Despite an increasing number of Hong Kong artists participating in the production of Main Melody movies and an increasing degree of integration between the Chinese and Hong Kong film industries, social and political incompatibilities between Hong Kong and the mainland remain largely unresolved. People say, “Hong Kong citizens have not turned their hearts back to China,” even 20 years after the handover in 1997. This is reflected in the fact that most Main Melody movies that have achieved blockbuster success in mainland have failed to achieve box office success or positive social reception in Hong Kong. Some mainland directors have also expressed dissatisfaction with the attitude of certain Hong Kong filmmakers, as reflected in the critical remarks made by Gao Qunshu, the mainland director of The Tokyo Trial[56] [open endnotes in new window] and The Message: “I think the goal of most Hong Kong filmmakers who have come to the mainland is money. Taking advantage of their influence accumulated over time, they rush to the mainland to stake claims on the Chinese market.”[57] In other words, what can be seen in the so-called efforts toward cooperation between China and Hong Kong is probably something motivated solely by market profits.

Main Melody movies directed by Hong Kong directors, moreover, do not consistently exhibit Main Melody themes prominently, leading some critics to describe Hong Kong filmmakers who have moved northward as engaged in the “exchange of bargaining chips,” “enduring all disgrace and insult in order to accomplish their task,” and acting as “undercover cops” (mou gaan dou in Cantonese, a term originating in the Chinese title of Infernal Affairs). For instance, it is said that Andrew Lau originally intended to direct a film entitled When Robbers Meet the Monsters instead of The Founding of an Army but was forced to bow to pressure from the China’s Bona Film Group.[58] Presumably China would not invest in When Robbers Meet the Monsters unless Lau delayed it until after the completion of The Founding of an Army.[59]

The Founding of an Army is a 2017 movie commemorating the 90th anniversary of the formation of the CCP army and describes the Nanchang Uprising (also referred by the KMT as the Nanchang Insurrection) initiated by the KMT forces headed by Chiang Kai-shek on August 1, 1927. The main characters in the film include Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, He Long, Ye Ting, Lin Biao, Ye Jianying and other renowned CCP military leaders. It seemed to embody the peak of the “Military Dream,” with Main Melody features seen clearly in its promotional song We Want to be Strong Army Soldiers, but on release it attracted immediate criticism from Ye Daying, a descendant of Ye Ting and the director of the 1995 Main Melody movie Red Cherry, who said, “Who are you humiliating when you ask a sissy hunky boy who can barely stand straight to perform as Ye Ting?”[60] Some journalists have even said that as Andrew Lau has the experiences of directing the Young and Dangerous series (1996-2000) and the Infernal Affairs series about corruption and criminals, audiences might assume that he has associated the CCP with gangsters in directing The Founding of an Army.[61]

In another instance, Alan Mak and Felix Chong, director and screenwriter of the Infernal Affairs series respectively, have been suspected of “telling the truth in a seemingly paradoxical way” when they directed the Main Melody movie The Silent War.[62] While seeming to lionize CCP comrades, there is a scene at the end of The Silent War capturing the moment when He Bing, performed by Tony Leung, in the role of He Bing, mourns for the revolutionary martyr Zhang Xuening and raises his hand in salute. Leung portrays him with a distressed face and eyes covered with black silk, seeming to imply that there is some reservation about the sincerity of his loyalty.

The Taking of Tiger Mountain is an epic 3D action film adapted from the famous novel Tracks in the Snowy Forest by Qu Bo; the novel also forms the subject matter of a well-known “model play”[63] in China describing the battle between a squad of the PLA and a bandit gang in north-east China during the Chinese Civil War. The film’s title and characterization as a “red” movie resulted in bad press among Hong Kong audiences. Ostensibly a Main Melody film, some critics consider it to be in fact covertly oriented against Main Melody ideals in the way it turns the “three prominences (san tuchu)”[64] of model plays into “three non-prominences (san bu tuchu).” Thus one comment states:

