinguishable part of the East Asian cinematic structure in the 2000s, after the
region-wide film industry redeployment in the 1980s and 1990s. Many film com-
missions are established as public non-profit organizations by local governments
to provide assistance and support to international filmmaking teams that shoot
their films on location in the corresponding cities and provincial areas. These film
commissions may help the international teams to find the best possible locations,
hire local talent to work on the crews, and carry out certain marketing tasks. They
may also help the international teams to apply for local governmental licences
and obtain tax-free incentives to do relevant filming. These commissions, then,
indirectly also help the local residents, especially those local filmmakers who
might obtain employment and development opportunities through working tem-
porarily with these international teams, and local non-film business (e.g., adver-
tising, marketing, equipment hiring, catering, tourism, hotel business and so on).
Together with other local film commissions, they may form a nationwide network,
such as that of Japan53 or South Korea (Han 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d, 2010e).
Beyond the national boundaries, a regional film commission network, the
Asian Film Commissions Network (AFCNet), was formed in October 2004. The
AFCNet is the largest in Asia and was started by the Busan Film Commission.
Interestingly, we can see another level of power structure among cities and
countries by considering this official regional network’s membership.54 The
member film commissions hail from East/South East Asia, Indo-China, the
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 207

Middle East and the Asian Pacific.55 Japan and South Korea are the most strongly
represented. They dominate this network with seventeen representative film
commissions (both local and national) and ten representative local film com-
missions respectively. Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai do not have any repre-
sentative film commissions in this network. On the current board of directors,56
it is Busan that holds the lead with the network secretariat located in the city.
The AFCNet president, Oh Seokgeun, is from the Busan Film Commission. One
of the vice-presidents of the AFCNet, Terawaki Ken, is from the Japan Film
Commission; the other vice-president, Kamil Othman, is from the National Film
Development Corporation Malaysia. Jennifer Jao from the semi-governmen-
tal Taipei Film Commission, formed in 2007, serves as director of the network
board, while Jiang Ping (a filmmaker working under the auspices of the SAPPRFT
in China) serves as a member on the advisory board of the AFCNet.

Film Marketplaces
Platforms are necessary for conducting film business. Economic arrangements,
co-production treaties and film commission networks may serve as platforms
on paper at government level to facilitate film business. For actual business to
happen, film buyers, sellers and investors alike need to come together face-to-
face to negotiate deals. Film marketplaces (or simply ‘film markets’), usually
affiliated to corresponding film festivals in their host cities, are then preferred
platforms offering convenient times and places for the film business community
to gather. As the director of the International Promotion Center at the KOFIC,
Daniel D.H. Park, remarks: ‘Festivals are cultural but markets are about business
…’ (Director 2012: 9). It is thus of paramount importance for film business execu-
tives to attend these events.
The sector of film marketplaces witnessed some of the fastest changes in the
East Asian film business landscape in the 2000s (see Table 5.1). A few years ago I
conducted a study comparing the levels of significance of four major East Asian
film markets in terms of their schedules, numbers of attendees and reputation
in global film business. Based upon my findings, I classified them into two tiers
(see R. Cheung 2011a: 40–61). The more important tier one comprises FILMART
in Hong Kong and the AFM in Busan. The less important tier two includes the
TIFFCOM in Tokyo and the SIFF Market in Shanghai. Only FILMART, the most
established one among them, was launched in the last century (in 1997). All the
others started to appear in the new millennium. Since my study was published,
208 . New Hong Kong Cinema

there have been dramatic changes to their positioning. First of all, one more
global-scale film market, the BFM in Beijing, sprang up in 2011. Secondly, my
tier system has been challenged in terms of the numbers of film buyers/sellers
officially recorded at the AFM, the TIFFCOM and the SIFF Market over the past
several years. In particular, the AFM and the TIFFCOM have modified the ways
they record the official volumes of human traffic at the events, making it diffi-
cult to quantify and compare their importance in the minds of film executives/
investors and other film professionals who participate in these events. From the
data available, it shows that the AFM and the TIFFCOM have been major rivals
hoping to reach and maintain the second rank among these major East Asian
film markets (see Table A.5 in the Appendix).57

Table 5.1 East Asian Film Markets

Film market Related film festival Launch Period Host city

year (annually)
Asian Film Market Busan International 2006 Early Busan
(AFM) Film Festival October
Beijing Film Market Beijing International 2011 April Beijing
(BFM) Film Festival
Hong Kong International Hong Kong 1997 March Hong Kong
Film & TV Market International
(FILMART) Film Festival
SIFF Market Shanghai International 2007 June Shanghai
Film Festival
TIFFCOM Tokyo International Film 2004 Late Tokyo
Festival October

What has remained unchanged and unchallenged is FILMART’s position among

these other major film markets in the region. Strategically scheduled for late
March every year, after the important European Film Market at the Berlin
International Film Festival in February, and before Marché du Film at the Cannes
Film Festival in May, FILMART is one of the film markets most frequented by
film executives. Participants in FILMART are usually from Hong Kong and other
parts of Asia, though film buyers/sellers from Europe and the United States also
go there (Shackleton 2011a). FILMART’s status as a ‘must-attend’ film business
event has become even more outstanding, as the travel budgets of film execu-
tives diminished after the Global Financial Crisis; it has become less easy for
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 209

them to hop from one major international film festival and market to another
along the film festival circuit. The HKTDC notes FILMART’s importance in a film
industry research report published in 2015 (S. Chan 2015):

FILMART (Hong Kong), Marche Du Film [sic: Marché du Film] (Cannes) and
American Film Market (the US) have been chosen by film industry players as
the top three most important global film events. FILMART is now the largest
film and TV market event in Asia.

FILMART’s importance is often further publicized by film trade magazines

and individual journalists. The influential Screen International carries major and
usually positive coverage of the HKIFF and FILMART around the festival period
each year. For example, the title ‘Beauty in the East: Filmart 2011’ (Shackleton
2011a) was used in an article for the 2011 edition of this film market. Writing a
regular column for the KOFIC’s Korean Cinema Today (the official magazine for
promoting the South Korean film industry), Paquet (2009b: 29) assesses the
performance of the PIFF (now BIFF):

The biggest challenge for any film festival is not to grow, or to become more
famous, but to establish its niche. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Hong Kong film
festival was known for its focus on Chinese language cinema. Now it is better
known for its market, which is considered far more successful than Pusan’s
own Asian Film Market.

Paquet’s praise is extraordinary not because it comes from an Asian film indus-
try expert but because his essay was published in an official film magazine of
the KOFIC, the very promoter of the PIFF and the AFM. The AFM, launched
in 2006, has been FILMART’s toughest competitor (R. Cheung 2011a: 49). The
fact that Korean Cinema Today carried Paquet’s article thus gives much greater
authority and weight to the critic’s recognition of FILMART than if the article had
been published in some other trade magazines. Paquet’s idea echoes that of Liz
Shackleton, another experienced East Asian film trade journalist, who works for
Screen International (its electronic and daily version is Screen Daily). Shackleton
writes frequently about the HKIFF and FILMART. She comments, ‘[FILMART] …
continues to be a platform for Hong Kong and mainland Chinese companies to
launch big-budget Chinese-language productions’ (Shackleton 2011b). Another
210 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Screen Daily journalist, Jean Noh (2014), writes about FILMART’s increasing
importance with regard to China: ‘With China’s box office continuing to grow
– last year [2013] it increased by 27% to reach $3.6bn – Hong Kong Filmart is
strengthening its position as a gateway to the mainland’. FILMART’s well-estab-
lished status and continuing importance in the minds of global film executives
and critics enable Hong Kong as a cinematic node to stay afloat in a rough sea of
power struggles and competition in the newest East Asian film business network.
It is likely to continue channelling business and networking opportunities for film
buyers and sellers from different countries and territories. Obviously, some of
the major beneficiaries would be Hong Kong filmmakers and the Hong Kong film
industry as a whole in a period of its transitional structural readjustment, when
it is catching up with the changes happening to film industries in East Asia and
regions further afield (J. Chan, Fung and C. Ng 2010: 92).

Concluding Remarks

In this chapter I have used the model of the ‘newest East Asian film business
network’ as a prism to explore the most recent film industry and business
evolvement in East Asia. My purpose was to understand how the New Hong
Kong Cinema has strived/thrived astride and within the interstices between
other identified film business nodes in the region. The superlative ‘newest’ I have
employed to describe this network denotes that the phenomenon of intrare-
gional film business relationships is not in itself something ‘new’ in East Asia.
This model represents the most recent cycle of a relationship system that has
been evolving over the past century. Neither did I mean the newest network
is an overnight creation, for it has gradually built up through collaboration and
competition at international, national, municipal and city levels over the past
two decades. The network also refers to all kinds of discernible or obscure rela-
tionships among individual filmmakers, creative talent, funding providers and
audiences, which have been continuously waxing and waning. In this system
of relationships, what is highly emphasized is the self-sustenance of regional
film business and individual film industries. Relationships within this newest
East Asian film business network are therefore complicated, multilayered and
multilateral.
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 211

In seeking to understand the relationships and operations within this net-

work, I have identified Beijing, Busan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo as the
main nodes and Taipei as the sub-node. Within the region, the volumes of film
business collaboration and competition are heaviest among them, while they
may also forge connections with those up-and-coming non-nodes located
nearby geographically. These cinematic nodes offer superior interconnected-
ness for binding this network together, leading and defining the film business
activities within and outside of East Asia. Although I have mainly been con-
cerned with the latest development of film business of these regional nodal
points in the post-Asian Financial Crisis period, my discussion has also touched
upon the cinematic history of each node. While these cinematic nodes are the
brightest spots in this newest network, the imbalance of power due to their own
strengths and weaknesses and to the political-economic power of the coun-
tries/territories they represent should not be forgotten. On the contrary, it is
arguably the imbalance of power and the reflexive counter-imbalance of power
among these cinematic nodes (and the respective countries/territories) being
crystallized into economic and co-production arrangements, film commission
networks and film marketplaces that help keep this film business network alive.
In the middle of these intertwining relationships, Hong Kong does not seem
to be performing outstandingly well, given the fact that the local film indus-
try has been suffering for two decades, but the most recent film-related public
policies have not helped relieve the problems. We should, however, not forget
that among the cinematic nodes in the region, Hong Kong’s biggest advantage
is that it is the host city of the most successful and the longest established film
business platform FILMART. This film market has continuously been facili-
tating local, regional and global film trades and investment opportunities. As
Yiu-Wai Chu (2013: 117) notes when commenting on the function of the Hong
Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), a related event of the FILMART
under the Entertainment Expo Hong Kong: ‘When Hong Kong no longer has
the power to produce new film stars and directors, it can at best be a financ-
ing center for Chinese cinema, wherein Mainland-Hong Kong co-productions
will have become Chinese films financed in Hong Kong’. Interestingly, the
origin of FILMART was not part of the public policies deliberately designed to
help the failing Hong Kong film industry. Moreover, FILMART’s organizer, the
HKTDC, operates outside the local governmental structure. As long as Hong
Kong can maintain this local advantage of hosting FILMART, the city’s flexibility
212 . New Hong Kong Cinema

and international outlook in film industry development, and as long as it avoids

the danger of over-relying on ‘China’ as the sole solution to the film industry’s
deep-seated problems, Hong Kong and its cinematic practice will remain one of
the sharpest frontiers of the newest East Asian film sphere when the local film
industry goes through its transitional restructuring.

