copyright 2021, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media
Jump Cut, No. 60, spring 2021

Established and emerging filmmakers in Hong Kong:
a generational tug‐of‐war

by Fangyu Chen

From 2014 to 2015, I was working in a film company in Hong Kong and busy with the production of a large-budget action film jointly produced by Hong Kong and mainland Chinese companies. We had an international core production team. The cinematographer was from the U.S., and his assistant was an Australian. Our second assistant director was Singaporean of Malaysian extraction, while the team managing the unmanned aerial vehicles came from Taiwan. Besides Hong Kong, the project was also shot in multiple locales, including Shanghai, Taiwan and Thailand. In each place, the production team was primarily comprised of a large number of locally recruited film workers, led by a small group of department heads and their assistants who were mostly Hong Kong film practitioners.

The production stage happened to coincide with the course of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, a 79-day political protest demanding universal suffrage in the elections to pick the city’s top leader. The appeal later escalated into a protest against the political interference and impaired freedom of speech imposed by the Chinese government, as well as against the constant influx of mainland tourists and immigrants. Throughout the city, the conflict between Hong Kong and the mainland became a matter of heated public debate.  

Every day after work, some of the Hong Kong staff, usually the younger ones, would pack and go to the demonstration sites, spend nights sleeping in tents there and return to work the next day. As a co-production, part of the shooting had to be done in mainland China, so no matter what political controversies were embroiling their hometown, or their personal beliefs about those controversies, these filmmakers had to travel north to work.  Later, with my increasing contact with more Hong Kong film practitioners, both established and emerging ones, I gradually perceived that the current young generation is developing their filmmaking ideas entirely different from, or even in opposition to, the previous generation of filmmakers, those who contributed to the huge successes of Hong Kong cinema in its Golden Age from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The young ones, situated in a labour market in which most of the employment opportunities are created by co-productions or mainland productions, have very complex and largely negative sentiments towards the so-called “Chinese Motherland.” The career options for some of these young people, confined to working in Hong Kong by their aversion to China’s politics or/and culture, are limited to the local labour market with scant employment opportunities, most of which are only available in low- and medium-budget productions.

This experience was the inspiration for my writing a series of papers, of which this is the first. In order to trace the contours of discrepancies between established and emerging filmmakers, in 2018, I conducted 47 in-depth interviews with Hong Kong film practitioners. Through snowball sampling, I first reached out to colleagues in the film company I previously worked for, as well as my previous classmates in the Film Academy of Hong Kong Baptist University. Later on, I expanded the search area for interviewees through referrals from these original respondents.

Demographic investigation of the respondents shows that 13 were of the generation who entered film production between the 1970s and the 1980s and are still active in the industry. In this paper, I refer them as the “established generation” or the “older generation.” Within this group, some directors are considered participants in the “Hong Kong New Wave Cinema” that occurred between the late 1970s to 1980s, whom I also describe as the “baby boomer New Wave filmmakers.”  Interviewees from the current young generation, intriguingly, can be divided into two groups, the first being those young people who have struggled in the film industry for some time, only starting to gain a foothold in this very precarious business recently. They are primarily the post-80s generation and have a relatively less radical political stance towards mainland China. These 16 young film practitioners have widely diverse occupations within the industry, including directors, producers, actors, cinematographers, assistant directors, production assistants, set coordinators, assistant editor, and more.

The other group is younger and greener. Some are freshly graduated from film schools and have recently entered the industry, while others are working part-time in the crews while studying in film-related courses. These youngsters primarily belong to the post-90s generation and tend to have more rebellious opinions regarding Hong Kong/Mainland relations. Among the 18 young interviewees who are currently studying, some attend three universities in Hong Kong, including the Film Academy of Hong Kong Baptist University, the School of Film and Television in Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and the Communication and Crossmedia programme (film track) in Chu Hai College of Higher Education. Their education levels vary from Higher Diploma (diploma in vocational education) to postgraduate degree. In my research, I refer to interviewees from the post-80s and the post-90s generations as the “young generation.” Some of these directors can also be classified as “Hong Kong SAR New Wave” filmmakers, a term on which I will elaborate later.

The three groups of respondents generally represent three perspectives:

• that of the established film practitioners, who have a vested interest in the current co-production situation;
• that of the emerging young film practitioners, who above all crave a flourishing local film market and whose productions exhibit stronger Hong Kong cultural identities;
• lastly, that of the film students, who were predominantly born in the 1990s and have the most extreme views against mainland China and whose filmmaking ideologies and practices foreshadow the future of the industry.

These interviews, combined with data gathered from multiple resources, form the data set from which the conclusions of this paper are drawn.

I interviewed both established and young film practitioners individually in a face-to-face setting in order to yield the best information. Considering that young students may be subject to peer pressure, especially since the research topic involves each individual’s political stance, which could be a sensitive topic, a few pilot interviews were conducted with each on a one-on-one basis first. When my identity as a mainlander seemed to be hindering them from expressing themselves on questions related to Hong Kong/Mainland relations, I instead adopted a focus group model, which encouraged more open discussion and conversation. The interviews were semi-structured, with a duration that normally spanned 1.5 to 2 hours (though the longest one lasted for 6 hours). On top of 20 standard questions, more topics were developed in the course of the interview, which tended to flow naturally from what preceded. In this way, I also discovered hidden themes. Immediately after each interview, I wrote summaries and later transcribed the audio recordings verbatim. Before the next interview, these transcripts were tentatively analysed to adjust questions, and the way of asking them. In the final stage, I organized all the data with the help of Nvivo Software to link what the respondent said to the concepts and categories that appeared, thus could establish the patterns, categories and themes that follow.

To better understand the emerging young generation of Hong Kong film practitioners, I needed to draw a contrast between them and their predecessors. That older generation contributed to the prosperity and stellar reputation of Hong Kong Cinema from the 1970s to early 1990s, and they had joined the then flourishing film market and worked under circumstances that were entirely different than those of the young generation. Nevertheless, before we start such comparisons, I must also indicated the context, scope and criteria that I employ in order to justify the division into these two clusters.

Filmmakers as two clusters: established and young generation

The filmmakers being studied in this paper are those who are generally considered “commercial” and who work in the Hong Kong cinema, deemed an industrialized business sector. In reality, it is problematic to draw a clear line between mainstream/commercial and independent filmmakers in Hong Kong, particularly after the new millennium when Hong Kong cinema entered the co-production era.

Independent film in the United States is typically considered to be work made outside major Hollywood studios. As Ortner puts it, it is “the antithesis of a Hollywood studio film” (2012:2) [open references in new window] and several contrasts can be drawn between the two: Hollywood films are aimed at entertaining, money making, while independent ones tend to deal with more serious subject matters, usually more political and critical; Hollywood films are normally big-budgeted whereas independent ones are low-budged; the former classically have happy endings , while the latter rarely do. But admittedly, there is no clear binary contrast between them – a Hollywood film could be low-budget and thought-provoking, and an independent one could well aim to be lucrative.