“It is obvious that the intention of The Taking of Tiger Mountain is to narrate the emergence of the great villain Hawk (played by Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka-Fai) in detail. On the other hand, the protagonist Yang Zirong (played by mainland Chinese actor Zhang Hanyu) who infiltrates the Tiger Mountain bandit group as a spy, not only lacks heroic qualities, but even scams the bandits in the village into a dog-eat-dog scenario, the very image of evil.”[65]

However, in another comment, according to Lei (2017):

“Tsui Hark has not only succeeded in turning The Taking of Tiger Mountain into a Hong Kong-style crime-thriller film and the PLA into a Hollywood-style 007, gaining it great popularity among young audiences on the mainland, but has also managed to utilize ‘red’ capital to keep Hong Kong films alive.”[66]

And in China The Taking of Tiger Mountain has received high acclaim, twice praised in the People’s Daily for being “high in quality” and for introducing “effective and innovative practices” in the making of Main Melody films.[67]

Funded by the same Bona Film Group as The Taking of Tiger Mountain, Ann Hui’s Our Time Will Come is a Main Melody film released on July 1, 2017 in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong. Although the story is set in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong and focuses on how the CCP guerrilla team known as “Dongjiang Column,” rescues a group of endangered intellectuals, the Main Melody characteristics of this film are obscure. In some aspects, the plot even reflects a perspective opposed to that of Main Melody films.

In the movie, Tony Leung Ka-fai plays the role of “Little” Ben, the sole surviving member of the Dongjiang Column, who tells his story from that historical period to several people in the film. Throughout the entire narration, there is no sense of drama, although features opposed to those of Main Melody movies are evident. For example, what stirs “Little” Ben to tears is not a yearning for the fulfilment of political or patriotic interests, but rather a fond personal nostalgia for his teacher Fong Lan (played by Zhou Xun). Those who are sacrificed in the film are not well-known heroes, but people such as the mother of Fong Lan (aka Mrs. Fong, played by Deanie Ip), an illiterate woman who knows nothing about patriotism. Most ironic of all is that “Little” Ben, the sole surviving member of the Dongjiang Column, is not anyone with prominent status in the CCP, but a Hong Kong taxi driver who is merely struggling to earn a living. In a scene shot by the sea, Fong Lan says farewell to “Blackie” Lau (played by Taiwanese actor Eddie Peng), leader of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Battalion Team of the anti-Japanese guerrilla force, after which the camera pans from the dark seashore to today’s Hong Kong. What was once the sea has now changed into mulberry fields with numerous modern skyscrapers looming in the background, a thinly veiled message that, regardless of the period of Japanese colonial rule or 20 years passage of time since the handover of Hong Kong, there has been no change in the fate of Hong Kong people in their arduous striving for freedom. The English title of the film, Our Time Will Come, embodies a double meaning that is an apparent encouragement to those involved in their fight for this dream, not surprisingly leading many to ascribe to Ann Hui a “hidden agenda” in directing the movie, one that has even been interpreted as a “post-Umbrella Movement film”[68] by many critics.[69] Deanie Ip, a Hong Kong actress who won a number of local and international film awards for Best Actress for her role in A Simple Life (Ann Hui, 2011) as well as Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards for her enactment of the role of Mrs. Fong in Our Time Will Come, was left out of promotional advertising in the mainland of Our Time Will Come due to her support of the Umbrella Movement and her public participation in the singing of the movement’s anthem Raise the Umbrella. The movie was furthermore disqualified from appearing as the opening film in the Shanghai International Film Festival due to her role in the movie.[70]

Hong Kong film critics have nevertheless generally viewed Our Time Will Come as a “failed” Main Melody film, given that Ann Hui excised nearly all “red” elements from the movie. The movie won five awards at the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Deanie Ip), Best Original Film Score (Hisaishi Joe), and Best Art Direction (Man Lim-chung and Billy Li). For a “Main Melody” film, such an achievement is rare in the context of Hong Kong.