Notes

 1. A close look at the workings of the latest East Asian film business network, where
most of the East Asian films are traded and circulated, is further justified from the per-
spective of the global film trade. I am grateful to Thomas Gerstenmeyer of Aldeburgh
Cinema and Chris Harris of Picturehouse Cinemas for sharing their profound knowl-
edge of film distribution and exhibition business, and film programming respectively.
During the discussion both of them shared with me their insights about why East
Asian films, even if they are blockbusters in their home base, are not usually selected
for general release in Europe. The taste of the local audiences, the presence/absence
of distributors of these East Asian films in Europe and general economic decisions are
some of the main influences on film distributors and exhibitors in determining what
East Asian films are selected for showing to the European audiences.
Founded in 1919, Aldeburgh Cinema is one of the longest running independent
cinemas in the United Kingdom. Gerstenmeyer has over thirty years of manage-
ment experience in international film exhibition business in continental Europe and
the United Kingdom. Picturehouse Cinemas is a network of art-house cinemas in
the United Kingdom that also provides programming services for its client cinemas
(known internally as virtual cinemas) throughout the country. Harris works in the
programming section, and deals with film distributors and exhibitors on a daily basis.
The discussion with Gerstenmeyer took place on 27 October 2013 and with Harris on
16 November 2013, both in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, in the United Kingdom.
 2. While Yau notes that the association’s name is ‘Southeast Asian Motion Pictures
Producers Association’, another researcher, Sangjoon Lee (2011), traces the name of
the association to a different source, as the ‘Federation of Motion Picture Producer’s
Association of Asia’. Here I adopt Yau’s version, which forms part of my citation of
her argument about the origins of the East Asian cinematic network.
 3. Personal interview with Li Cheuk-to, Artistic Director of the Hong Kong International
Film Festival (HKIFF), conducted by the author in Hong Kong on 7 July 2010 (within the
context of the ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ project at the University of St Andrews).
 4. The main sponsors of the Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF) and the Beijing
Film Market (BFM) are the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film
and Television (SAPPRFT) and the government of Beijing Municipality of the
PRC. The Film Bureau of the SAPPRFT and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Press,
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 213

Publication, Radio, Film and Television (Beijing Municipal Bureau of Copyright)

undertake the festival and the film market. Source: ‘About BJIFF’, the BJIFF’s official
website (English), www.bjiff.com (accessed 5 May 2015).
 5. The Chinese authorities consolidated the China Film Corporation in 1971 by com-
bining China Film Distribution and Exhibition Corporation (formerly, China Film
Management Corporation), China Film Archive and China Film Equipment (Yeh and
Davis 2008: 39).
 6. On the SAPPRFT’s official website (simplified Chinese), www.sarft.gov.cn, China
Film Group Corporation (CFGC) is placed under the category ‘Units under Direct
Supervision [of the SAPPRFT]’ (accessed 5 May 2015).
 7. Sino-foreign co-production is one of the possible ways for foreign film companies
to bypass the strict quota on foreign films imported into China annually. It is thus
important to understand that CFGC acts as the single most important gatekeeper
of the mainland Chinese film industry, ensuring its development and flourishing. The
actual work (approval, censorship, filmmaking and so on) involved in Sino-foreign
co-productions is the responsibility of CFGC’s subsidiary, China Film Co-Production
Corporation, established in 1979.
 8. See also the SAPPRFT’s official website (simplified Chinese), www.sarft.gov.cn
(accessed 5 May 2015).
 9. CFGC was involved in the production and/or distribution of most of the expensively
produced Chinese-language blockbusters released in the first decade of the new
millennium (see Table A.1 in the Appendix).
10. The other two mainland Chinese municipalities are Chongqing and Tianjin.
11. The first film introduced to Qing China was referred to as ‘shadow plays from the
West’ and was screened on 11 August 1896 at the teahouse Another Village in the Xu
Garden in Shanghai. Xu Garden was privately built by silk merchant Xu Hongkui in
1883, and was used as an entertainment venue. For a fee of thirty cents, visitors could
take a tour of the garden, see film projections and enjoy other entertainments, such
as a magic show, fireworks and riddle competitions (Yao 2013).
12. The founder of the first film production studio in China was an American merchant
who hired local Chinese to work for the company.
13. The first Chinese (partial) talkie The Singing Girl Red Peony (directed by Zhang
Shichuan) was made in Shanghai by Mingxing company in 1929 with Pathé record-
ing (Zhang Z. 2005: xxiv).
14. The founding companies of United Film Exchange included Mingxing, Shanghai
Yingxi, Da Zhonghua-Baihe and Shenzhou. They were later joined by Minxin, Huaju
and Youlian.
15. Different genres, such as detective stories, martial arts, fantasy, feminist, progressive
and patriotic, etc., were developed in the early Chinese films in the 1920s and 1930s
(S. Chung 2011; Sugawara 2011).
16. SFG consists of the former Shanghai Film Studio, Shanghai Animation Film Studio,
Shanghai Dubbing Studio, Shanghai Documentary Film Studio, Shanghai Film
214 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Technology Plant, Shanghai United Cinemas, East Film Distribution Company,

Shanghai East Movie Channel, Shanghai Film Park, Shanghai Art Designing, and
Crowne Plaza Hotel Shanghai. Source: ‘About SFG’, SFG’s official website (English),
www.sfs-cn.com (accessed 5 May 2015).
17. It was reported that by 2003, Shanghai had enjoyed 18 per cent of China’s box-office
returns (Goodridge 2003). In 2005, SFG already owned seventy-eight theatres with
241 screens (Noh 2006). SFG’s exhibition networks include domestically owned and
joint-venture cinemas (co-run by SFG’s exhibition arm and major exhibitors from
other countries, such as CJ CGV (South Korea) and Warner Bros. International
Cinemas (United States)).
18. A mainland Chinese news report in 2001 suggested that, although the SARFT (now
SAPPRFT) and the Shanghai Municipal government were the hosts of the Shanghai
International Film Festival (SIFF), and the Shanghai Municipal Administration of
Culture, Radio, Film & TV as the co-organizer, the actual planning, fund raising and
implementation of the SIFF was carried out by a small-sized advertising company
under the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film & TV. The fes-
tival’s daily operations were handled by SMEG Special Events Office (SSEO) under
Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group (SMEG) before SMEG became part of the
newly restructured Shanghai Media Group (SMG). The SIFF changed in 2004 from a
biennial to an annual event held in June (Liu Y. and Tan Q. 2001; Davis and Yeh 2008:
143–45). See also ‘About SMG’, the Shanghai Media Group (SMG)’s official website
(simplified Chinese), www.smg.cn (accessed 5 May 2015).
19. The year 2007 marked the birth of the SIFF Market (Noh 2013a). This film market
not only serves the role of improving the chances of the SIFF’s long-term self-suste-
nance (Shackleton 2008; R. Cheung 2011a: 50–51), but it also paves the way for this
film market to carve out a space for international filmmakers, especially less expe-
rienced ones, to engage in real business. In 2012, the SIFF Market came to comprise
the International Film Trade Market and Film Project Market, the latter consisting
of the China Film Pitch and Catch (renamed in 2014 as New Talent Project), and
Co-production Film Pitch and Catch. This move has allowed the SIFF as a whole
to revise its identity into a more established and energetic festival that discovers
new talent and independent films while facing fierce competition from the Beijing
International Film Festival (BJIFF) established in April 2011 (Young Chinese Directors
2011; S-l. Yu 2011a, 2011b). See also ‘About SIFF’ and ‘SIFFMART’, the SIFF’s official
website (both English and simplified Chinese), www.siff.com (accessed 5 May 2015).
20. Source: ‘About Us’, the Japan Association for International Promotion of the Moving
Image (UNIJAPAN)’s official website (English), unijapan.org (accessed 5 May 2015).
21. In terms of its position in the newest East Asian film business network, Tokyo, as
representing Japan, does not show the extent of persistent proactivity and aggres-
siveness that Beijing, Shanghai or Busan have demonstrated through their film-
related infrastructural arrangements. On the contrary, over the past one and half
decades Tokyo has shown a continuously strong self-containment in hosting major
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 215

film industry events (e.g., re-concentrating the TIFF’s focus on supporting local films
after years of emphasizing a green environment) (Noh 2013b). The fact that these
important events are scheduled in the middle of a busy autumn calendar of siz-
able international film festivals does not help Tokyo to hone its absolute uniqueness,
except for a large concentration of Japanese film content business taking place at
these events (Frater and Blair 2009). A further development in the 2012 and 2013
editions of the TIFF was that the TIFFCOM had been moved to a larger venue in
the Odaiba area, far away from the main venue of the TIFF in Roppongi Hills (Noh
2012b). With a larger venue, chosen with the good intention of offering a combina-
tion of different creative industry products to potential buyers all under one roof,
the TIFFCOM is no longer for film business only. Since 2012, the TIFFCOM has
been held together with the Creative Market Tokyo, the Tokyo International Anime
Festival (TIAF) and the Tokyo International Music Market (TIMM), all in one single
location (TIFFCOM 2013: 2). This move inevitably defeats the purpose of facilitat-
ing the convenience of hosting the film festival and the film market side by side for
the participants, and dilutes the sharp focus that used to be put on the film market-
place. With regard to all this, Tokyo seems easily overshadowed by Beijing or Busan in
the minds of film executives, who are looking for transactions involving a wide array
of Asian film contents instead of solely Japanese film contents at the TIFFCOM
(Shackleton 2009a; Noh 2010; J. Gray 2012).
22. For example, in November 2001, the Fundamental Law for the Promotion of
Culture and the Arts was formulated as ‘the basic law for promoting culture and the
arts’ (Policy of Cultural Affairs in Japan 2014: 2). In 2002, the Committee on Film
Promotion (made up mostly of film practitioners) was formed to investigate film-
related measures, which resulted in the ¥2.5 billion Plan for Promoting Japanese Film
and Image Media (i.e., worth about £14.6 million or U.S.$24 million), formulated in
2004 (Gerow 2006). Several other nationwide film-related public plans and poli-
cies were passed, including: the Basic Policy on the Promotion of Culture and the
Arts (with the First Basic Policy approved by the cabinet in December 2002, the
Second Basic Policy approved in February 2007 and the Third Basic Policy approved
in February 2011) (Policy of Cultural Affairs in Japan 2014: 2); in 2003, the Plan for
the Creation, Protection and Exploitation of Intellectual Property; and in 2004, the
Content Promotion Law (Gerow 2006).
23. Sources: ‘About AFCNet’, the Japan Film Commission Promotion Council’s offi-
cial website (English), www.japanfc.org/film-com090329/en/about.html#08, and
‘Successful Launching of AFCNet’ (published on 12 October 2004) under ‘News’,
the Asian Film Commissions Network (AFCNet)’s official website, www.afcnet.org
(accessed 5 May 2015).
24. The Association for the Diffusion of Japanese Film Abroad was established in 1957
under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry.
216 . New Hong Kong Cinema

25. South Korea’s biggest film conglomerates, such as CJ E&M Film Division (formerly
CJ Entertainment), Lotte Entertainment and Showbox Mediaplex, set up their head-
quarters in Seoul. Major American studios, like Twentieth Century Fox, also open
distribution offices there.
26. The Asian Film Market (AFM) is an adjunct event to the Busan International Film
Festival (BIFF). It was launched in 2006 and had two component parts, the Pusan
Promotion Plan (PPP) and the Busan International Film Commission & Industry
Showcase (BIFCOM) before 2011. Since the 2011 edition of the film festival, the
PPP has been renamed as the Asian Project Market (APM) and listed directly
under the umbrella event of the BIFF, instead of being a component of the AFM (R.
Cheung 2011a: 48–50; see also the BIFF’s official website (English), www.biff.kr, and
‘Overview’, the APM’s official website (English), apm.asianfilmmarket.org (accessed
5 May 2015)).
27. The BIFF is now held annually in early October. Its name changed from the previous
Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) to the current one in February 2011, in order
to align with the new version of the city name Busan, as a result of the revised Korean
Romanization system adopted in 2000 (Ahn 2012: 165).
28. There are altogether ten such ‘innovation cities’ in South Korea, chosen to relieve the
capital area Seoul of its excessive concentration of human resources and industry
(Moon et al. 2013: 64).
29. Source: ‘About KOFIC’, Korean Film Biz Zone’s official website (English),
www.koreanfilm.or.kr (accessed 5 May 2015).
30. The current KOFIC comprises the former Korean Motion Picture Promotion
Corporation (established in 1973), the Korean Academy of Film Arts (established in
1984) and Seoul (Namyangju) Studio complex (established in 1997) (Kim H-j. Circa
2006: 355; Davis and Yeh 2008: 21).
31. The KOFIC has published guidelines and industry updates (in English) for domestic
and international film practitioners on a regular basis. The online English version of
book-length publications such as the Korean Cinema series and Korean Cinema: From
Origins to Renaissance introduces important aspects of South Korean Cinema to the
world. The KOFIC’s English-language online database, Korean Film Business Zone
(KoBiz), www.koreanfilm.or.kr, was launched in April 2011.
32. There is only a film investment platform, the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion
(established in 2007), affiliated to the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. Source: the
Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival’s official website (English), www.goldenhorse.org.
tw (accessed 5 May 2015).
33. Central Motion Picture Company (CMPC) became privately run in 2003 and was
renamed as Central Pictures Corporation (CPC) in 2009. Source: ‘About Us’, CPC’s
official website (traditional Chinese), www.movie.com.tw (accessed 5 May 2015).
34. In 1964, Taipei for the first time hosted the oldest film festival in East Asia, the Asian
Film Festival (renamed from the Southeast Asian Film Festival in 1957; changing the
name again to the Asia-Pacific Film Festival in 1982) (S. Lee 2011: 243). This film
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 217