In retrospect, Hong Kong’s large-scaled film studios such as Shaw Brothers, Cathay, and Golden Harvest, dominated film production on the island city from the 1950s to the 1980s. Outside of these big studios, there remained room for non-mainstream filmmaking. Local independent productions emerged first in the 1960s, flourished in the 1970s, fell silent in the 1980s with the prosperity of Hong Kong commercial filmmaking, and were resuscitated in the 1990s thanks to the sponsorship from Hong Kong Arts Development Council, which was set up to support the development of arts in the territory (Cheung, 2010 & Cheung, Marchetti, and Tan, 2010). The established generation I refer to in this paper is the group of mainstream filmmakers that was working in the industry in the Golden Age of 1980s and early 1990s before the industry went into decline.

Outside of the world of commercial filmmaking, there exists a group of established filmmakers who have enriched Hong Kong cinema with their alternative filmmaking styles and ideologies. People such as Yu Lik-wai, Vincent Chui, Yan Yan Mak, Miu-suet Lai, Wah-chuen Lam, Yau Ching and more, came to the fore in the 1990s and often made their first independent feature films with subsidies from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. It was relatively easier to demarcate the independent filmmakers from the mainstream ones during the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema, when film production was highly commercialised. In contrast, the line dividing them now seems rather nebulous and contestable since the industry’s decline at the beginning of the new millennium.

The very concept of “independent filmmaking” has received much criticism.  Kempton (2010) put forward a series of questions as to what independent filmmaking is: is it marked by a lack of major studio support, the film’s nonmainstream appeal, the director’s indifference to the box office performance, or the aesthetics or subject matter films deal with? Not to mention the fact that filmmaking is a teamwork with tens or hundreds of people’s efforts, and an incredibly costly activity that involves many forms of investment from governments, foundations, corporations, private investors and more. Additionally, a distribution system has to deliver the film to local and world audiences. Kempton exclaims that, “no film is an island” (2010:95). With these multiple inter-dependencies, how could a film or a filmmaker ever be called independent?

The situation is particularly intricate in Hong Kong. Some films that purportedly proclaim themselves independent were made with the help of commercial film celebrities, such as The Runaway Pistol (2002, dir. Wah-chuen Lam) (see Cheung, 2010:34). Some independent filmmakers themselves had substantial experience working in the film industry before their own independent filmmaking. Finally, some works were made by filmmakers who juggle both independent and commercial filmmaking. Fruit Chan, Ann Hui, Stanley Kwan and Herman Yau are outstanding representatives of this group of people, who are described by  Ackbar Abbas as “occupying an in-between space between art and commerce” and who while “working in the industry maintain an ‘intimate’ but ‘critical’ relationship with the commercial film culture in which they are situated” (see Cheung, 2009:8-9). Consequently, Cheung argues that, independent cinema in Hong Kong should not be understood as a totality that is self-sufficient and isolated from more commercial cinema, but instead, one should recognize that they “influence each other thematically and stylistically” (Cheung, 2009:8 & Cheung, 2010).

In the interviews Cheung (2010) did with Hong Kong independent filmmakers, they claimed the concept of “independence” was a spirit or an attitude. Yan Yan Mak said, “We insist on making our own films” and “Hong Kong audiences should start to understand the ‘independent spirit’ rather than the term ‘independent film’” (see Cheung, 2010:130), and Vincent Chui describes it as an attitude that “if you won't let me make the film, I'll do it myself" (see Cheung, 2010:130). Kempton (2010) aptly sees that this independence

“originates less from the production side — i.e., a lack of studio financing — and more from the independent community’s self-styled imaginative construction of the independent film ideal, a counterpublic embodying the so-called ‘indie spirit’ through attempts to define itself as distinct from the mainstream” (Kempton, 2010:95).

In Hong Kong, as Lee argues, the “counterpublicness” independent films perform is a “essential quality of ‘friction’ against a dominant public “ (2013:9-10) and a “site of resistance to the double hegemony of the national and the colonial that characterizes Hong Kong’s peculiar coloniality” (Lee, 2013:5). Thus, it is from the ideological level, the “independent spirit” or “counterpublicness” that independent films possess, that scholars typically draw the line between commercial films and independent films, instead of a set of more objective conditions, due to the difficulties discussed above.

Since the new millennium, it is increasingly impossible to clarify the line of demarcation between mainstream and non-mainstream films. As Szeto & Chen see it, contemporary Hong Kong cinema is facing a major ontological crisis that is causing an overall transformation in Hong Kong’s film production, labour structure, industrial behaviour and more. The overwhelming power emanating from mainland China gives unprecedented importance to the mainland film market for Hong Kong filmmakers (Szeto and Chen, 2012). The “mainlandization” of the Hong Kong film industry, as Szeto and Chen have termed it (2012:116-117), has marginalized local film production to the level that a preponderance of local productions, if not all of them, are increasingly exhibiting features that were widely considered to be hallmarks of independent filmmaking:

• small budgets; 
• the involvement of very few big media companies;
• themes and subject matters relating to the quotidian life of local citizens and the lower classes;
• typically poor box office returns;
• an attempt to arouse public awareness instead of providing entertainment; among others.

The outflow of Golden Age Hong Kong film practitioners to the mainland has largely left the current local film production ecosystem to the young generation, with the notable exception of the sporadic efforts made by established filmmakers who shuttle back and forth between projects on the mainland and at home. Consequently, when investigating the young filmmakers, it is difficult to discern independent ones from commercial ones, as the division between mainstream and non-mainstream filmmakers is very much blurred by the overall context of local productions being collectively marginalised in Hong Kong cinema, which makes it challenging to compare this group with the Golden Age filmmakers.

In many ways, all movies made recently bear a striking resemblance to independent films made in the 80’s and 90’s.  Thanks to the subsidies from the SAR government, a majority of current local productions have obtained celebrities for their casts, as well as theatrical releases, much as independent films previously did. Additionally with their film contents relating to quotidian life, marginal people, and the lower classes, both address many similar themes and social issues.

Some young directors have been involved in both the production of independent and commercial films, such as Jevons Au Man-kit (Ten Years, 2015 and Trivisa, 2016) and Chow Kwun-wai (A Complicated Story, 2013 and Ten Years, 2015). My interviewees, including an independent (Interview 16) and a commercial film director (Interview 34), have expressed similar ideas of pursing creative freedom as their major motive for filmmaking. Additionally, the politically-charged independent film Ten Years (2015) turned into a sensation after its release, and it moved into the mainstream of local filmmaking, opening the door for other local productions to exhibit an increased level of political consciousness.