As noted earlier, Peter Chan has been frequently lauded by the mainland media as the most successful Hong Kong filmmaker ever to have moved northward. His film American Dreams in China, introduced above, attained a record high of over 100 million RMB (US$ 15.11 million) in box office in China within a mere three days after its release. As a Hong Kong film critic commented about this film, “This time, Peter Chan has been determined to serve the cause of the Main Melody movie.”[71] American Dreams in China not only promotes the “Entrepreneurship Dream,” it also conveys a sense of patriotic satisfaction in having conquered the United States. Such an approach undoubtedly fulfils the official goal of achieving “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” through realization of the “Chinese Dream.” Nonetheless, the film’s intriguing title American Dreams in China raises the question of a possible covert message from Chan. The three dream chasers in the movie who make a fortune starting up English-language-education institutions but who seem bent on pursuing the “American Dream” rather than a “Chinese Dream,” suggests that the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” is in actuality depends on the realization of an “American Dream.”

The latter part of the film is adapted from a legal dispute that actually took place in 2001 between New Oriental and the American Educational Testing Service (ETS). That year the ETS sent a public letter to U.S. universities questioning the reliability of GRE scores submitted by mainland exchange students. The letter implies that New Oriental had used past exam questions from the GRE without authorization from the ETS. On February 23, 2001, ETS officially sued New Oriental through the First Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, resulting eventually in a verdict issued on September 27, 2003, convicting New Oriental for infringement of copyright and trademark and ordering it to pay over 10 million RMB (US$ 1.51 million) in compensation. New Oriental subsequently appealed the judgment in the Beijing High Court, which on December 27, 2004, affirmed the lower court ruling but lowered the amount of compensation to 3.74 million RMB (US$ 0.56 million).[72]

What is missing in the plot is any mention of the final resolution to the lawsuit whereby New Oriental was ordered to make compensation in the way described above. Instead, the film portrays a win-win situation, suggesting that the Americans are willing to reconcile and cooperate with New Oriental because they are convinced by Cheng Dongqing and his partners that, while admitting they had infringed on copyright law, their reasons for doing so were because of unfair treatment they had received at the hands of the Americans, in particular the unwillingness of the Americans to extend to them a level playing field in accordance with the American principle of equal opportunity under the law; this was the situation despite the great talent and industriousness of Cheng and his partners, as portrayed in a vivid demonstration in one of the central scenes in the film of his superb powers of memory. Highlighted in the film is the fervent desire of entrepreneurs like Cheng for respect from the Americans and a “Chinese logic” by which such respect can and ultimately will be earned by means of financial power. This logic is, of course, starkly different from the reality that New Oriental was ordered to pay compensation to the ETS. One critic’s comment, “This time, Peter Chan has been determined to serve the cause of the Main Melody movie,” may have perhaps missed Chan’s intention to mock this “Chinese logic.” Chan may have interpreted this attitude as, in fact, reflecting an inferiority complex among the Chinese, a negative feeling buried within the slogan “Rise of the Great Power.” Such an attitude impels them to achieve through financial means what cannot be gained by means of talent alone, even if that requires resorting to means considered unethical in the West. The Chinese title of this film literally means “Chinese (business) partners (Zhongguo hehuoren),” and that idea may also reflect Chan’s own identity as one who has worked in the mainland over many years and whose relation with China is no more than that of a business partner, based purely on financial interests.

In terms of commercial accomplishment, Dante Lam is another widely-known example of a Hong Kong filmmaker who has achieved success through producing Main Melody films. Both Operation Mekong and Operation Red Sea were military action films directed by Lam that gained great popularity in the mainland.

The superhuman, even deified, portrayal of Chinese soldiers in Operation Mekong accords perfectly with the aims of China in fulfilling its “Military Dream."	Operation Red Sea became China’s second highest-grossing movie ever.

The superhuman, even deified, portrayal of Chinese soldiers in these movies accords perfectly with the aims of China in fulfilling its “Military Dream.” Critic Lu Yan-shan has commented that there are only a handful of Hong Kong filmmakers who have truly been brainwashed by the “party-state ideology,” and Dante Lam is one of them.[73] Yet even Operation Mekong and Operation Red Sea adopt a Hollywood style to the greatest extent possible, every aspect of the film reflecting a commercial calculation based on “form” over “content.”[74] The same can be said of Wolf Warrior II, the film directed by Wu Jing that became China’s highest-grossing movie ever (followed in second place by Operation Red Sea). These three films, together with Wolf Warrior (Wu Jing, 2015), all place emphasis on imitating classic Hollywood movies, all aim to deify the PLA and Chinese military might, prominently exhibiting Main Melody characteristics.