festival has been run mainly by privately owned film studios in the region (R. Cheung
2011c: 203–4). In the inaugural edition of the festival, Taiwan won the Best Picture
Award for Oyster Girl (Li Hsing and Li Chia, Taiwan, 1963).
35. Locally produced Taiwan films accounted for only 10 per cent of the domestic market
share, whereas Hollywood films held more than 90 per cent of the share (after the
attraction of Hong Kong films faded among the Taiwan audience); this was before
some Taiwan local productions, such as romance drama Cape No. 7 (Wei Te-sheng,
Taiwan, 2009) and the semi-autobiographical youth romance film You are the Apple
of My Eye (Giddens Ko, Taiwan, 2011) were box-office sensations (Taiwan’s Summer
Box Office Booming 2011).
36. The GIO announced in 2003 the plan to improve its funding policy to help both the
mainstream film industry and art-house productions. A Domestic Film Guidance
Fund was established to encourage co-productions between Taiwan and foreign col-
laborators (Shackleton 2003). A tax break of up to 20 per cent of the total budget of
a film was introduced in 2005 to attract international filmmakers to shoot parts of
their films in Taiwan (Shackleton 2005b). In 2006, a more comprehensive film devel-
opment action plan was announced, which committed the government to putting
in more money to support local film productions (Gao 2009: 432). In 2009, the GIO
announced the Cultural Creative Development Policy, aimed at providing financial
help to various creative industries, including filmmaking. This new support for local
film production was expected to last for five years (Shackleton 2009c). In 2010, the
Taiwan government announced an increase of subsidy for foreign filmmaking troops
shooting films in Taiwan. This will indirectly increase their allowances for hiring
Taiwanese film labourers (Taiwan to Increase Subsidy on Foreign Shoots 2010).
37. The GIO was dissolved in May 2012 as part of the government’s restructuring ensu-
ing from the democratization of Taiwan. The GIO’s functions related to policies and
matters of film and publications were transferred to the Ministry of Culture (Jennings
2012; L. Chung 2013).
38. Since April 2012, the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) has
become part of the Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA). The TELA’s
previous functions are now shared by the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article
Administration (OFNAA) under the OFCA and the Home Affairs Department
(HAD). While the OFNAA handles film classification and obscenity control, the
HAD is responsible for issuing entertainment licences. Source: the TELA’s official
website (English), www.tela.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
39. Personal interview with Li Cheuk-to, Artistic Director of the Hong Kong International
Film Festival (HKIFF), conducted by the author in Hong Kong on 7 July 2010 (within
the context of the ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ project at the University of St
Andrews).
40. According to Gao (2009: 431), ‘The loan guarantee requires a qualified Hong Kong
film production company to have equity of at least 30% of the film budget, and it
guarantees 50% of the loan or a maximum of 35% of the film budget or $2.625 million
218 . New Hong Kong Cinema

[£210,000 or U.S.$339,000], whichever is less’. See also ‘Film Development Fund’

and ‘Film Guarantee Fund’, the Hong Kong Film Development Council (HKFDC)’s
official website (English), www.fdc.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
41. Source: ‘Film Services’, the Create Hong Kong (CreateHK)’s official website (English),
www.createhk.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
42. Source: ‘About Us’, the Film Services Office (FSO)’s official website (English), www.
fso-createhk.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
43. The Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART) was launched in 1997
by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) and was initially held
annually, in the month of June. Since March 2005, with the launch of the umbrella
banner, the Entertainment Expo Hong Kong, FILMART has become a concurrent
partner event of the HKIFF and six other formerly independent film and entertain-
ment events. FILMART is not directly related to the structure and organization of
the HKIFF, for they have different organizers. While FILMART’s main organizer has
always been the HKTDC, the HKIFF has gone through governmental direct super-
vision to currently being operated by a charitable, non-profit, non-governmental
organization, the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFFS). The two
events have forged close working relationships over the years in areas such as pro-
gramming (the HKIFF helps FILMART to programme its industry screening section
on a payment basis) and venue sharing (FILMART shares the same venue with the
Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF). The HAF and the HKIFF have the
same organizer, i.e., the HKIFFS) (R. Cheung 2011a: 47–48, 2011c: 201–3).
44. Personal interview with Li Cheuk-to, Artistic Director of the Hong Kong International
Film Festival (HKIFF), conducted by the author in Hong Kong on 7 July 2010
(within the context of the ‘Dynamics of World Cinema’ project at the University
of St Andrews). See also ‘HKTDC Hong Kong International Film & TV Market
(FILMART)’, www.hktdc.com/fair/hkfilmart-en/Hong-Kong-International-Film--
-TV-Market--FILMART-.html, and ‘About HKTDC’, the HKTDC’s official website
(English), www.hktdc.com (accessed 5 May 2015).
45. Sources: the HKFDC’s official website (English), www.fdc.gov.hk, and the FSO’s offi-
cial website (English), www.fso-createhk.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
46. Source: ‘About Us’, the CreateHK’s official website (English), www.createhk.gov.hk
(accessed 5 May 2015).
47. Source: ‘CEPA’, the Trade and Industry Department of the Hong Kong SAR govern-
ment’s official website (English), www.tid.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
48. During the Tung Chee-hwa’s administration (1997–2005), the artistic sector of Hong
Kong was to include only fine arts, gallery-bound visual arts and performing arts (1997
policy address). The cultural sector was vaguely identified, referring to the ‘Chinese
history and culture’ (1997 policy address) and the ‘protection of historic buildings
and archaeological sites’ (1998 policy address). Since Donald Tsang’s administra-
tion (2005–12), the cultural sector has also included gallery and performing arts
(2006–07, 2008–09, 2009–10 policy addresses). Source: ‘Archives’, the Hong Kong
 Film Policies and Transitional Politics . 219

SAR government chief executive’s annual policy address official website (English),
www.policyaddress.gov.hk (accessed 5 May 2015).
49. Source: ‘Membership List of the Film Development Council (1 April 2015 – 31 March
2017)’, the HKFDC’s official website (English), www.fdc.gov.hk (accessed 5 May
2015).
50. Cheuk Pak Tong is a professor at the Academy of Film at the Hong Kong Baptist
University.
51. Source: ‘The Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement
Further Liberalization Measures in 2013’, the Trade and Industry Department of the
Hong Kong SAR government’s official website (English), www.tid.gov.hk (accessed 5
May 2015).
52. The KOFIC opened a branch office, the Korean Business Center, in Beijing in April
2013 to facilitate joint ventures between the Chinese and the South Korean film
industries (Lee H. 2013).
53. In February 2000, Japan established the Japan Film Commission Promotion Council
(JFCPC) to offer location shooting support to international filmmakers through its
local non-profit public film commissions. In April 2001, Tokyo Location Box was set
up to be responsible for location shooting support in Tokyo. In April 2009, Japan Film
Commission, with its main office based in Tokyo, was set up under several govern-
mental ministries and agencies of the federal government to take over the previous
tasks of the JFCPC. It united all the film commissions established in the previous
eight years throughout Japan (J. Gray 2008; see also ‘What is the Tokyo Location
Box?’ the Tokyo Location Box’s official website (English), www.locationbox.metro.
tokyo.jp (accessed 5 May 2015)).
54. Source: the AFCNet’s official website, www.afcnet.org (accessed 5 May 2015).
55. The AFCNet has fifty regular members: one from the United Arab Emirates, one
from Australia, two from Cambodia, two from China, two from Indonesia, seven-
teen from Japan, one from Jordan, two from Malaysia, one from Myanmar, one from
Nepal, three from New Zealand, one from the Philippines, one from Russia, one from
Singapore, ten from South Korea, one from Taiwan, one from Thailand, one from
the United States, and one from Vietnam. These members include both local and
national film commissions. Source: the AFCNet’s official website, www.afcnet.org
(accessed 5 May 2015).
56. There is no information on the AFCNet’s official website showing how long the term
is of the current president, vice-presidents and directors of the board. Source: the
AFCNet’s official website, www.afcnet.org (accessed 5 May 2015).
57. For more information on the SIFF Market, see note 19; for more information on the
TIFFCOM, see note 21.
Conclusion

It was in the autumn of 2003, in my native Hong Kong, that I started serious aca-
demic research on contemporary Hong Kong Cinema; however, as I indicated
in the Introduction to this monograph, I had been familiar with these films for
most of my life. Now, in 2015, in my current home in the United Kingdom, I am
completing the manuscript of this book. Looking back at these years of research
on Hong Kong films that are so close to me (while it has always been a per-
sonal pleasure for me to watch these films, I can honestly say not all of them are
objectively pleasing to watch), what strikes me most are not the films’ aesthetic
value or technical sophistication, but the fast pace of adaptation that the New
Hong Kong Cinema displays towards changes in the larger environment, and
the closeness of these films to the life of Hong Kong citizens. The latter point
does not mean that all contemporary Hong Kong films fall under the category of
realism. Far from that, many Hong Kong feature films made over the past thirty-
plus years are human dramas that might or might not be true to life. The kind
of closeness to life that the New Hong Kong Cinema perpetuates is more of an
emotional kind. Moreover, the emotions involved in these films are connected
to how people (filmmakers, target audiences, crews and casts, characters and so
on) find themselves at home while not really being at home, and how they live at
a historical crossroads – the effects of which are still unfolding before our eyes.
Studying the New Hong Kong Cinema as an exemplification of the Cinema of
Transitions in a continuously changing East Asian region seems in itself to be a
truism but we cannot afford to miss this perspective. I have employed the theo-
retical framework of accented cinema proposed by diaspora and film scholar
Hamid Naficy (2001) in order to understand how ‘transitions’ are incorporated
in Hong Kong filmmakers’ specific ways of working. Their approaches to film-
making, intentional or not, reflect individual concerns about transformations
that have happened in the larger social, political, economic, cultural and film
industry environments over the past several decades. Transitions are arguably
what the New Hong Kong Cinema is made of. Yet, I should note that transitions
are not exclusively the experience of Hong Kong citizens and filmmakers, nor
did they happen to Hong Kong in a sudden and tragic fashion. On the contrary,
the kind of terrible events we learn about from the international news every
day (wars, tsunamis, earthquakes, bomb attacks, etc.) have never befallen Hong
 Conclusion . 221