The difficulties of separating independent filmmakers from commercial filmmakers both before and after Hong Kong cinema’s entering a period of decline, have created actual hurdles in comparing filmmakers of different generations. Here I follow Ortner’s (2012) discussion about dividing mainstream Hollywood films from independent ones. She states that there are two issues in the demarcation of the groups. First, the definitions of Hollywood film and independent film are not fixed. The fact that Hollywood films often have complicated characters and serious subject matter, combined with the existence of independent films that receive funding from major studios and have happy endings does challenge the notion of a drawing a line distinctly between them. But in terms of quantity, high-budget, entertaining, and formulaic films have always constituted the majority of Hollywood’s total output. Similarly, low-budget films with serious themes and subject matters have long represented a greater percentage of the production of independent film. I argue a similar phenomenon is present in Hong Kong cinema. From this perspective, commercial filmmaking has always outnumbered independent filmmaking in terms of the number of practitioners, range of production, and influence. Lee acknowledges that, despite the sea change brought by the development of the Hong Kong and Mainland film industries, “independent film scene seems to have remained, as it were, a minority interest and a marginal presence amidst these changes” (2013:4). However, I do not mean to undercut the cultural contribution of certain independent films and particularly how they help to shape cultural identity. 

The second issue, as Ortner (2012) observes, is that there is a spectrum of what can be seen as an independent film. As she claims, the spectrum has two ends, one is more “Hollywood,” while the other is more avant-garde and experimental. This is precisely the case in Hong Kong cinema. For example, The Runaway Pistol (2002, dir. Wah-Chuen Lam), produced with the help of film celebrities, could be seen near the commercial film end, while the documentary Rice Distribution (dir. Tammy Cheung, 2002) might be closer to the other end. Film independence being a scalar concept, the question of where to draw a dividing line between independent and mainstream film remains open to interpretation. For the purpose of contrast, Ortner (2012) has to write as if there were a clear line between independent films and Hollywood films. And for the propose of this study, I have to escape from the mission of filtering out the independent films from the commercial ones, given all the actual difficulties we discussed above.

Instead, I see Hong Kong cinema before and after its decline in the 90s as two totalities, and each features clearly defined characteristics prevalent in most film practitioners. In the 1980s and early 1990s, most of film practitioners were working in mainstream filmmaking, thus leading to a notable focus on commercial success. After 2000, a greater degree of politicization has been exhibited among younger film practitioners, who are seen as the most politically aware generation in history, and who are driving the development of Hong Kong cinema in the absence of the established generation. From this perspective, we start the comparison of the two clusters by examining the two cinematic trends: those of the Hong Kong New Wave and the Hong Kong SAR New Wave cinemas.

Two generations of cinematic New Waves

In its 110-year history, Hong Kong cinema has had a massive influence on world film culture and the global film industry. Since the arrival of talkies in the early 1930s, Cantonese films and Mandarin films took turns dominating the Hong Kong market. As the local dialect, Cantonese was the major language used in films here before the Second World War. Nevertheless, with the influx of mainland immigrants after the war, Mandarin films gained popularity on the island city from the mid-1940s until the mid-1970s, when Cantonese films made a comeback. Bucking the domination of big studios, which produced popular Mandarin martial art films, a large number of young and creative talents came back to Hong Kong in the late 1970s after studying abroad and made ground-breaking Cantonese films that initiated what became known as the “Hong Kong New Wave.” Starting around 1984, some productions gained international attention, which brought the movement into a phase seen by some as the “Second New Wave.” The New Wave was spurred by the unprecedented worldwide commercial success of Hong Kong cinema in the 1980s and early 1990s. These filmmakers were working in a Golden Age, situated in the context of a buoyant economy in Hong Kong. After Colonial Hong Kong became the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China) and the industry sunk into a slump around the mid-1990s, coproducing with mainland Chinese studios gradually emerged as a remedy for the ailing industry, and became a significant factor in the 2000s and 2010s. Young entrants to the filmdom have thus faced realities drastically different from those of their predecessors, and created what has become known as the “Hong Kong SAR New Wave.” From a historical point of view, the generational differences of the established and the young filmmakers overlap with these two major cinematic tides.

In Hong Kong New Wave Cinema:  1978-2000 (2008), Professor Cheuk Pak Tong gave an accurate and comprehensive introduction to this momentous cinematic tide:

“In the short span of eight years from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the Hong Kong film industry spawned a group of young directors aged about thirty. This brand-new force consisted of about thirty people, including Ann Hui, Yim Ho, Tsui Hark, Allen Fong, Patrick Tam, Clifford Choi, Dennis Yu and others. Most of them had received film training overseas, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom; then, at various points in time, joined several local television broadcasting institutions……. After gaining practical experience in film-making for several years in the television industry, many of them left and entered the film industry.”

“The infusion of so much indigenous new blood in the field of film was unprecedented in the 80-year history of Hong Kong cinema. Passionate about film and art, these new directors gradually got a feel for current social developments. They were familiar with what the audience liked and could make films with unique ideas, interesting themes, forceful images and unusual styles. Their works were widely accepted by the mass audience and also gained recognition from the news media and critics. This group of young directors, with their irrepressible attitude, was like a huge wave passing through a Hong Kong film industry that was then at a low tide, opening up a new terrain. People thus dubbed them ‘The New Wave’ of Hong Kong cinema.” (Cheuk, 2008: 7)

In the mid-1980s, the second wave emerged when directors such as Wong Kai-wai, Clara Law, Stanley Kwan, Mabel Cheung, Alex Law and many others, took their works to the major international film festivals and garnered critical acclaim as well as an international fanbase. As Marchetti summarises, if the first wave brought the world to Hong Kong through the return of directors who attended film schools abroad and subsequently sent them “home” to China to make Hong Kong/Mainland co-productions after the restrictions were loosened in China ([Boat People, 1982, dir. Ann Hui; [Homecoming], 1984, dir. Yim Ho, etc.], then the following second wave took Hong Kong to the world via the international presence of Hong Kong directors and their works, including those made in the United States, Australia, Argentina and more ([Illegal Immigrant], 1985, dir. Mabel Cheung; [A Floating Life], 1996, dir. Clara Law; [Happy Together], 1997, dir. Wong Kai-wai) (Marchetti 2012). To discuss the generation who created the New Wave, reviewing the history of the 1960s and 1970s is of great value.

Primarily born in the late 1940s to 1950s, the directors of the New Wave were born into the post-war baby boom and came of age in the 60s to 70s. The 1960s witnessed a worldwide turbulence that featured youth-led rebellions. In the British Colony of Hong Kong, the economy was growing steadily, with a GDP per capita of 400 USD that equivalent to those of Greece, Peru or South Africa (Dorn, 1998). Half of the population was under 25 years old due to the baby boom (Manion, 2004). The political situation was uneasy in this decade though, affected by anxieties about the Cultural Revolution in Mainland China and the accumulation of social grievances on the island. Several riots erupted and spurred the government to take measurements to ameliorate the prevalence of poor housing conditions, as well as improve public education and welfare.