Amazing Grace: the deathknell of the Main Melody

In contrast to Dante Lam, Wu Jing, though having experience making action movies in Hong Kong, is a native Manchu who was born in Beijing. Whether affirmative or negative in their appraisal of his Wolf Warrior II, critics have tended to one-sidedly focus on the way it embodies the national consciousness of China “rising up.”[75] In the process, however, the critics have missed the most crucial hint to understanding this movie’s importance. Such a hint is embedded in a scene where one of the captured African female hostages, seeing that Leng Feng, played by Wu Jing, is about to be killed, bursts out singing the famous gospel song Amazing Grace. Written in 1773 by the English clergyman John Newton, it was inspired by the writer’s experience of desperately asking for the mercy and salvation of God when a cargo ship he was on almost sank in a violent storm off the coast of Ireland during his early years when he was engaged in the black slave trade. The religious meaning of the song is very explicit, and it is diametrically opposed to the notion of “promoting socialist core values.” It is certainly not in conformity with Marxist ideas on historical dialectical materialism, regarded by the CCP as a scientific worldview providing the only correct ideological and methodological foundation for undertaking sociopolitical revolution. Thus, on at least two occasions at international and domestic forums, so iconic a representative of the CCP as Zhou Enlai said, “We, the members of the CCP, are atheists who believe in communism and no other religion.”[76] The attitude of hostility toward Christianity is evident in numerous reports in recent years of churches in the mainland being demolished and Christian activities being placed under increasing restrictions.[77]

In other words, in Wolf Warrior II, that is, March of the Volunteers and other “red” songs,[78] have been replaced by a hymn seeking help from God and embodying the “anti-Main Melody” idea that when faced with hard times, it is religious faith in Jesus Christ to which people can turn for salvation, not communist ideology. Interestingly, many mainland netizens have spoken of feeling deeply touched in seeing an African woman singing Amazing Grace in the film, some audiences shedding tears despite knowing nothing about the song.[79]

Along with exploiting the power inherent in Amazing Grace, this movie also recruited the talent of many Western artists who participated in the production of Captain America: The First Avenger (Joseph Eggleston, 2011), which became a big hit (84.7 million RMB, US$ 12.8 million) when it was released in September 2011 in China. The actress chosen by Wu Jing, Celina Jade, to perform the role of the heroine in Wolf Warrior II was, furthermore, Chinese American. These aspects of the film suggest in no subtle way that the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” for Wu cannot be separated from the narrow ideas of defeating Western men and conquering Western women. Although the film violates the pronouncements of Xi Jinping in his 2014 Talk on Literature and Art, wherein he pointedly targets for criticism “considering the West as nobility,” “considering the West as beauty,” “following Western values obediently,” and “blindly imitating [the West] with ludicrous effect,”[80] it is the great irony of contemporary Chinese cinema that Wolf Warrior II has been praised as “one of the most successful Main Melody movies [ever]”[81] by the Chinese official media Liberation Daily and even selected by China to compete for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards (where it failed to be nominated in the first stage of competition).