Kong in all the thirty years since the news of the political Handover was first
announced. By international standards, Hong Kong is still a metropolitan, and its
sociopolitical conditions are more stable than in many comparable cities in the
world. But the fears, anxieties and grievances, intermingled with a certain degree
of excitement regarding all sorts of transitions revolving around and extending
from the political Handover (transitions that are beyond the personal control
of individuals), have been there among the ordinary people of the city and have
been expressed in various cultural forms. As an agent and a reflecting lens of this
society, the New Hong Kong Cinema provides a cathartic experience to people
in front of and behind the screen, whether the films are human dramas, realis-
tic depictions, animations, or documentaries, and whether they are comedies,
tragedies or a mixture of both.
In writing this text, I have set out with several overarching questions (see
Introduction) to guide my thinking. To answer these questions, I have discussed
how Hong Kong filmmakers make use of ‘journeys’ and ‘journeying’ as common
threads in feature films of different genres and natures. Journeys and journeying
can be found in the subject matter of the films, in the routes by which the char-
acters are developed, and in the narrative structure. Regardless of how journeys
and journeying are employed in Hong Kong-related Chinese-language films,
there is always a sense of rootlessness and helplessness just when people in and
outside the films are facing the effects of the Handover and its related, ongoing
transitions. I have also discussed how Hong Kong filmmakers feature foreigner
and outsider characters in film to stand in for the Hongkongers, who in the 1980s
and 1990s suddenly found themselves on the road to becoming ‘Chinese’ by
nationality with or without their consent (Ang 2001: 36, 51). Some of these non-
Hongkonger characters and their stories (e.g., Vietnamese refugees and illegal
Chinese immigrants) were chosen during the time when they were heated topics
in Hong Kong’s sociopolitical domain. What these characters have in common,
and what is of absolute importance for the Hong Kong Chinese audience to
be able to identify with them and for other viewing publics to be able to rec-
ognize these films as Hong Kong films, is the fluent colloquial Cantonese they
speak. Even more noticeable is their specific style of speaking the language that
is exclusively used by the Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. The linguistic marker,
then, immediately becomes the means for these Hong Kong-related Chinese-
language films to intervene in the complexities of what it might possibly mean to
become, and be, ‘Chinese’ once again. But the most direct device of all is when
222 . New Hong Kong Cinema

Hong Kong filmmakers display their authorial vision by inscribing themselves in

their films. I have examined how these filmmakers portray social underdogs in
film to achieve such a goal, and thereby construct a space for revisiting certain
collective memories shared among the locals in Hong Kong.
The exploration of how much, and how far, individual Hong Kong filmmakers
display the consequences of sociopolitical changes in film has been balanced
in this study by a consideration of the spectatorial responses of their ethnic
Chinese audiences in East and South East Asia. Film audience reception involves
complexities that are often neglected in the original filmmaking intentions. This
is especially the case when film audiences in the Web 2.0 era are gradually
taking over some of the traditional tasks of filmmakers and film marketers to
reinterpret and spread around their views on the films via online platforms. The
virtual Sinophone space that Sinitic-speaking/writing audiences have created
for themselves adds yet another dimension to the intricacies of the transitions
embodied in the New Hong Kong Cinema.
All these considerations and discourses regarding the state of transitions and
interstitiality of the New Hong Kong Cinema would have been piecemeal and
narrowly focused if we had only concentrated on Hong Kong itself without taking
into account the conditions of the other parts of East Asia, especially in the post-
Asian Financial Crisis era. I have thus inquired at another level into how Hong
Kong’s filmmaking and related film business environment have been experienc-
ing structural transitions. Situating the New Hong Kong Cinema in East Asia has
allowed me to interrogate how this cinematic practice fares astride and within
the interstices among other East Asian cinematic systems. Hong Kong as a media
capital maintains its distinct position in the region, while all the other cinematic
nodes of the newest East Asian film business network are also trying to stay at,
or return to, the peak levels of their competitiveness.1 Yet, the distinctiveness of
the New Hong Kong Cinema is honed not by the local government’s film-related
policies formulated recently, but by the persistent efforts of Hong Kong film pro-
fessionals built up over the years. This quality is becoming most visible, and most
paradoxical, when Hong Kong’s film sector and the local identities it represents
are moving towards a predominantly China-powered era, amid a realignment of
power relations within the East Asian region. The regional restructuring in terms
of hard and soft power, nonetheless, often hinges on other kinds of arrays and dis-
arrays between East Asia and other regions. While researching the East Asian film
business sphere, I noticed that there were new announcements being released
 Conclusion . 223

in the film trade press about an increasing number of confirmed collaborations

between East Asian and Euro-American film industry players. For the purpose of
this book, I have deliberately limited my discussion of European and Hollywood
influences in order to concentrate on what has been going on in East Asia. These
interregional exchanges deserve close analyses, possibly using other paradigms
that are beyond the scope of this book.
Under the China-led East Asian cinematic rearrangements, it is hard for me
to say how long Hong Kong Cinema will continue to be called by that name,
and I do not intend to speculate on the fate of the New Hong Kong Cinema
in an unforeseeable future. It would be too pessimistic and unrealistic to do
so. Instead, in this concluding note in my exploration of the New Hong Kong
Cinema, let me recall what cultural theorist Ackbar Abbas advocated for the
proposition of ‘postculture’ to understand Hong Kong’s culture on the eve of its
sovereignty shift. According to Abbas, ‘postculture … is a culture that has devel-
oped in a situation where the available models of culture no longer work. In such
a situation, culture cannot wait or follow social change in order to represent it;
it must anticipate the paradoxes of hyphenation’ (Abbas 1997: 145; emphasis
in original), where the political mutant of ‘hyphenation’ embraces ‘autonomy’
and ‘dependence’ at the same time (Abbas 1997: 142). Anticipation here does
not mean speculation; it signals a condition under which one is fully prepared
for something unknown to come. In a similar vein, while the New Hong Kong
Cinema can be read as a prime example of the Cinema of Transitions, which
is haunted by human anxiety, uncertainties, fears, excitements, attachments,
detachments, and so on, it is this alertness to changes that makes the New Hong
Kong Cinema refuse to succumb easily to the negative effects of transitions.
Based on the archetype of the New Hong Kong Cinema, I hope that the Cinema
of Transitions model can provide a meaningful orientation for understanding
other cinematic traditions and practices as well – cinemas that involve instabili-
ties, possibilities and potentialities at given times of change in their correspond-
ing social/cultural/political/economic/historical circumstances.

Note

1. Except for China, which overall has maintained a steady growth in its film industry
since the start of the new millennium, other major filmmaking countries and ter-
ritories in East Asia suffered noticeable ups and downs in the 2000s. The Japanese
224 . New Hong Kong Cinema

film industry recorded a historical low in the box-office earnings of its domestic
films in 2002 (Gerow 2006). The South Korean film industry enjoyed a boom period
between 1996 and 2006 before the bubble burst in around 2007. After that, volatility
was noted in the South Korean film industry (Paquet 2009a: 28–29, 2010: 30–31). The
performance of domestic Hong Kong and Taiwan films in their respective local box
offices has been far from satisfactory (see Chapter Five for details). The mainland
Chinese film industry is, however, not completely immune to negative factors. Piracy
and strict government censorship are two major problems that have brought down
its post-WTO growth (S. Wang 2003; L. Pang 2006a).
Appendix

Table A.1
Chinese-Language Blockbusters: Top Ten (2000–10) in Terms of Budget

Rank Title Release year Budget Budget

(£ million) (U.S.$ million)
 1 Red Cliff* 2008 and 2009 49 80
 2 Curse of the Golden Flower 2006 27 45
 3 The Promise* 2005 26 42
 4 The Warlords* 2008 24 40
 5 Hero* 2002 19 31
 6 Aftershock* 2010 15 25
 - Three Kingdoms: 2008 15 25
Resurrection of the Dragon*
 7 Bodyguards and Assassins 2009 14 23
 8 CJ7* 2008 12 20
 - Kung Fu Hustle* 2004 12 20
 9 Battle of Wits 2006 10 16
10 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon* 2000 9 15
 - Forever Enthralled* 2008 9 15
 - The Banquet 2006 9 15
 - The Myth* 2005 9 15
 - The Shinjuku Incident 2008 9 15

Notes

1. China Film Group Corporation (CFGC) was involved in the production and/or distri-
bution of those films shown above with an asterisk.
2. Film information:
Red Cliff (John Woo, China/Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/United States,
Part I in 2008 and Part II in 2009); Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou, China/
Hong Kong, 2006); The Promise (Chen Kaige, China/South Korea/United States,
2005); The Warlords (Peter Chan, China/Hong Kong, 2007); Hero (Zhang Yimou,
China/Hong Kong, 2002); Aftershock (Feng Xiaogang, China, 2010); Three Kingdoms:
Resurrection of the Dragon (Daniel Lee, China/Hong Kong/South Korea, 2008);
Bodyguards and Assassins (Teddy Chan, China/Hong Kong, 2009); CJ7 (Stephen
Chow, China/Hong Kong, 2008); Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow, China/Hong Kong,
2004); Battle of Wits (Jacob Cheung, China/Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea, 2006);
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, China/Hong Kong/Taiwan/United States,
2000); Forever Enthralled (Chen Kaige, China/Hong Kong, 2008); The Banquet (Feng
226 . Appendix

Xiaogang, China, 2006); The Myth (Stanley Tong, China/Hong Kong, 2005); The
Shinjuku Incident (Derek Yee, Hong Kong, 2009).
Source: budget figures mainly come from IMDb, www.imdb.com (accessed 5 May 2015) (see
also Can Pricy Movie 2006).

Table A.2

Summary of Online Surveys of Interactive Websites Dedicated to Red Cliff (up until 24 August 2009)

Interactive platform on Red Cliff’s official site (China) (chibi.sina.com.cn)

Total number of blog messages (written in simplified Chinese): 114
(hosted by sina.com.cn and linked to Red Cliff’s China site)
• Number of positive comments: 73
• Number of negative comments: 41

Bebo/Friendster/MySpace
There were no messages about Red Cliff
Facebook
Total number of fan pages and member groups: 13
Total number of fans/members registered with these pages: 3,738
[Note: duplicate membership of the same fans/members is possible if they use different
names to open more than one account on Facebook]
Total number of posts about Red Cliff: 239
• Number of messages in English and other languages: 233
• Number of messages in Chinese: 6
• Number of bilingual (English and Chinese) messages: 0
Information of creators/administrators:
• 1 based in LA, 1 based in Missouri, 2 based in Singapore, 9 with unknown locations
• All of these identified creators/administrators had Chinese surnames in their screen
names
Twitter (15–24 August 2009)
Total number of tweets about Red Cliff: 153
• Number of tweets about Red Cliff (in English and other languages): 125
• Number of tweets about Red Cliff (in simplified/traditional Chinese): 28
 Appendix . 227

Notes

1. This table was published as part of my piece ‘Red Cliff: The Chinese-language Epic
and Diasporic Chinese Spectators’ (R. Cheung 2011b). It is reprinted here in a modi-
fied format for readers’ easy reference. All statistics remain unchanged in this modi-
fied version.
2. No specific forum dedicated to Red Cliff was found online.

Table A.3
Summary of Online Survey of Interactive Websites Dedicated to Kaneshiro Takeshi (up until 24
August 2009)

Bebo
• Total number of Bebo pages dedicated to Kaneshiro: 1 (in English)
• Total number of fans registered with that page: 24
• Total number of posts related to Red Cliff found on that page: 0
Facebook
Total number of fan pages and member groups: 14
Total number of fans/members registered with these pages: 52,810
[Note: duplicate membership of the same fans/members is possible if they use different
names to open more than one account on Facebook]
Total number of posts: 1,253
Total number of posts related to Red Cliff: 42
• Number of messages in English and other languages: 40
• Number of messages in Chinese: 2
• Number of bilingual (English and Chinese) messages: 1

Information of creators/administrators:
• 1 based in Australia, 1 based in France, 4 based in Hong Kong, 1 based in Massachusetts,
1 based in the United Kingdom, 6 with unknown locations
Friendster
There were no messages about Kaneshiro’s role in Red Cliff
MySpace
• Total number of pages dedicated to Kaneshiro: 10 (all in English)
• Total number of pages using Kaneshiro’s name but not dedicated to him: 13
228 . Appendix

Twitter (15–24 August 2009)

Total number of tweets about Kaneshiro’s role in Red Cliff: 4
• Number of tweets about Kaneshiro’s role in Red Cliff (in English and other languages): 4
• Number of tweets about Kaneshiro’s role in Red Cliff (in simplified/traditional
Chinese): 0
Individual fansites
9 individual fansites were found, with highlights as follows:
1) city.udn.com/1124
• Chinese-language site
• Taiwan-based forum but not interactive; information on the administrator not
available
• Functioned as a Kaneshiro news portal