In 1966, riots were sparked by the government’s decision to increase the fare of Star Ferry, an important mode of transportation for poor people, by 25 percent. A year later, even larger riots broke out between the Communists and their sympathisers, and the colonial government. Starting as a labour dispute, the riots soon grew into massive strikes and demonstrations that challenged British colonial rule. The leftist struggle gained the support of Beijing, thus rumours that the People’s Republic was going to take control of the colony began to spread. Rioters became more violent and resorted to terrorist tactics. The attempted overthrow of the colonial government was unsuccessful but planted seeds of fear of mainland China and the Communist regime among Hong Kong people. After the riots, investigations revealed that the alienation of the young generation, along with the terrible living conditions and blatant social inequality, were the underlying causes of the turmoil.

This post-war generation, as Fu (2000) outlines, “was estranged by the oppression of the dominant values and declared war against the established order,” and it “claimed to fight for the subalterns (women, minorities, and laborers), striving to build a new world of equality and unfettered liberty” (Fu, 2000:71). In Hong Kong, this generational conflict became acute in the 60s. Young people, unlike their refugee parents, criticised the colonial management, demanded an increased role in its politics, and claimed the city as their home. To their elders, they were “spoiled, restless, and dangerously westernised, turning their backs on traditional codes of behaviour (especially filial piety and discipline) and thereby posing a menace to the social order” (Fu, 2000:71). This is reminiscent of what the baby boomers have to say about the current generation of young Hong Kongers. As a British colony, Hong Kong citizens were known to be characteristically law-abiding and complacent (Lee, 2013). Accusing their baby boomer children of being “dangerously westernised,” the elder generation was dismayed with their children’s defiance of the colonial government, which was considered a “western” behaviour. The economy soared in Hong Kong during the 1970s, yet social issues such as income inequality, inflation, and low quality of life standards worsened during this boom. Young filmmakers at that era absorbed inspirations from the underbelly of society, social and political activism, and public conversations about local identity, creating the ground-breaking New Wave cinema movement and leading to the golden decades of Hong Kong cinema (Fu, 2000; Bordwell, 2011;Law, 2001). They, and the current young generations, bear a striking resemblance to each other. They are both disobedient, self-expressive, and concerned with the socially disadvantaged.

The ‘Hong Kong SAR New Wave’, as its name suggests, indicates a certain level of continuity with the baby boomer New Wave in the 1970s. Szeto & Chen (2012) have first used this term in scholarly discussion in 2012 to refer to a generation of Hong Kong directors who are:

“either (1) new directors coming of age and garnering serious local critical attention after Hong Kong becomes a Special Administrative Region of China (HKSAR); or (2) directors who have joined the industry earlier and may have substantial experience, but have only gained serious local critical attention and/or acclaim after 1997; but most importantly, (3) they are directors who are consciously and critically aware of themselves as working from a local condition very different from the pre-1997 Hong Kong, who takes on local issues with much greater Sinophone intra-local and inter-local awareness, and whose world-view depart from the chauvinist and xenophobic petitgrandiose Hong Kongism typical of pre-1997 Hong Kong colonial inferiority complex” (Szeto, 2006) (Szeto & Chen, 2012:122).

As Chu (2015) observes, the two generations of New Wave directors were both able to “present the unpresentable.” The baby boomer New Wave filmmakers experimented with new genres and methods of shooting film, distinguishing themselves from the traditional film masters such as Li Hanxiang and Chang Che; while SAR New Wave directors have been attempting to present contents that cannot be presented in the current co-production model. In a nutshell, Chu called the common ground as “refusing the consolation of correct forms” (Chu, 2015:114).

However, the two cinematic waves are essentially different due to market circumstances. When the baby boomer New Wave generation had just graduated from films schools overseas, various television stations in Hong Kong were actively seeking professionals. The scant supply of talents and the huge demand for content left them enormous room for creativity. The film industry during the 1970s was in a process of rapid market expansion. What the current young SAR New Wave filmmakers are currently facing, however, is sharp shrinkage of both the domestic and overseas markets, and a tough employment environment. The signature genre of Hong Kong cinema, gangster films, “has been facing a deadlock,” As Chu points out (2015: 116), co-producing with mainland Chinese companies would make such blockbusters possible, but their politically controversial themes and bloody scenes have turned producers to other ideologically safe and market-proven genres for release on the mainland. Meanwhile, local production, unable to fund big-budget films, has turned to ones with subaltern and (semi-)art-house themes, which further alienate mainstream audiences.

Optimistic about the SAR New Wave, Szeto and Chen (2012) gave a rave review of the young generation, asserting that their

“films are not loud and cocky like films made by the previous generation. They are low-key, grounded, inclusive, collaborative, open, but also very determined, principled and persistent, even in adversity. They look cool, but they mean hot” (Szeto & Chen, 2012:131).

Asked whether the SAR New Wave could eventually revive Hong Kong cinema, as their baby boomer New Wave predecessors did in the 1970s, David, a renowned film producer expressed dismay, saying:

“What does the word “industry” mean anyway? It means a variety of products, a standardized industrial process, and consumers that the manufacturers should study. Producing one single genre of films could not bring prosperity to the whole industry. During the peak time, we had gangsters, comedies, horror films, period films, erotic films, and so on and so forth. Now there is one: pathetic art films. Obviously, it is not an industry anymore.” — Interview 43 (David, film producer/scriptwriter)

Szeto and Chen (2012) have used a broad brush-stroke to paint the picture of Hong Kong SAR New Wave, considering works from filmmakers of any age, so long as they came to the fore after 1997 and are aware that their industrial conditions are considerably different than they were during colonial Hong Kong epoch. I, on the other hand, primarily focus on young people who were born between the 1970s and early 1990s, and who rose to prominence after the year 2000. These emerging young filmmakers are as markedly different from their predecessors, including both the baby boomer New Wave directors and other previous established film practitioners, in terms of filmmaking ideas and practices. In the next few sections, the divergences will be examined one at a time and reasons for them will be analysed as well.