Appearing very closely in time to Wolf Warrior II, though much less successful in box office (grossing US$ 334 million worldwide as against a production budget of US$ 150 million),[82] The Great Wall (Zhang Yimou, 2016) is another movie that some have considered emblematic of the Main Melody genre.[83] The film does appear to present a strong China in military terms, and the plot does have westerners coming to China to steal the secret of gunpowder, a symbol of China’s technological strength and an apparent rebuttal of the criticism directed against China in recent times for its attempts to steal Western technology. Closer analysis reveals, however, that this view is not tenable. The film is, in the first place, one produced using U.S. capital, and the plot portraying a white man, the erstwhile thief of the gunpowder technology, has him be ultimately the saviour of China in the way he subdues the intruding monster. The storyline, then, is hardly one consistent with the Main Melody objective of promoting “party-state ideology.”[84] In fact, the script is somewhat more complex, as what saves China in the movie is not the white westerner acting alone, but rather the “trust” (xinren in Chinese) achieved between him and the Chinese. The monster appearing in the film (Taotieh, one of the four evil creatures of ancient Chinese mythology), is green in color and emerges at intervals of 60 years to threaten the unity and stability of China. In that way it quite arguably represents Taiwan, with the threat it posed to China 60 years earlier under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, and again in contemporary times under the leadership of the DPP (member of the so-called pan-Green coalition), a feature which may seem consistent with the Main Melody focus point of disparaging enemies of the CCP. This is difficult to reconcile, however, with the portrayal of a westerner, played by Matt Damon, clearly identifiable as an American, in the role of defender of China, given the United States’ role as the strongest supporter of Taiwan in the real world today.[85] The temporal setting of the plot, moreover, is during the Sung dynasty, one of the militarily weakest of China’s major historical dynasties, with the emperor and his court portrayed in the film as incapable and ineffective; this could hardly be symbolically taken as supporting a strong “party-state ideology.” An analysis, finally, of the visual effects and promotional strategies of The Great Wall reveal close affinities with Godzilla (Ronald Emmerich, 1998), a Hollywood film adaptation of the classic Japanese monster movie, with Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, and Hank Azaria cast in the role of white heroes who together defend New York from the alien monster, something evident from even a casual glance at the posters created to promote the film. The Great Wall imitates Hollywood only in an attempt to heighten the film’s entertainment value and consequent commercial potential. There’s no strategy to promote “party-state ideology”; to the contrary the film detracts from that ideology, exactly along the lines of Xi Jinping’s criticism of the current state of Chinese literature and art.

Poster of The Great Wall showing the paw of the monster “Taotieh."	Poster of Godzilla.
Poster of Godzilla with a close up of the eye of Godzilla.	Poster of Godzilla showing the paw of Godzilla.

Conclusion

Coupled with the rise of China in the 21st century has been the rise of the Internet. Never before has a regime or period been subject to surveillance on a scale like that which has occurred with the advent of “netizens.” It is a fact that netizens have emerged as a major force exerting pressures on the governance of a country like China.[86] Despite attempts by the government to control the Internet by blocking or intercepting access to what it considers inappropriate content, it is unable to fully prevent netizens from unblocking filtered websites and expressing their feelings and opinions on Internet platforms. In a similar way, netizen power also holds great sway over the success or failure of films.

For example, My War, a 2016 Main Melody movie adaptation of Ba Jin’s novel Reunion, was originally poised to achieve enormous commercial success. Produced by CFGC, incorporating 3D effects, featuring the topic of war, released during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday period, directed by a Hong Kong director (Oxide Pang), with a script written by Liu Heng, and starring Liu Ye, every indicator predicated success for the film, until a boycott was initiated by netizens because of their discontent with a promotional video for the movie in which a Korean female tour guide is treated by some Chinese veterans “inhumanly.”[87] The resulting poor box office gross covered less than a quarter of the production costs of the film. Contemporaneous with this, The Hundred Regiments Offensive (Ning Haiqiang and Zhang Yuzhong, 2015) was released in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Anti-Japanese War. Though its promoters boasted box office revenues of over 100 million RMB (US$ 15.11 million) within two days of its release, its success was suspected by netizens of being something faked. Official efforts to urge people to watch the film were an attempt to counteract prevailing attitudes among netizens:

“Main Melody films have no market power at all because the younger generations, which dominate viewership ratings, have no interest in such Main Melody movies. Moreover, they generally have a vigilant and resistant attitude toward films that promote collectivism. The ones that perform better in the market are Hollywood films that embody individualism and humanity. The market and box office revenues claimed for Main Melody movies, are, on the contrary, a sheer fabrication.”[88]

And film producers have a harder time escaping such “surveillance” by netizens than do government officials. To reiterate Han Sanping’s comment above,