2) s7.invisionfree.com/SimplyTK
• English-language site with forum
• Hosted by a company in Virginia, the United States
• Administrator with Japanese background
3) tkaneshiro.net/site
• Chinese-language site
• Administrator (Maggie) with Chinese background, based in LA
• Forum inoperative
4) www.asianhunk.net/takeshi-kaneshiro
[Note: this website was found defunct in my 2013 survey]
• English-language site
• Information on the administrator not available
• Not updated since 22 March 2008; comments on Kaneshiro’s role in Red Cliff not avail-
able
5) www.fulong.jp/kaneshiro/takeshi.html
[Note: this website was found defunct in my 2013 survey]
• Japanese-language site
• Official site hosted by Kaneshiro’s agent company in Japan; without forum
6) www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/7258
[Note: this website was found defunct in my 2013 survey]
• English-language site
• Information on the administrator not available
• No forum
 Appendix . 229

7) www.takeshikaneshiro.net
• Chinese-language site
• Administrator (Derrick Tao) with Chinese background, based in Hong Kong
• One of the most systematically organized fansites dedicated to Kaneshiro, consisting
of an interactive forum that carries comprehensive thread messages written by fans
(claimed to be based in different East/South East Asian territories)
8) www.takeshikaneshiro.org
• English-language site
• Information on the administrator not available
• Forum not utilized by the registered users (less than 50 registered users)
• Forum posts related to Red Cliff were written by the administrator only (all with nil
reply)
‘Red Cliff Movie Review’ (posted 17 July 2008) views: 1,523
‘Red Cliff Movie New China Box-office Record’ (posted 12 August
2008) views: 1,570
‘Red Cliff Opens in Japan’ (posted 25 October 2008) views: 1,655
‘Red Cliff 2 to be Released on January 7th’(posted 30 December
2008) views: 1,655
‘Red Cliff 2 Review’ (posted 16 January 2009) views: 1,022
9) www.takeshikaneshirocn.com
[Note: this website was found defunct in my 2013 survey]
• Chinese-language site based in mainland China
• Information on the administrator not available
• 19 news topics about Red Cliff (with a few replies) found on the forum

Note

This table was published as part of my piece ‘Red Cliff: The Chinese-language Epic and
Diasporic Chinese Spectators’ (R. Cheung 2011b). It is reprinted here in a modified format
for readers’ easy reference. All statistics remain unchanged in this modified version.
230 . Appendix

Table A.4
Summary of Follow-up Online Survey Related to Red Cliff (Conducted in 2013)

Sina Weibo
Total number of available posts about Red Cliff listed by Sina Weibo’s search
engine: 866,987
• All available posts listed had publication dates between 20 February 2013 and 24
August 2013
• No posts were archived before 20 February 2013
• All posts found were written in simplified Chinese characters within the word limit of
140 characters per post
• Sina Weibo had registration instructions page written in English, and simplified and
traditional Chinese; internal web pages showed choices of simplified and traditional
Chinese language interfaces only
• Most posts found were concerned with the stars on Red Cliff’s cast; others were about
the film’s topic of history and the lines in the film
• Many posts found were shared or forwarded posts
Tencent Weibo
Total number of available posts about Red Cliff listed by Tencent Weibo’s search
engine: 1,500
• All available posts listed had publication dates between 31 March 2010 and 2 August
2013
• Only 5 posts related to Red Cliff were posted during the surveyed period of 1 January
to 24 August 2013
• All posts found were short and written in simplified Chinese characters (no word limit
was clearly specified on the site)
• Tencent Weibo had registration instructions page written in traditional Chinese
only, while its internal web pages showed the choices of English, and simplified and
traditional Chinese language interfaces
• Most posts found were concerned with the stars on Red Cliff’s cast; others were about
the film’s topic of history and the lines in the film
 Appendix . 231

Table A.5
Number of Sellers/Buyers/Visitors at Major East Asian Film Markets (2004–13): A Comparison

Year AFM BFM FILMART SIFF Market TIFFCOM

No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of No. of
sellers buyers/ sellers buyers/ sellers buyers/ sellers buyers/ sellers buyers/
visitors visitors visitors visitors visitors

2004
- - - - 306 2,023
- - No info
No info
2005
- - - - 352 2,832
- - 131 2,295
visitors
2006
562 3,500
- - 407 3,706
- - 163 2,923
visitors
2007 460 3,600 - - 453 4,094 No info No info 172 3,505
visitors
2008 508 4,640 - - 483 4,196 No info No info 201 4,006
visitors
2009
45* 780 - - 505 4,503
100 500 212 4,037
sales visitors
booths
(BIFCOM
excluded)
2010 51 sales 789 - - 548 4,943 No info 800+ 222 4,162
booths visitors
2011 109 1,080 No info No info 596 5,073 143 2,015 226 800
sales booths buyers
(incl.
BIFCOM)
2012 96 sales 1,098 No info 4,000+ 648 5,762 807 2,617 229 983
booths (incl. buyers
BIFCOM)
2013 92 1,272 200+ 4,000+ 710 6,317 819 2,718 261 **
sales booths
(incl.
BIFCOM)
*Since 2009, the AFM has recorded the attendance of the film sellers by the number of booths instead
of by the number of exhibiting/selling companies.
**There is only combined data on the attendance of the buyers/sellers at the TIFFCOM, the TIAF and
the TIMM of their 2013 editions, but no relevant information for separate events.
Sources: the official websites of the above film markets (see also Noh 2011b).
Filmography

English Title (Pinyin/Traditional Chinese/Simplified Chinese) (Director,

Country, Main Market Release Year)
[Note: films shown with an asterisk do not have official titles written in Chinese
scripts.]

2002 (Wilson Yip, Hong Kong, 2001)*

2046 (Wong Kar-wai, China/France/Germany/Hong Kong/Italy, 2004)*
300 (Zack Snyder, United States, 2007)*
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Belgium/Romania, 2007)*
A Beautiful Life (Bu Zai Rang Ni Gu Dan/不再讓你孤單/不再让你孤单) (Andrew Lau,
China/Hong Kong, 2011)
A Better Tomorrow (Ying Xiong Ben Se/英雄本色/英雄本色) (John Woo, Hong Kong, 1986)
A Chinese Fairy Tale aka A Chinese Ghost Story (Qian Nu You Hun/倩女幽魂/倩女幽魂)
(Wilson Yip, China/Hong Kong, 2011)
A Chinese Ghost Story (Qian Nu You Hun/倩女幽魂/倩女幽魂) (Tsui Hark, Hong Kong,
1987)
A Chinese Ghost Story II (Qian Nu You Hun II: Ren Jian Dao/倩女幽魂 II: 人間道/倩女幽魂
II: 人间道) (Ching Siu-tung, Hong Kong, 1990)
A Chinese Ghost Story III (Qian Nu You Hun III: Dao Dao Dao/倩女幽魂 III: 道道道/倩女幽
魂 III: 道道道) (Ching Siu-tung, Hong Kong, 1991)
A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation (Xiao Qian/小倩/小倩) (Tsui Hark, Hong
Kong, 1997)
A Simple Life (Tao Jie/桃姐/桃姐) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 2012)
After This Our Exile (Fu Zi/父子/父子) (Patrick Tam, Hong Kong, 2006)
Aftershock (Tang Shan Da Di Zhen/唐山大地震/唐山大地震) (Feng Xiaogang, China,
2010)
All about Ah-Long (A Lang De Gu Shi/阿郎的故事/阿郎的故事) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong,
1989)
All about Love (De Xian Chao Fan/得閒炒飯/得闲炒饭) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 2010)
An Autumn’s Tale (Qiu Tian De Tong Hua/秋天的童話/秋天的童话) (Mabel Cheung,
Hong Kong, 1987)
Arrest the Restless (Lan Jiang Zhuan Zhi Fan Fei Zu Feng Yun/ 藍江傳之反飛組風雲/蓝江
传之反飞组风云) (Lawrence Ah Mon, Hong Kong, 1992)
As Tears Go by (Wang Jiao Kamen/旺角卡門/旺角卡门) (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, 1988)
Au Revoir Mon Amour (He Ri Jun Zai Lai/何日君再來/何日君再来) (Tony Au, Hong Kong,
1991)
Back to 1942 (Yi Jiu Si Er/一九四二/一九四二) (Feng Xiaogang, China, 2012)
Bangkok Dangerous (Oxide and Danny Pang, Thailand, 1999)*
234 . Filmography

Bangkok Dangerous (Oxide and Danny Pang, United States, 2008)*

Battle of Wits (Mo Gong/墨攻/墨攻) (Jacob Cheung, China/Hong Kong/Japan/South
Korea, 2006)
Beijing Rocks (Beijing Le Yu Lu/北京樂與路/北京乐与路) (Mabel Cheung, Hong Kong,
2001)
Blind Detective (Mang Tan/盲探/盲探) (Johnnie To, China/Hong Kong, 2013)
Boat People (Tou Ben Nu Hai/投奔怒海/投奔怒海) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 1982)
Bodyguards and Assassins (Shi Yue Wei Cheng/十月圍城/十月围城) (Teddy Chan, China/
Hong Kong, 2009)
Born to be King (Sheng Zhe Wei Wang/勝者為王/胜者为王) (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong,
2000)
Breaking News (Da Shi Jian/大事件/大事件) (Johnnie To, China/Hong Kong, 2004)
Bruce Lee, My Brother (Li Xiaolong/李小龍/李小龙) (Manfred Wong and Raymond Yip,
China/Hong Kong, 2010)
Buenos Aires Zero Degree: The Making of Happy Together (She Shi Lin Du: Chun Guang Zha
Xie/攝氏零度: 春光乍洩/摄氏零度: 春光乍泄) (Kwan Pun-leung and Amos Lee,
Hong Kong, 1999)
Cape No. 7 (Hai Jiao Qi Hao/海角七號/海角七号) (Wei Te-sheng, Taiwan, 2009)
Chengdu, I Love You (Chengdu Wo Ai Ni/成都我愛你/成都我爱你) (Cui Jian and Fruit
Chan, China, 2009)
Chinese Box (Wayne Wong, France/Japan/United States, 1996)*
CJ7 (Chang Jiang Qi Hao/長江 7 號/长江 7 号) (Stephen Chow, China/Hong Kong, 2008)
Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Tian Mi Mi/甜蜜蜜/甜蜜蜜) (Peter Chan, Hong Kong,
1996)
Conspirators (Tong Mou/同謀/同谋) (Oxide Pang, Hong Kong, 2013)
Crossings (Cuo Ai/錯愛/错爱) (Evans Chan, Hong Kong, 1994)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo Hu Cang Long/臥虎藏龍/卧虎藏龙) (Ang Lee, China/
Hong Kong/Taiwan/United States, 2000)
Curse of the Golden Flower (Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia/滿城盡帶黃金甲/满城尽带
黄金甲) (Zhang Yimou, China/Hong Kong, 2006)
Days of Being Wild (A Fei Zheng Zhuan/阿飛正傳/阿飞正传) (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong,
1990)
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (Dan Shen Nan Nu/單身男女/单身男女) (Johnnie To and Wai
Ka-fai, China/Hong Kong, 2011)
Don’t Look up (Fruit Chan, Japan/South Africa/United States, 2009)*
Drug War (Du Zhan/毒戰/毒战) (Johnnie To, China/Hong Kong, 2012)
Drunken Master (Zui Quan/醉拳/醉拳) (Yuen Woo-ping, Hong Kong, 1978)
Dry Wood Fierce Fire (Gan Chai Lie Huo/乾柴烈火/乾柴烈火) (Wilson Yip, Hong Kong,
2002)
Dumplings (Jiao Zi/餃子/饺子) (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong, 2004)
Durian Durian (Liu Lian Piao Piao/榴槤飄飄/榴槤飘飘) (Fruit Chan, China/France/Hong
Kong, 2000)
 Filmography . 235