Market-driven versus self-expressive

Hong Kong film practitioners active in the 1970s to 1990s value the significance of the market and audiences in their strategies of film production. In the interviews, 14 established filmmakers all stressed the necessity and value of considering the market and audience preference. As Lawrence, the director of production in a renowned film company, succinctly puts it, “a film that failed to sell well is a death sentence (for that filmmaker)” (Interview 7). Filmmaking is show business, and therefore an industry that consists of manufacturers, production processes, and consumers of movies. David, another interviewee, explains his philosophy as follows:

“We make films for audiences. I love art films personally, when I was doing my master’s degree in the Unites States, my thesis was about Bernardo Bertolucci. However, making a popular commercial film is much harder than making an art film, simply because you may have 50 people who enjoy the art film very much, but you have to make 1.5 billion people like your commercial film, which one is more difficult? So the rule is rather simple: always analyse your audience before making the film. Figure out who is your target audience and do your research well. The market is constantly changing for sure, so you need to keep studying it.” — Interview 43 (David, film producer/scriptwriter)

Looking over the borders, film production in mainland China in the 1980s and 1990s involved the birth of the fifth generation of filmmakers, who then greatly changed the face of filmmaking in China. In Taiwan, the so-called “Taiwan New Cinema” movement was also underway, largely due to the competition from Hong Kong films and the rise in popularity of home video rental. Both movements were keen on portraying realistic stories of life during or soon after the so-called “bitter years” of the Sino-Japanese and Chinese Civil Wars, and on offering a sympathetic perspective on the suffering of the populace. When compared to their mainland or Taiwanese counterparts in that era, Hong Kong filmmakers exhibited a much clearer commercial sensibility.

“In the late 80s and early 90s, mainland directors tended to speak about their cultural missions a lot in the seminars, as did the Taiwanese. We did not talk about it because it is pointless. The most critical thing is: does your film have audiences? If the answer is no, whatever cultural mission you are carrying, it does not make any sense. Every director has his or her original intention of making the film, we [Hong Kong directors] have passed that stage and entered to the next: how to make the audience to accept your work. Without audiences, everything is just pointless.”  — Interview 9 (Sing, director/scriptwriter/producer)

The established generation of Hong Kong producers has long been accused of catering to the mainland audience and abandoning the local market in favour of co-productions with mainland China. For them, it simply means applying the principle of putting the audience first. When the target audience shifted from local Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, Southeast Asians and the Chinese diaspora to millions of mainlanders, audience analysis turned to the question of what these mainlanders would prefer. Renowned director Clifton Ko Chi-Sum, talking about Hong Kong comedies in the 80s, said that they primarily used physical action instead of conversation to deliver the humour, as they were told by producers that audiences in Taiwan and Southeast Asia found it difficult to comprehend dialogue which contains puns and double entendres, but that a 300-pound-fattie tripping over a banana peel would make everyone laugh (Da & Su, 2018). The consideration of differing audience tastes in different markets shaped Hong Kong comedies of the 80s: they leaned heavily on physical comedy and fast cutting montage to appeal to diverse audiences.

This style appears in the most popular comedies in that era:

• The "Five Lucky Stars" Franchise[including the Winners and Sinners (1983); My Lucky Stars (1985); Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars (1985)] featuring Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan;
• Security Unlimited (1981) with Michael Hui;
• the Aces Go Places Franchise (1982-1984) staring Samuel Hui and Mak Ka;
• the Happy Ghost Franchise (1984-1991) featuring Raymond Wong;
• and Wong Jing-directed The Romancing Stars (1987).

These comedies were warmly received in Asia – some were even well-received in Anglophone markets – mostly due to their funny action scenes. In the early 1990s, Stephen Chow came to the fore with his unique style of non sequitur-based comedy, called “nonsense” (which in Cantonese is “Mo lei tau”). His works featured heavy use of Cantonese puns and exaggerated performances with imaginative plots to create a uniquely non-logical type of humour. The language barriers, as one can imagine, created real difficulties for non-Chinese speakers in understanding his wordplay-rich humour, which is likely one of the primary reasons why the likes of Jackie Chan and Jet Li are more well-known among non-Chinese moviegoers.

Another factor that contributed to the commercial orientation of that generation was the responsibility they had to their investors. As the respondents emphasized, a sustainable relation is impossible to build if you consistently lose your investor’s money. To them, directors who neglect the actual for-profit impetus of venture capitalists and care only about their own freedom of self-expression, are rather selfish.

In stark contrast to this profit-driven philosophy of filmmaking, the SAR New Wave generation values self-expression as a guiding ideology. These directors’ practices have two shared features: their demand for total freedom of expression and their desire to focus attention on various Hong Kong social issues.

Many, if not all, of the young film practitioners and students whom I interviewed have taken self-expression as their major driving force to study film and pursue careers in the field. Any restrictions imposed on their creative freedom, including the possible compromises one has to make to reach wider audiences in commercial and mainstream films, or the censorship system in mainland China one has to grapple with in co-production, have been met with strong resistance. ‘I make films however I want’ is a common creed of the young filmmakers, and a great majority of them have associated filmmaking with a responsibility to arouse social concern for the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden. As Ken, a young independent film maker explains:

“You have to awaken the awareness of Hong Kong people to be concerned with their own identities and their surroundings. These are not something a good box office return can achieve. Bringing up the awareness and discussion towards issues is the kind of success I want to have. After my last indie feature film, I had several projects in process but all failed in the end because I cared too much about their commerciality and eventually lost my passion. If making films are for earning money, I would rather take the job offer for a 15 second TV commercial!” — Interview 16 (Ken, young director)

“The Hong Kong market needs something different other than those action movies or comedies made by the older filmmakers, and box office is not the only measurement to determine what is a good movie and what is not…. I hope my work could attract audience but I do not put “what the audience needs” as a priority. To cause them to ruminate over some issues is my aim, and I get fulfilment from it.” — Interview 34 (Ben, young director)

Working in co-production projects has created difficulties for young practitioners due to the mainland censorship system, and become the least favourite option for film students. The restrictions mainland Chinese authorities put on the subject matter, plot, and dialogue hamper writers. Even if they are aware of the requirements, they find the regulations to be ambiguous and flexible, which makes it difficult for them to figure out what exactly is forbidden from appearing in films. Furthermore, their unfamiliarity with mainland lives has prevented many Hong Kong scriptwriters from creating stories that mainlanders can relate to. Au Man Kit Jevons, one of the directors of Ten Years (2015) has repeatedly expressed his frustration about working with Johnnie To’s company and dealing with co-productions. For example, the love story he wrote could not pass Beijing’s censorship “because I made fun of historical figures and was told it is subversive” (Zeng, 2016), but also the dialogue he created for mainland characters was not seen as authentic and convincing. Speaking of his experience of working in co-production projects, he concludes, “I just could not realize my value there” (He, 2018).

As a consequence, young filmmakers with similar worldviews have turned to making locally-oriented films. The telling of Hong Kong stories that young directors are more familiar with, along with other factors to be examined in the next section, have endowed contemporary Hong Kong cinema with a strong sense of localism that distinguishes it sharply from the transnationality that defined Hong Kong films of the Golden Age.

Transnationality versus localism

David Bordwell famously gave rave reviews to Hong Kong cinema at its peak, claiming it “is the regional cinema par excellence” (2000:61). The interviewees who made this excellence possible, without exception, assert the transnationality of Hong Kong cinema.