“It is not difficult to make a film that political leaders are satisfied with; however, to make audiences feel satisfied, it is the making of an ‘enjoyable’ film that we will take as our understood goal.”[89]

In order to strictly follow this logic and impress audiences, motivating them to pay willingly for movie tickets, the best approach for Main Melody films is in fact to “downplay” their Main Melody characteristics. Given current market conditions, mainland filmmakers, whether representing national or private enterprises, have no choice but to rely on the experience and skills of Hong Kong directors. Even Main Melody films that have garnered high acclaim in the mainland, such as American Dreams in China and The Taking of Tiger Mountain, typically contain a few “hidden messages.”

In conclusion, Main Melody movies as traditionally understood have in recent years been charting a path to extinction due to the high degree of commercialization demanded of movies in the 21st century. Promotion of the “party-state ideology” no longer ranks as their highest mission. In the era of Xi Jinping, Main Melody films placed emphasis on the notion of “Rich Nation, Strong Army,” which inevitably meant that they had to forgo any historical perspective casting China as a “victim of imperialism,” a perspective prominently upheld during the regime of Jiang Zemin. On the contrary, Main Melody movies have had to follow the pattern of Wolf Warrior II, putting effort into deifying the Chinese economy and military and gaining international attention. Such consciousness of China as a “strong nation” has unavoidably intensified conflicts between China and Hong Kong as well as China and Taiwan, resulting in the failure of Main Melody movies to achieve the “united front” that figured so prominently among its priorities early in the new century. Main Melody movies have to the contrary even become the target of laughter and disdain by audiences in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Cairo Declaration and The Hundred Regiments Offensive were released in one Hong Kong theater only (Amoy Theater in Kowloon Bay, which is now closed); Wolf Warrior II in Hong Kong received a meagre 5 million HKD (US$ 0.63 million) in box office revenue, a survey of Hong Kong youth revealing that they have “no interest in such a national film filled with patriotic sentiment.”[90] Most Main Melody movies are not even released in Taiwan, supposedly because of the quota system imposed by Taiwan on mainland movies (10 films per year), but in fact more likely due to differing political stances and the anticipation of a likely negative reception in the Taiwanese market. A rare exception of a Main Melody movie released in Taiwan was The Message, which received a highly positive reception there.[91] This can be attributed to the relatively friendly relations that prevailed between the CCP and the KMT, the ruling party in Taiwan, in 2009 and the effort of Chen Kuo-fu to erase as completely as possible any Main Melody emphases from the film.

Moreover, the strategy adopted by some Hong Kong filmmakers of producing movies covertly opposed to Main Melody ideals and using “red” capital to tell the “truth” in a paradoxical way has proved increasingly difficult because of tighter and more conservative policy restrictions implemented following the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the speech on Literature and Art by Xi Jinping in the same year. After having devoted himself to the commercialization of Main Melody movies, Han Sanping announced his retirement as Chairman of the CFGC and China Film Co., Ltd in 2014, representing a major shift in the Chinese film industry on a scale similar to that of Chen Kuo-fu leaving Huayi Brothers in 2013. Reorganizations such as these that have taken place in personnel structures in the movie business bespeak how effective and influential the speech by Xi has been. The effects are not likely to be limited to Main Melody movies, but, as noted by Hong Kong director Johnnie To, commercial films with political implications—such as Drug War, a 2013 China-Hong Kong action thriller portraying insoluble social and political incompatibilities between mainland China and Hong Kong—are also likely to be impacted and less likely to appear henceforth on the silver screen in the mainland.[92] ­

In order to meet the standards of netizens and audiences, Main Melody movies will inevitably have to become more commercialized, unavoidably leading to a situation where a greater variety of forms of entertainment will need to be adopted to counteract increasingly severe political uncertainties. However, when literature and art in China are confronted by criticism from the top leader that they are being led by the nose by current market interests, there is no doubt that they will continue to seek umbrage by using the Main Melody label, even though it has lost its original content and continues to exist in name only. Filmmakers need to do so in order to survive in the seesaw battle between “political correctness” and “market reality.”