Echoes of the Rainbow (Sui Yue Shen Tou/歲月神偷/岁月神偷) (Alex Law, Hong Kong,
2010)
Eight Taels of Gold (Ba Liang Jin/八兩金/八两金) (Mabel Cheung, Hong Kong, 1989)
Eighteen Springs (Ban Sheng Yuan/半生緣/半生缘) (Ann Hui, China/Hong Kong, 1997)
Election (Hei She Hui/黑社會/黑社会) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2005)
Election 2 aka Triad Election (Hei She Hui: Yi He Wei Gui/黑社會: 以和爲貴/黑社会: 以和为
贵) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2006)
Exiled (Fang‧Zhu/放‧逐/放‧逐) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2006)
Eye in the Sky (Gen Zong/跟蹤/跟踪) (Yau Nai-hoi, Hong Kong, 2007)
Farewell My Concubine (Ba Wang Bie Ji/霸王別姬/霸王别姬) (Chen Kaige, China/Hong
Kong, 1993)
Finale in Blood (Da Nao Guang Chang Long/大鬧廣昌隆/大闹广昌隆) (Fruit Chan, Hong
Kong, 1993)
Five Lonely Hearts (Wu Ge Ji Mo De Xin/五個寂寞的心/五个寂寞的心) (Fruit Chan, Hong
Kong, 1991)
Floating Life (Clara Law, Australia, 1996)*
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (Long Men Fei Jia/龍門飛甲/龙门飞甲) (Tsui Hark, China/
Hong Kong, 2011)
Forever Enthralled (Mei Lanfang/梅蘭芳/梅兰芳) (Chen Kaige, China/Hong Kong, 2008)
From the Queen to the Chief Executive (Deng Hou Dong Jian Hua Fa Luo/ 等候董建華發落/
等候董建华发落) (Herman Yau, Hong Kong, 2001)
Fulltime Killer (Quan Zhi Sha Shou/全職殺手/全职杀手) (Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai,
Hong Kong, 2001)
Gallants (Da Lei Tai/打擂台/打擂台) (Clement Cheng and Derek Kwok, Hong Kong, 2010)
Happy Together (Chun Guang Zhe Xie/春光乍洩/春光乍泄) (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/
Japan/South Korea, 1997)
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father (Xin Nan Xiong Nan Di/新難兄難弟/新难兄难弟) (Peter
Chan, Hong Kong, 1993)
Health Warning (Da Lei Tai/打擂台/打擂台) (Kirk Wong, Hong Kong, 1983)
Heaven and Earth (Tian Yu Di/天與地/天与地) (David Lai, China/Hong Kong, 1994)
Her Fatal Ways (Biao Jie, Ni Hao Ye!/表姐, 你好嘢!/表姐, 你好嘢!) (Alfred Cheung, Hong
Kong, 1991)
Hero (Ying Xiong/英雄/英雄) (Zhang Yimou, China/Hong Kong, 2002)
Hollywood Hong Kong (Xiang Gang You Ge He Li Huo/香港有個荷里活/香港有个荷里活)
(Fruit Chan, France/Hong Kong/Japan/United Kingdom, 2001)
Homecoming (Si Shui Liu Nian/似水流年/似水流年) (Yim Ho, Hong Kong, 1984)
Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Nan Yu Nu/男與女/男与女) (Clifford Choi, Hong Kong, 1983)
In the Mood for Love (Hua Yang Nian Hua/花樣年華/花样年华) (Wong Kar-wai, France/
Hong Kong, 1999)
Infernal Affairs (Wu Jian Dao/無間道/无间道) (Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, Hong Kong,
2002)
236 . Filmography

Infernal Affairs II (Wu Jian Dao II/無間道 II/无间道 II) (Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, Hong
Kong, 2003)
Infernal Affairs III (Wu Jian Dao III: Zhong Ji Wu Jian/無間道 III: 終極無間/无间道 III: 终极
无间) (Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, Hong Kong, 2003)
Intruder (Kung Bu Ji/恐怖雞/恐怖鸡) (Tsang Kan-cheung, Hong Kong, 1997)
July Rhapsody (Nan Ren Si Shi/男人四十/男人四十) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 2002)
Just Like Weather (Mei Guo Xin/美國心/美国心) (Allen Fong, Hong Kong, 1986)
Kung Fu Hustle (Gong Fu/功夫/功夫) (Stephen Chow, China/Hong Kong, 2004)
Lan Yu (Lan Yu/藍宇/蓝宇) (Stanley Kwan, China/Hong Kong, 2001)
Leaving Me, Loving You (Da Cheng Xiao Shi/大城小事/大城小事) (Wilson Yip, Hong Kong,
2004)
Life without Principle (Duo Ming Jin/奪命金/夺命金) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2011)
Lifeline (Shi Wan Huo Ji/十萬火急/十万火急) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 1997)
Little Cheung (Xi Lu Xiang/細路祥/细路祥) (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong, 2000)
Long Arm of the Law (Sheng Gang Qi Bing/省港旗兵/省港旗兵) (Johnny Mak, Hong Kong,
1984)
Love in a Fallen City (Qing Cheng Zhi Lian/傾城之戀/倾城之恋) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong,
1984)
Love in the Buff (Chunjiao Yu Zhiming/春嬌與志明/春娇与志明) (Edmond Pang
Ho-cheung, China/Hong Kong, 2012)
Love on a Diet (Shou Shen Nan Nu/瘦身男女/瘦身男女) (Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai, Hong
Kong/Japan, 2001)
Made in Hong Kong (Xiang Gang Zhi Zao/香港製造/香港制造) (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong,
1997)
Mary from Beijing (Meng Xing Shi Fen/夢醒時分/梦醒时分) (Sylvia Chang, Hong Kong,
1992)
McDull, Kung Fu Kindergarten (Mai Dou Xiang Dang Dang/麥兜響噹噹/麦兜响噹噹)
(Brian Tse, China/Hong Kong/Japan, 2009)
McDull. Me & My Mum (Mai Dou. Wo He Wo Ma Ma/麥兜．我和我媽媽/麦兜．我和我妈
妈) (Brian Tse and Li Junmin, China/Hong Kong, 2014)
McDull, Prince de la Bun (Mai Dou Bo Luo You Wang Zi/麥兜菠蘿油王子/麦兜菠萝油王子)
(Toe Yuen, Hong Kong, 2004)
McDull, The Alumni (Chun Tian Hua Hua Tong Xue Hui/春田花花同學會/春田花花同学
会) (Samson Chiu, Hong Kong, 2006)
Men Suddenly in Black (Da Zhang Fu/大丈夫/大丈夫) (Edmond Pang Ho-cheung, Hong
Kong, 2003)
My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (Wo Zuo Yan Jian Dao Gui/我左眼見到鬼/我左眼见到鬼) (Johnnie
To and Wai Ka-fai, Hong Kong, 2002)
My Life as McDull (Mai Dao Gu Shi/麥兜故事/麦兜故事) (Toe Yuen, Hong Kong, 2001)
Needing You … (Gu Nan Gua Nu/孤男寡女/孤男寡女) (Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai, Hong
Kong, 2000)
 Filmography . 237

Night and Fog (Tian Shui Wei De Ye Yu Wu/天水圍的夜與霧/天水围的夜与雾) (Ann Hui,

Hong Kong, 2009)
Once a Gangster (Fei Sha Feng Zhong Zhuan/飛砂風中轉/飞砂风中转) (Felix Chong, Hong
Kong, 2010)
Once upon a Time in China and America (Huang Feihong Zhi Xi Yu Xiong Shi/ 黃飛鴻之西
域雄獅/黄飞鸿之西域雄狮) (Sammo Hung, Hong Kong, 1997)
Ordinary Heroes (Qian Yan Wan Yu/千言萬語/千言万语) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 1999)
Oyster Girl (Ke Nu/妸女/妸女) (Li Hsing and Li Chia, Taiwan, 1963)
Painted Skin (Hua Pi/畫皮/画皮) (Gordon Chan, China/Hong Kong, 2008)
Perhaps Love (Ru Guo. Ai/如果 · 愛/如果 · 爱) (Peter Chan, China/Hong Kong/Malaysia,
2005)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (Gore Verbinski, United States, 2007)*
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Gore Verbinski, United States, 2006)*
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg,
United States, 2017)*
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall, United States, 2011)*
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Gore Verbinski, United States, 2003)*
Portland Street Blues (Gu Huo Zai Qing Yi Pian Zhi Hong Xing Shi San Mei/ 古惑仔情義篇之
洪興十三妹/古惑仔情义篇之洪兴十三妹) (Raymond Yip, Hong Kong, 1998)
PTU (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2003)*
Public Toilet (Ren Min Gong Ce/人民公廁/人民公厕) (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong/Japan/
South Korea, 2002)
Punished (Bao Ying/報應/报应) (Law Wing-cheong, Hong Kong, 2011)
Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, United States, 1955)*
Red Cliff (Chi Bi/赤壁/赤壁) (John Woo, China/Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/
United States, 2008)
Red Cliff II (Chi Bi: Jue Zhan Tian Xia/赤壁: 決戰天下/赤壁: 决战天下) (John Woo, China/
Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/United States, 2009)
Ringu (Nakata Hideo, Japan, 1998)*
Romancing in Thin Air (Gao Hai Ba Zhi Lian II/高海拔之戀 II/高海拔之恋 II) (Johnnie To,
China/Hong Kong, 2012)
Run and Kill (Wu Shu Ji Mi Dang An/烏鼠機密檔案/乌鼠机密档案) (Billy Tang Hin-sing,
Hong Kong, 1993)
Running on Karma (Da Zhi Lao/大隻佬/大只佬) (Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai, China/Hong
Kong, 2003)
Running out of Time (An Zhan/暗戰/暗战) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 1999)
Shaolin Soccer (Shaolin Zu Qiu/少林足球/少林足球) (Stephen Chow, China/Hong Kong,
2001)
Skyline Cruisers (Shen Tou Ci Shi Dai/神偷次世代/神偷次世代) (Wilson Yip, Hong Kong,
2000)
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (She Xing Diao Shou/蛇形刁手/蛇形刁手) (Yuen Woo-ping,
Hong Kong, 1978)
238 . Filmography

Snakes on a Plane (David R. Ellis, United States, 2006)*

Song of the Exile (Ke Tu Qiu Hen/客途秋恨/客途秋恨) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong/Taiwan, 1990)
Sparrow (Wen Que/文雀/文雀) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2008)
Spirited Away (Miyazaki Hayao, Japan, 2001)*
Starry is the Night (Jin Ye Xing Guang Can Lan/今夜星光燦爛/今夜星光灿烂) (Ann Hui,
Hong Kong, 1988)
Summer Snow (Nu Ren, Si Shi./女人, 四十./女人, 四十.) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 1995)
Tales from the Dark (Part 1) (Li Bi Hua Gui Mei Xi Lie Mi Li Ye/ 李碧華鬼魅系列《迷離
夜》/李碧华鬼魅系列《迷离夜》) (Fruit Chan/Lee Chi-ngai/Simon Yam, Hong
Kong, 2013)
Tales from the Dark (Part 1): Jing Zhe (Li Bi Hua Gui Mei Xi Lie Mi Li Ye: Jing Zhe/ 李碧華鬼
魅系列《迷離夜》: 《驚蟄》/李碧华鬼魅系列《迷离夜》: 《惊蛰》) (Fruit Chan,
Hong Kong, 2013)
Temptress Moon (Feng Yue/風月/风月) (Chen Kaige, China/Hong Kong, 1996)
The Banquet (Ye Yan/夜宴/夜宴) (Feng Xiaogang, China, 2006)
The Battle of Dingjunshan aka Conquering Jun Mountain (Dingjunshan/定軍山/定军山)
(Ren Jingfeng, China, 1905)
The Border (Won San-man, Korea, 1923)*
The Crossing: Part 1 (Tai Ping Lun (Shang) /太平輪 (上) /太平轮 (上)) (John Woo, China/
Hong Kong, 2014)
The Crossing: Part 2 (Tai Ping Lun (Xia) /太平輪 (下) /太平轮 (下)) (John Woo, China/
Hong Kong, 2015)
The Detective (C Jia Zhen Tan/C+偵探/C+侦探) (Oxide Pang, Hong Kong, 2007)
The Detective 2 (B Jia Zhen Tan/B+偵探/B+侦探) (Oxide Pang, Hong Kong, 2011)
The Enchanting Shadow (Qian Nu You Hun/倩女幽魂/倩女幽魂) (Li Han-hsiang, Hong
Kong, 1960)
The Enigmatic Case (Bi Shui Han Shan Duo Ming Jin/碧水寒山奪命金/碧水寒山夺命金)
(Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 1980)
The Eye (Jian Gui/見鬼/见鬼) (Oxide and Danny Pang, Hong Kong/Singapore, 2002)
The Eye 2 (Jian Gui 2/見鬼 2/见鬼 2) (Oxide and Danny Pang, Hong Kong/Singapore,
2004)
The Eye 10 aka The Eye Infinity and The Eye 3 (Jian Gui 10/見鬼 10/见鬼 10) (Oxide and
Danny Pang, Hong Kong, 2005)
The Floating Landscape (Lian Zhi Feng Jing/戀之風景/恋之风景) (Carol Lai, Hong Kong,
2003)
The Flowers of War (Jinling Shi San Chai/金陵十三釵/金陵十三钗) (Zhang Yimou, China/
Hong Kong, 2011)
The Grandmaster (Yi Dai Zong Shi/一代宗師/一代宗师) (Wong Kar-wai, China/Hong
Kong, 2013)
The Last Supper (Wang De Sheng Yan/王的盛宴/王的盛宴) (Lu Chuan, China, 2012)
The Longest Summer (Qu Nian Yan Hua Te Bie Duo/去年煙花特別多/去年煙花特別多)
(Fruit Chan, Hong Kong, 1998)
 Filmography . 239