Its transnationality comes in every way: the industry was nurtured by immigrant energies, including that first generation of film talents who migrated from Shanghai, and members of baby boomer New Wave born or raised in Vietnam (Tsui Hark), Thailand (Peter Ho-sun Chan), South Africa (Lawrence Ah Mon), as well as many others who were educated in film schools in the United States or Europe.

During the production stage, Hong Kong film studios were known for shaping products to the tastes of different regions by sending preproduction synopses to regional distributors and making adjustments according to their feedback. Filmmakers were actively looking for co-production opportunities as well. Investments came in from everywhere, Taiwan particularly, and numerous films were shot in foreign backlots. Eventually, the products were released to meet worldwide audiences, not only the important Asian and Anglophone ones, but also to markets that tended to be overlooked by many, such as Africa and the Middle East. Additionally, the directors and their films participated in international film festivals. Both of these facts further contributed to the global popularity of Hong Kong cinema (Teo, 2004; Pang, 2010; Bordwell, 2011).

The export of these movies to the world also fuelled the rise of “Cantopop” (Cantonese pop music) in mainland China, as well as Southeast and East Asian nations in the 1980s and 1990s. Serving as the theme songs in Hong Kong movies, Cantopop constantly topped the charts in these countries before being eclipsed by Mandapop (Mandarin pop music) in Mainland China and Taiwan and K-pop (South Korean pop music) in the Koreas. The music and the film industries were in a harmonious and reciprocal relationship; it was not uncommon to see singers in movies regardless of their acting abilities (e.g. Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing) or actors releasing music albums despite their dubious possession of singing talent (e.g. Chow Yun Fat, Tony Leung Chiu Wai). The transnationality of Cantopop extends beyond its multinational fanbase to its propensity to absorb western music styles, even adapting foreign tunes and rewriting the lyrics into Cantonese, though this led to frequent criticisms of its lack of originality.

In film circles, the established film practitioners who were contributing to and nourished by the thriving industry are seen to be especially open-minded. ‘Get out of Hong Kong and see the world’ is common advice they give to young successors.

“Wherever there is a job, you should go and take it. Because you do not know what these life experiences and people you get acquaintance of could bring to you in the future.” — Interview 18 (Francis, director/cinematographer)

“We welcome competitors, they make us grow stronger. So I cannot identify with the current ‘localism’ trend among young people. Being local is to confine yourself in this limited space, and it brings no good.” — Interview 9 (Sing, director/ scriptwriter/ producer)

The ideological and regional differences between filmmakers from Hong Kong and elsewhere did not impede Hong Kong cinema in becoming ‘borderless’ long before the era of globalization, when successful multi-local and trans-local business operations were conducted as common practice (Yau, 2001; Zhang, 2003).

Sing’s apprehension above (Interview 9) stems from contrasting his approach to one common among younger filmmakers: resisting transnationality. They emphasize local investment, local stories, local spirits, and local audiences’ concerns. One generational fault line comes in identifying what defines a “Hong Kong movie.” The established generation, such as Peter Ho-sun Chan or Ann Hui, tend to believe that as long as the film is made by a Hong Konger, it should be counted as a Hong Kong movie (Szeto & Chen, 2013; Dai, 2016). Jackie Chan, during the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in March 2018, made the hotly debated claim that “there is one single category — that is Chinese Cinema [instead of the division of Mainland cinema and Hong Kong cinema]” (Chen, 2018).

The younger generation, on the contrary, considers two factors as indispensable to authentic Hong Kong movies. First of all the film should have a non-negotiable association with the locality named “Hong Kong.” Only stories that happen on this soil therefore deserve to be called Hong Kong films. Second, the majority of the cast and production crew have to be Hong Kongers as well. One of the major indications of a talent crisis in the Hong Kong film industry can be observed from the list of awardees of Hong Kong Film Awards each year. Mainland actors and actresses are dominating both the silver screen and the prize lists. Jenny Suen, a young director explicitly says that “if the major roles are not played by Hong Kongers, it will be meaningless to make any more Hong Kong films” [as citied in Luo (2017)]. This opinion reflects the views of many of Hong Kong’s nascent filmmakers.

The trend of localism exhibited among young filmmakers’ works can be seen in two recent production trends. First, young people have had difficulties working on co-production projects due to their unfamiliarity with mainland culture, as discussed previously. Second, and more positively, they often have a strong wish to protect and preserve the Hong Kong film industry and the local culture it represents.

In the co-production era, established film practitioners have collectively flocked to Beijing or Shanghai seeking greater financial resources. Their philosophy of consistently catering to the tastes of the target audience has increasingly made co-productions less palatable to Hong Kong moviegoers. These audiences, the SAR New Wave filmmakers believe, are being abandoned by experienced and renowned filmmakers, because “mainland money is much easier to earn” (Interview 34, Ben, director). Young filmmakers generally believe that without continuous film production the local industry which serves the Hong Kong audience will eventually disappear, and along with the languishing of Hong Kong cinema will come the destruction and disappearance of Hong Kong local culture.

Prior to the global outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, which halted film production on the island city, the quantity of local productions per year, taking from 2012 to 2018 as an example, fluctuated between 14 and 29 films. In contrast, the number of co-productions was between 16 and 41. For the former, in genres covering romance, comedies, horror, kung fu films and others, box office revenue in Hong Kong each year accounted for merely 1.73% to 7.91% of total movie ticket sales. Overseas box office for Hong Kong local productions is almost negligible. For one thing, not all local productions have had the opportunity to access world audiences. Looking at the data from 2018, 27 local productions were screened in Hong Kong with a total box office revenue of 58,926,444 HK dollars (approximately 7,600,000 US dollars) which amounts to 3.1% of the overall yearly ticket sales. Of the 27 films, the 3 that were released in mainland China, L Storm, The Lingering and Love Only, earned only 442,988 RMB (roughly 62,380 USD), 2,125 RMB (around 299 USD) and 1,559 RMB (around 219 USD) respectively. In Taiwan, 4 Hong Kong local productions were released in theatres with a box office revenue of 714,511 TWD (around 23,899 USD). 5 local films were able to reach audiences in Singapore and 2 were seen in Malaysia, where they created revenue of 308,817 SGD (around 218,267 USD) and 2,409,983 RM (554,770 USD), respectively. Outside the aforementioned areas only 2018’s L Storm successfully obtained theatrical release in Australia, where it generated sales of 54,644 AUD (35,865 USD) and in New Zealand, with a revenue of 7,935 USD.

Those films that stood out from other local productions and were able to be released in international markets saw their worldwide ticket sales dwarfed by those of China/Hong Kong co-productions. As apparently the most popular Hong Kong local production in that year, L Storm acquired in total just 2.9 million USD box office revenue, including in mainland China. For the sake of contrast, the 17 co-productions earned 9.791 billion RMB (around 1.378 billion USD) in the mainland Chinese film market only, which means that, on average, each film made 81 million USD, nearly 28 times the total worldwide revenue of the most profitable Hong Kong local production in 2018. There are limitation to drawing a comparison in this fashion, since the earning power of each film varies widely, but the aim is to exhibit how tremendous the gap is between the potential return on investment for local productions and co-productions for a producer looking at sales figures (see the series of reports A Collection of Information about Hong Kong Film Industry 2012 – 2018 released by the Hong Kong Film Development Council).