The Man from Vietnam (Yue Nan Zai/越南仔/越南仔) (Clarence Fok, Hong Kong, 1982)
The Midnight After (Na Ye Ling Chen, Wo Zuo Shang Liao Wang Jiao Kai Wang Da Bu De
Hong Van/那夜凌晨, 我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅Van/那夜凌晨, 我坐上了旺角开往
大埔的红Van) (Fruit Chan, Hong Kong, 2014)
The Mission (Qiang Huo/鎗火/枪火) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 1999)
The Myth (Shen Hua/神話/神话) (Stanley Tong, China/Hong Kong, 2005)
The Pork of Music (Mai Dou. Dang Dang Ban Wo Xin/麥兜 · 噹噹伴我心/麦兜 · 当当伴我
心) (Brian Tse, China/Hong Kong, 2012)
The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (Yi Ma De Hou Xian Dai Sheng Huo/ 姨媽的後現代生活/
姨妈的后现代生活) (Ann Hui, China/Hong Kong, 2006)
The Promise (Wu Ji/無極/无极) (Chen Kaige, China/South Korea/United States, 2005)
The Secret (Feng Jie/瘋劫/疯劫) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 1979)
The Shinjuku Incident (Xin Su Shi Jian/新宿事件/新宿事件) (Derek Yee, Hong Kong, 2009)
The Singing Girl Red Peony (Ge Nu Hong Mu Dan/歌女紅牡丹/歌女红牡丹) (Zhang
Shichuan, China, 1929)
The Stool Pigeon (Xian Ren/綫人/线人) (Dante Lam, Hong Kong, 2010)
The Story of Woo Viet (Hu Yue De Gu Shi/胡越的故事/胡越的故事) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong,
1981)
The Stunt Woman (A Jin/阿金/阿金) (Ann Hui, Hong Kong, 1996)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, France/West Germany, 1964)*
The Warlords (Tou Ming Zhuang/投名狀/投名状) (Peter Chan, China/Hong Kong, 2007)
The Way We Are (Tian Shui Wei De Ri Yu Ye/天水圍的日與夜/天水围的日与夜) (Ann Hui,
Hong Kong, 2008)
Three (San Geng/三更/三更) (Peter Chan/Kim Jee-won/Nonzee Nimibutr, Hong Kong/
South Korea/Thailand, 2002)
Three … Extremes (San Geng 2/三更 2/三更 2) (Fruit Chan/Miike Takashi/Park Chan-wook,
Hong Kong/Japan/South Korea, 2004)
Three: Going Home (San Geng Zhi Hui Jia/三更之回家/三更之回家) (Peter Chan, Hong
Kong, 2002)
Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (San Guo Zhi Jian Long Xie Jia/三國之見龍卸
甲/三国之见龙卸甲) (Daniel Lee, China/Hong Kong/South Korea, 2008)
Thunderstorm (Lei Yu/雷雨/雷雨) (Ng Wui, Hong Kong, 1957)
Tiny Times 1.0 (Xiao Shi Dai/小時代/小时代) (Guo Jingming, China, 2013)
To Liv(e) (Fu Shi Lian Qu/浮世戀曲/浮世恋曲) (Evans Chan, Hong Kong, 1991)
Turn Left, Turn Right (Xiang Zuo Zou, Xiang You Zou/向左走 · 向右走/向左走 · 向右走)
(Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai, Hong Kong/Singapore, 2003)
Vulgaria (Di Su Xi Ju/低俗喜劇/低俗喜剧) (Edmond Pang Ho-cheung, Hong Kong, 2012)
Wong Fei-hung’s Fight at Henan (Huang Fei-hong Henan Yu Xie Zhan/黃飛鴻河南浴血戰/
黄飞鸿河南浴血战) (Wu Pang, Hong Kong, 1957)
Yesterday Once More (Long Feng Dou/龍鳳鬥/龙凤斗) (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2004)
You are the Apple of My Eye (Na Xie Nian, Wo Men Yi Qi Zhui De Nu Hai/那些年, 我們一起
追的女孩/那些年, 我们一起追的女孩) (Giddens Ko, Taiwan, 2011)
240 . Filmography

Young and Dangerous (Gu Huo Zai Zhi Ren Zai Jiang Hu/古惑仔之人在江湖/古惑仔之人
在江湖) (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1996)
Young and Dangerous 2 (Gu Huo Zai 2 Zhi Meng Long Guo Jiang/古惑仔 2 之猛龍過江/古
惑仔 2 之猛龙过江) (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1996)
Young and Dangerous 3 (Gu Huo Zai 3 Zhi Zhi Shou Zhe Tian/古惑仔 3 之隻手遮天/古惑
仔 3 之只手遮天) (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1996)
Young and Dangerous 4 (97 Gu Huo Zai Zhan Wu Bu Sheng/97 古惑仔戰無不勝/97 古惑仔
战无不胜) (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1997)
Young and Dangerous 5 (98 Gu Huo Zai Zhi Long Zheng Hu Dou/98 古惑仔之龍爭虎鬥/98
古惑仔之龙争虎斗) (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 1998)
Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (Zhuangzi Shi Qi/莊子試妻/莊子试妻) (Lai Man-wai, Hong Kong,
1913)
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Index
1997-related incidents: Asian Financial Crisis, 5, Cheung, Leslie, 53, 59
16, 26, 34, 176, 178, 180, 192, 211, 222; Hong China: 41, 47, 70, 79, 90, 95, 136, 140, 146, 148–
Kong’s sovereignty handover, 2–5, 8, 11–12, 49, 166, 171, 205, 212; civilization-state,
14–17, 20, 33, 41–46, 53–56, 58–59, 64, 71, 6, 23–25; concept, 9, 25, 77–78, 150; film
79–82, 84–85, 88, 91–93, 99, 107, 109, 116, 127, industry (see early Chinese film industry;
138, 148, 177, 180, 186, 196, 221 mainland Chinese film industry (under film
industries)); film policy (see film policies);
A influences and rise, 2, 5, 9–10, 12, 16, 23–24,
A Chinese Ghost Story (series), 19–20. See also 26, 29, 34, 50, 65, 81, 131–32, 150, 188, 203,
Tsui, Hark 222; People’s Republic of China, 7, 9, 12–13,
A Simple Life, 1–2. See also Hui, Ann 16–17, 23, 43, 50, 52, 56, 76–77, 152, 179, 197;
Abbas, Ackbar, 3–4, 14, 16, 22, 62, 105, 223 Republic of China, 79, 169, 193
accented cinema: 20–21, 32, 47–48, 108, 140, 220; China Film Group Corporation, 28, 179, 187–89
accented style, 22, 32; audiences, 34, 109, Chinese: diaspora, 9–10, 25, 47, 70–71, 77, 98, 171;
138–40, 150–51, 154, 157–71, 222; filmmakers, history, 34, 42, 140, 146–48, 153, 157, 159–60,
20–22, 32–33, 47–48, 50, 65, 82, 108–9, 111, 166–68, 171; Hong Kong Chinese, 1, 3, 6–10,
123, 129, 138–40, 176; films, 20–22, 32–33, 42, 17, 23, 25, 32–33, 42–43, 45–46, 50, 53, 56, 59,
47–48, 65, 70, 82–83, 87, 99, 138–40, 176. See 63, 67, 70–71, 75, 79–81, 86–87, 94, 96, 99,
also Naficy, Hamid 101–3, 221; Huaren, 77; illegal immigrants,
Ang, Ien, 10, 25, 77, 141, 152 75, 82, 89, 102; migrations, 7, 41; overseas
Applause Pictures, 27, 95–97, 116. See also Chan, Chinese, 7, 9, 25, 41, 77, 139, 141; South East
Peter Asian-Chinese, 34, 75–76, 78, 96, 102, 139,
Asian Film Commissions Network, 190, 206–7 141, 144, 152, 155, 157, 171, 222 (see also South
Asian Financial Crisis. See 1997-related incidents East Asia)
Chinese languages: 34, 152, 157, 165; Cantonese, 1,
B 4, 30, 33, 51–52, 58, 62–64, 74, 82–83, 87, 89,
Berry, Chris, 28 94, 96, 98, 100–2, 124, 135, 154, 165, 170, 195,
Boat People, 82, 85–88. See also Hui, Ann 221; Mandarin, 13, 30, 77, 89, 94, 124, 149–50,
Bruce Lee, My Brother, 42, 62–65 154, 162, 170; Sinitic-speaking/writing
(capabilities), 136, 162, 171, 222
C Chinese-language blockbusters, 145, 159
Chan, Fruit, 2, 33, 91, 93, 105–6, 114–16, 127–32. See Chineseness, 8, 10, 75–81, 83, 98, 102, 139, 150, 152,
also Durian Durian; Hollywood Hong Kong; 167–68, 170–71
Made in Hong Kong Chow, Rey, 24–25, 52, 76, 80–81, 167
Chan, Peter, 27, 93–97, 116. See also Going Chu, Yiu-Wai, 12, 16–17, 64–65, 81, 200–2, 211
Home; pan-Asian co-productions (under Chua, Beng Huat, 77, 180–81, 203
co-productions) Cinema of Transitions, 14–15, 18–20, 22, 32, 34,
Chang, Cheh (aka Zhang Che), 147 42, 71, 170, 220–23. See also New Hong Kong
Chen, Kaige, 12, 186 Cinema
Chen, Yun-chung, 18, 107 Confucianism, 76–77, 119, 180
Cheng, Clement, 106, 117–18, 133. See also Gallants co-production treaties, 203–4, 206–7
Cheung, Esther M.K., 93, 115, 129–30
270 . INDEX

co-productions: 178–79, 182, 187, 189, 192, 194, film authorship: 22, 33, 106, 108–9; authorial vision
205; China-Hong Kong co-productions, and concerns, 33, 103, 105–6, 109, 118–20,
2, 4, 12, 30, 63, 131, 201, 211; pan-Asian 135, 138–40, 222
co-productions (also pan-East Asian film censorship, 88, 199
co-productions), 2, 4, 30, 49, 96–97, 145, 206 Film Development Fund, 11, 61, 196–97, 200–1
(see also co-production treaties) film festivals: Asia-Pacific Film Festival, 27;
Create Hong Kong, 197, 200 Beijing International Film Festival, 187, 208;
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 94, 149. See also Berlin International Film Festival, 61, 114,
Lee, Ang 121, 124, 189, 208; Busan International Film
Curtin, Michael, 30, 185, 187. See also media capital Festival (formerly, Pusan International
Film Festival), 191, 208–9; Cannes Film
D Festival, 86, 100, 114, 189, 208–9; Hong Kong
Davis, Darrell William, 27–28, 145, 179, 188 International Film Festival, 31, 111, 122, 127,
Days of Being Wild, 42, 56, 59–61, 64. See also 133, 196–97, 208–9; Shanghai International
Wong, Kar-wai Film Festival, 189, 208; Tokyo International
Deng, Xiaoping, 17, 54 Film Festival, 190, 208; Venice International
diasporic consciousness: 46, 105, 151, 169; Film Festival, 91, 114, 189
existential condition, 9; situational, film financing (and investment), 1–2, 4, 10, 18,
diasporic consciousness, 43 22, 27, 31, 49, 66, 91, 94, 115–16, 121, 129, 141,
disappearance: 3, 16, 105; culture, 14; space, 62 145–46, 176, 178–79, 187–89, 192–94, 197,
Dissanayake, Wimal, 3–4 199–200, 204–5, 211
Durian Durian, 82, 89–93, 116. See also Chan, Fruit film genres: action, 112–13, 118–19, 134; animation,
19–20, 99–100, 221; comedy, 49, 112–13, 115,
E 118, 130, 133–34, 147, 221; cop-and-gangster,
East Asian film business network: 99; newest and gangster, 79, 89, 112–14, 119, 129–30;
East Asian film business network, 34, 177, kung fu, 133–35; martial arts, 85, 94, 110–12,
182–86, 210–11, 222; nodes, 34, 177, 182–86, 119, 145, 160; melodrama, 111–12; nostalgia,
203, 210–11, 222 (see also film industries); 64–65; semi-autobiography, 65–66, 110
previous East Asian film business network, Film Guarantee Fund, 11, 196, 201
27, 182–83, 195 film industries: early Chinese film industry (pre-
East Asian regionalism, 23–26 Second World War), 186, 188–89, 195; East
Echoes of the Rainbow, 42, 61–62, 64–65. See also Asian film industries, 26, 28; Hong Kong
Law, Alex film industry, 2, 10–12, 18–20, 30–31, 53, 91,
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, 94, 107, 114–16, 120, 129, 131, 134–35, 141, 147,
205 182, 194–99, 201–2, 210–11, 222; Japanese
Exiled, 42, 56–58, 113. See also To, Johnnie film industry, 181, 190; mainland Chinese
film industry, 30–31, 107, 111, 187–89; South
F Korean film industry, 191–92, 209; Taiwan
fans: fan-audiences, 155, 157, 161–63, 165–66, 169, film industry, 111, 193–94
171; fandom and studies, 139–45, 150, 153–54, film markets (also film marketplaces): 178, 182–84,
156–62, 166 192–93, 207–11; American Film Market, 209;
fansites, 151, 153–55, 161–68 Asian Film Market, 191, 207–9; Beijing Film
film audience: 11, 33–34, 128, 138–40, 142, 178, 202, Market, 187, 208; European Film Market,
222; fan-audiences (see fans); reception 208; Hong Kong International Film & TV
studies, 139, 141, 150 Market (FILMART), 31, 197, 207–11; Marché
du Film (also Cannes Film Market), 100,
 INDEX . 271

208–9; SIFF Market, 189, 207–8; TIFFCOM, mentality, 43–44, 70; sovereignty handover
190, 207–8 (see 1997-related incidents); Special
film policies: 27, 34, 109, 177, 179–80, 185–86; Hong Administrative Region, 11, 15–16, 19, 29–30,
Kong, 10, 118, 177, 186, 194–204, 211, 222 (see 43, 45, 50, 84, 116, 196–97, 199–200, 202; the
also Mainland and Hong Kong Closer place, 3–7, 33, 56, 109, 119, 125
Economic Partnership Arrangement); Hong Kong Film Awards, 31, 49, 59, 61, 114, 118, 133
Japan, 190, 204; mainland China, 12, 50, Hong Kong Film Development Council, 11, 118,
179, 187–89, 197, 203–5 (see also Economic 197, 200–1
Cooperation Framework Agreement; film Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.
censorship; Mainland and Hong Kong Closer See Hong Kong International Film Festival
Economic Partnership Arrangement); South (under film festivals)
Korea, 192, 205; Taiwan, 193–94, 205 (see Hong Kong New Waves: first New Wave, 18,
also Economic Cooperation Framework 49, 88, 110, 114–17, 201; Hong Kong SAR
Agreement; Government Information New Wave, 116 (see also New Generation
Office) Directors); Second New Wave, 110–11, 115–17
Fiske, John, 143–44, 157, 166 Hong Kong Trade Development Council, 197,
Floating Life, 42, 50–53. See also Law, Clara 209, 211
Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, 31, 211
G Hu, King, 85, 110, 182
Gallants, 106, 118, 132–35. See also Cheng, Hui, Ann, 1, 33, 65–70, 85–88, 105–6, 109–12, 114,
Clement; Kwok, Derek 120–23, 127, 135, 200–1. See also A Simple Life;
Going Home (film segment), 82, 93–95. See also Boat People; first New Wave (under Hong
Chan, Peter Kong New Waves); Ordinary Heroes; Song
Government Information Office (Taiwan), of the Exile
193–94
I
H identity (and identities), 2–3, 6–7, 9–10, 14–15,
Happy Together, 42, 53–56. See also Wong, Kar-wai 17–18, 21–22, 24–25, 30–32, 45–48, 52, 54–55,
Hau, Caroline S., 78, 98, 141 58, 60, 63, 67, 69, 74–75, 79–82, 87–88, 90,
Hollywood Hong Kong, 89–91, 106, 116, 130–32. See 95, 98, 103, 105, 110, 136, 140, 143, 150, 152, 157,
also Chan, Fruit 163, 199–200, 206, 222
home, 26, 46–48, 50, 52–53, 56–58, 61–62, 66–68, independent filmmaking, 1, 10, 18, 33, 56, 91, 113–
70, 92–94, 101–2, 114, 124, 148, 154, 169–70, 16, 127, 129–31, 192–93, 196
179, 190–91, 203, 220. See also Exiled; Floating interstitiality, 20–21, 32, 34, 47, 83, 99, 108–9, 117,
Life; Going Home; Happy Together 129, 138–40, 170–71, 176, 222
homelands (also home countries), 9, 20, 46–47,
52–53, 58–59, 61–62, 64–65, 67, 70, 92, 136 J
Hong Kong: British Crown Colony, 6–7, 13, 15–16, Jacques, Martin, 6, 23–26, 188
79; collective memory, 105–6, 125, 136, 222; Japan: film industry (see Japanese film industry
film industry (see Hong Kong film industry (under film industries)); film policy (see film
(under film industries)); film policy (see policies)
film policies); Hong Kong Chinese (see Japan Association for International Promotion of
Chinese); Hongkongers, 2–3, 6, 7–9, 16–18, the Moving Image (UNIJAPAN), 190
21, 32, 47–49, 53–54, 58, 64–65, 70–71, 74, Jenkins, Henry, 143, 157. See also participatory
78–80, 82, 87, 89, 90–92, 95, 103, 105–6, 120, culture
129, 131–32, 136, 138, 148, 165, 199, 221; refugee
272 . INDEX

journeys and journeying: 32, 41–48, 70–71, 103, 221; New Hong Kong Cinema, 2–5, 14, 18–22, 26–34,
character development, 58–65; narrative 42, 48, 71, 83, 88, 99, 102, 105, 108–9, 119, 136,
structure, 65–70; subject matter, 48–58 138–41, 145, 163, 170–71, 176–78, 195, 199, 210,
220–23. See also Cinema of Transitions
K
Kaneshiro, Takeshi, 149, 153–55, 157, 159, 161–62, O
164, 166, 168–71 one country, two systems, 17, 54, 93
Keane, Michael, 184–85 Ordinary Heroes, 106, 120–23. See also Hui, Ann
Korean Film Council, 192, 207, 209 outsider characters, 32–33, 75, 82–83, 86–88, 92,
Kwok, Derek, 106, 117–18, 133. See also Gallants 94–95, 98–99, 101–3, 120, 221

L P
Lau, Andy, 1–2, 60, 86, 101, 112–13, 115, 133 Pang, Danny and Oxide (also Pang Brothers), 49,
Law, Alex, 61, 64. See also Echoes of the Rainbow 96–97. See also The Detective
Law, Clara, 50. See also Floating Life Pang, Laikwan, 8, 12–13, 117–18
Lee, Ang, 109, 149. See also Crouching Tiger, Hidden participatory culture, 156
Dragon
Leung, Tony Chiu-wai, 53, 55, 60, 112, 149 R
Liscutin, Nicola, 28 Red Cliff, 4, 34, 139–40, 145–46, 148–71, 206. See
Lo, Kwai-Cheung, 78–79 also Woo, John

M S
Macau, 50, 56–58, 60, 66–69, 77, 152 self-inscription, 33, 109, 123, 127
Mackintosh, Jonathan D., 28 Shanghai Film Group, 189
Made in Hong Kong, 2, 91, 106, 115–16, 127–32. See Shaw Brothers (film studio; also the Shaws), 10,
also Chan, Fruit 26–27, 94, 96, 107, 112, 115, 134, 147, 181–82, 195
Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Shih, Shu-mei, 129, 139, 149, 152–53, 165, 167–69.
Partnership Arrangement, 11–12, 30, 50, 107, See also Sinophone
197, 199, 201–2, 204–5 Sinocentrism (also Sinocentric ideology), 21,
mainlandization, 107 24–26, 80–81, 149–50, 152, 160, 166–67, 170,
Marchetti, Gina, 3, 52, 107 206
McDull (series), 82, 99–102 Sinophone, 152, 157, 165–68, 171, 222. See also Shih,
media capital, 30, 185, 187, 191, 222. See also Curtin, Shu-mei
Michael Skeldon, Ronald, 43–47, 53
Milkyway Image, 56, 113–14. See also To, Johnnie; social networking websites, 138, 151–52, 163
Wai, Ka-fai social underdogs, 33, 106, 119–22, 127, 132, 134, 136,
Moran, Albert, 179 222
soft power: 77, 150, 180–81, 203–4, 206, 222;
N competition, 181
Naficy, Hamid, 9, 15, 20–22, 32–33, 42, 46–48, 58, Song of the Exile, 42, 65–70, 110. See also Hui, Ann
65, 67, 69–70, 82, 87, 99, 108–11, 120, 123, 138, South East Asia: 5, 11, 16, 27, 32, 34, 75–76, 78, 84,
140, 176, 220. See also accented cinema 96, 102, 105, 107, 139, 141, 144–46, 151–53, 155,
New Generation Directors, 33, 105, 114, 116–18, 157, 170–71, 181–82, 184, 189, 195, 206, 222;
129, 132–36. See also Hong Kong SAR New South East Asian-Chinese (see Chinese)
Wave (under Hong Kong New Waves)
 INDEX . 273

South Korea: film industry (see South Korean film transitions, 2, 4, 14–21, 31, 33–34, 42, 47, 55–56, 65,
industry (under film industries)); film policy 70–71, 76, 78, 80, 82, 103, 120, 136, 139, 163,
(see film policies) 170–71, 176, 183, 203, 210, 212, 220–23
Sparrow, 57, 90, 106, 123–27. See also To, Johnnie Tsui, Hark, 19–20, 114, 201. See also A Chinese
State Administration of Press, Publication, Ghost Story; first New Wave (under Hong
Radio, Film and Television (formerly, Kong New Waves)
State Administration of Radio, Film and Tu, Wei-ming, 25, 77
Television) (People’s Republic of China),
187, 207 W
Sussman, Nan M., 79–80 Wai, Ka-fai, 113–14. See also Milkyway Image
Szeto, Mirana M., 18, 85, 107, 111 Wang, Gungwu, 7, 16–17, 41, 76
Wong, John, 16–17
T Wong, Kar-wai, 27, 53–56, 59–61, 64, 110, 200. See
Taiwan: film industry (see Taiwan film industry also Days of Being Wild; Happy Together
(under film industries)); film policy (see film Wong, Siu-lun, 18
policies); Republic of China (see China) Wong, Tin-lam, 112, 119
Tan, See Kam (also Tan See-Kam), 107 Woo, John, 4, 34, 139, 146–48, 150–51, 153, 157,
Television Broadcasts Limited, 10, 56, 85, 89, 159–62, 165, 167, 170–71. See also Red Cliff
112–13
Teo, Stephen, 3, 13, 54, 112, 114 Y
The Detective (series), 82, 96–99. See also Pang, Yeh, Emilie Yueh-yu, 27–28, 179, 188
Danny and Oxide
To, Johnnie, 33, 56–58, 105–6, 111–14, 119, 123–27, Z
200–1. See also Exiled; Milkyway Image; Zhang, Yimou, 28, 109, 186
Sparrow