The weakening appetite for Hong Kong movies among Asian audiences, particularly in the Southeast Asia and Taiwan, once the most profitable overseas markets for the Hong Kong film industry, is due to a battery of complex reasons. Internally, film productions in the 1990s suffered from a decrease in quality due to the prevalent mentality of lighting-fast production, often churning out a film in few days. To reduce cost, producers tended to rush out copy-cat products whenever a certain type of film became popular. A large quantity of similar films was mass-produced rapidly, which also proved to be a solution for the skyrocketing remunerations of celebrities – the less time they stayed on the shooting locations, the lower the production cost was. The 1990s has also witnessed rampant piracy in Asia. Before a movie could be sold to overseas markets, it was available as pirated VCDs in markets. This crippled ticket sales in theatres in Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and other places, not to mention the local Hong Kong market. Noam, a veteran producer who joined the industry in the mid-1970s, recounts that:

“I initiated a project at that time which was a ghost film. My contacts in Malaysia and Singapore were very interested in it and they decided to invest 1 million Hong Kong dollars each, and we soon settled the contracts. After I faxed the Malaysian producer the synopsis and the crew list, he paid me 30,000 as a down payment and the second instalment of 300,000 was transferred before we finished the production after a month. Once it was completed, he told me that he was not going to pay for the rest since the movie was available in the VCD market in Kuala Lumpur. I was shocked because the final cut was not even released in Hong Kong, how did it get to Malaysia? My team and myself spent 7 years trying to find out who the mole was, and of course I cannot tell you who. My point is that, with piracy becoming increasingly widespread, the return on investment of film production in Hong Kong has deteriorated to the extent that small and medium-sized companies have closed down and only big studios are able to continue making films, but at lower costs, which in turn has caused the worsening of film quality.” — Interview 21 (Noam, director/producer)  

Compounding the issues around film quality, audiences in Southeast Asia and Taiwan were diverted to other means of entertainment such as Hollywood blockbusters, South Korean films, television series, and streaming media content. In other words, people in these areas were simply less interested in Hong Kong stories. David explains the phenomenon in this way:

“There were a large quantity of Hong Kong and Guangdong immigrants in Southeast Asia and these people formed a major part of the fanbase of overseas Hong Kong movie ticket sales. The nostalgia they felt towards their hometown drove them into cinemas to watch Cantonese language Hong Kong films. However, their offspring who were born and raised locally may not have the same strong attachment and therefore the demand [for Hong Kong films] dropped.” — Interview 43 (David, film producer/scriptwriter)

Compared to the shrinking Southeast Asian and Taiwanese markets, the vast mainland film market seems particularly tempting. For a long period of time, Hong Kong films were circulated widely on the mainland thanks (ironically) to piracy, as the public screening of foreign films, including those from Hong Kong and Taiwan, was under strict control.  The huge fanbase created by this clandestine circulation was the cornerstone for the popularity of Hong Kong directors and celebrities after they were allowed to enter mainland due to a change in Chinese cultural policies. Since they found such projects financially very lucrative, more Hong Kong filmmakers went north to generate films that aimed at passing the rigid Chinese censorship system, pleasing mainland audiences, and convincing them to pay for tickets. This in turn made their productions less attractive for audiences outside mainland China. For example, stories relating to hauntings by ghosts, homosexual love, or criminals who have escaped from justice have higher chance of being rejected by the Chinese authorities, and therefore Hong Kong filmmakers now have learned lessons from previous rejections and avoid making them. Yet, ghost and horror films were once one of the most popular genres in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Southeast Asia.

For the young generation, figuring out how to deal with the rising Chinese clout is a different story. Assuming a defensive posture, many of the Hong Kong’s young people have been showing waves of anger and resentment towards the possibility of a Chinese takeover. Keeping the city’s independence and uniqueness has become their common cause. Film for them has become a weapon to raise social consciousness and encourage civil engagement. In the recent two decades, three types of local films have resonated with young filmmakers and Hong Kong audiences. The first is films concerning chronic social maladies, such as unreasonable housing prices, limited living space, the lack of upward mobility for young people, the issues of an aging population, and the burden on social services due to the influx of immigrants. The second type either explicitly or metaphorically points to the political strife between Hong Kong and mainland China. The two types of films have lent a sense of darkness and hopelessness to the SAR New Wave cinema. The last type of plotline is essentially motivational. Works such as Gallants (2010), The Way We Dance (2013), Weeds on Fire (2016), and Men on The Dragon (2018) all describe how a frustrated Hong Kong man overcomes external difficulties, often a power from mainland China, and eventually resolves his problems while regaining his dignity. The single-hero story is not a Hong Kong invention in scriptwriting, but the formula is well-received in present society where young people are eager to see a return to the status that their homeland enjoyed in the 1980s, and the young filmmakers hope to convey these inspirational messages to their peers.

The young filmmakers’ turn to localism also steers their attention to the overseas market.  They believe the uniqueness of Hong Kong local culture can be best represented by local directors, as opposed to Western directors who just want to cram tourist attractions into their blockbusters.

“Why do we have to give up the rest of the world just for the mainland Chinese market? This world needs films that are made from your heart, instead of catering to a certain ridiculous system of censorship……. We don’t care about the mainland market, and we shoot what we want in Hong Kong. Even more, there exists the chance that, like what Hong Kong cinema did in the past, it could win back the world market. We may lose the mainland market, but we may win back the world (Tang, 2016).” — Kwun-wai Chow (young director)

Au Man Kit Jevons, who cooperated with Kwun-wai Chow and three other young men to direct Ten Years (2015) claimed on one occasion that he could survive in the industry even without the mainland market (CR2, 2017). Could this attitude represent a rising transnationality within the new generation? As the young directors claim that they are most concerned with local Hong Kong stories, the tastes of Hong Kong audience, and so-called Hong Kong values, including freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, while the majority of the established filmmakers are absent from the current local film industry. Emphasizing their identities as Hong Kongers, young people tend to situate themselves in opposition to the category of mainlander.

Nevertheless, this local consciousness is not an invention of the 2010s. Hong Kong’s local consciousness is considered to have reached maturity in the 1970s, when the island city was increasingly isolated from the mainland, both culturally and politically. Baby boomers were entering economic and political life while their refugee parents were gradually withdrawing from it (Chan, 2000 & Teo, 1997). Mirroring this heightened local consciousness, the term “indigenous cinema” was developed in the mid-70s to refer to Hong Kong film as a geopolitically defined cinema. The term, as Chu (2003) points out, downplays the significance of ethnic Chinese identity and differentiates it from “Chinese cinema” or “overseas Chinese cinema.” Film critics in Hong Kong then developed two approaches to their indigenous cinema: one that emphasized the function of cinema in the community, and another that argued the indigenousness to be “a consequence of the absorption and modification of elements from the Chinese artistic tradition and other national film products” (Chu, 2003: xix-xx).

After the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, Hong Kong nostalgia cinema emerged to offer an escape from the unpleasant present and the uncertain future, and reflected a yearning for an idealized colonial past, As Kathryn Woodard explained,

“The recovery of the past is part of the process of constructing identity. To rewrite or reinvent the history of the past in cinematic form, in this respect, is to reconstruct the collective identities and memories of the society. It is way to search for the lost origin and the time past in cinematic narratives.” (as cited in Chan, 2000:265)

As Bordwell believes, the impetus for the development of a local consciousness in the 80s was the fact that “A Can” movies came into play. The image of a mainlander “A Can” being “stupid, slow on the uptake, backward, poor, shallow, and a country hick” mirrors the portray of a “Hong Kong person as clever, savvy, progressive, rich and modern.” The contrast thus “allowed Hong Kong people to assert their own identity and to be self-satisfied” (1998:6).

Since the slump of the film industry in the mid-90s, filmmakers have no longer been required to make pan-Asian products and that shift in turn has infused stronger local flavours into their films. The Young and Dangerous franchise (1995-2000), Hu-du-men (1996), and Lifeline (1997), among others, have probed the niches of local life and obtained rich rewards (Bordwell, 1998).

The indigenousness of textual contents seems always to have been the focal point of Hong Kong filmmakers, whether younger or senior. The transnationality that the established generation kept emphasizing came primarily as a consequence of local consciousness in the golden times: the global identity Hong Kong possessed as a successful exporter of films to international markets (Teo, 2004). People outside the island city, on the other hand, have less interest in Hong Kong films nowadays. It is not only the underperforming economy of Hong Kong that has diminished people’s admiration of the SAR, but also the rapid development of neighbouring film industries, diversification of entertainment worldwide, and most importantly, the declining nostalgic sentiments of the offspring of diasporic Chinese who no longer need Hong Kong cinema to comfort their homesickness, as their parents did. Living under vastly different conditions, the emerging generation has the same local consciousness as their predecessors but can hardly replicate the transnationality of the industry’s prime epoch.

In young filmmakers’ works, the blatant political implications form another feature by which they distinguish themselves from their apolitical predecessors.

Apolitical versus politically-minded

In sharp contrast to the situation in the 2000s and 2010s, Hong Kong as a British colony was a relatively politically peaceful region where public attention was primarily focused on the development of the economy. Even during the negotiations about the handover between the British and the Chinese in the 80s, the percentage of residents who cared about politics remained very low (Chan, 2015).  Hong Kong filmmakers in that era were known as basically apolitical. Jessinta (Interview 47, line producer) reminisces about the days in the 70s and 80s, and sighing, explains that “it was such a tranquil period that none of us were even interested in politics.” Therefore, making political films was a rarity for them. Instead, genre films with greater commercial potentials were the common choice.

Between 1997 to 2003, the polls reveal that even as the island city was handed over to Communist China, people’s satisfaction with the city’s political situation remained high due to China’s guarantee that “the capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.” Beijing’s proposal to add Article 23 to the Hong Kong Basic Law in February 2003 broke the peace and henceforth turned Hong Kong from an apolitical society to an increasingly politically-minded one. The article states that:

“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies” (Basic Law Gov HK 2018).

A great controversy followed and led to a massive demonstration on 1 July 2003, with protestors accusing Beijing of intending to shackle freedom of expression in Hong Kong. Polls then displayed a dramatic increase in political dissatisfaction (Chan, 2015). In the same year, the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) was put into effect, which allowed mainland tourists to visit Hong Kong independently without being part of a tour group as had been previously required. The massive influx of mainland tourists and immigrants that followed created fierce social conflicts in Hong Kong, such as those stemming from the temporary shortages of baby milk powder, medicines, and even medical services for pregnant women. Hong Kongers also complained about soaring house prices and rents due to mainland real estate speculators. In addition, certain codes of civility that had long been taken for granted were violated by mainland tourists, which caused widespread criticism. In response, the anti-mainland sentiment began to foment in the 2010s. Some protests, such as those in opposition to women from the mainland giving birth in Hong Kong represented a shift from targeting the Chinese Communist Party to focusing on ordinary mainland people, and a shift in methods from peaceful and orderly protests to violent confrontations with mainlanders and the police. The anti-mainland sentiment peaked in 2014 during the Umbrella Movement, which called for a free and fair election of the region’s top leader.

The Youth Development Strategy for Hong Kong: Public Engagement Report, issued in 2017, revealed that young people in Hong Kong are craving more opportunities to participate in public affairs. They call for more constructive and inclusive dialogues with political leaders, and more diverse engagement channels through which to interact with government. Studies on youth civic engagement in Hong Kong have also indicated that young people are highly motivated to participate in civic activities. Due to advances in communication technology, they identify less with conventional political groups, and show new mobilization processes and patterns of participation. In the Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong Federation of Students was actively involved in the 79-day protest, and a significant number of protesters were secondary school students (Low, Busiol, & Lee 2016).

The Public Opinion Programme of The University of Hong Kong has been tracking Hong Kong people’s self-identity since the handover. Between 2008 and 2016, those who identify themselves as “Hong Kongers,” or “Hong Kongers in China” increased from 47.4% to 63.7%, while whose who see themselves as “Chinese” or “Chinese in Hong Kong” reduced from 47% to 33.9%. The sentiment is more pronounced among the young, the 18 to 29-year-old category has shown dramatic shifts as the number of Hong Kong-identified youth surged from 58.3% to 83.8%, while the number of Chinese identified plunged from 41.2% to 13.3% (Zhang, Yau & Tsui, 2017). According to “Youth in Hong Kong: A Statistical Profile,” among young people, those aged 15-24 had a slightly stronger sense of belonging to Hong Kong than those aged 25 and above. The trajectory of Hong Kongers’ sense of Chinese identity has seen ups and downs, but in recent years it has been descending continually. This phenomenon is inextricably linked to how Hong Kongers perceive China itself (Zhang, Yau & Tsui. 2017).

Research has also found a significant relationship between happiness and dissenting political attitudes. Unhappy people are more likely to participate in protests and strikes (Veehoven, 1988; Chiu, 2015; Lorenzini, 2015). In Hong Kong, young people recently became the least happy age group (Chiu & Wong, 2018). Chiu & Wong (2018) noted that political factors have generally made Hong Kong people unhappier since 2008, but the recent improvement in socio-economic conditions, such as the increasing GDP per capita and rising house prices, have mitigated the decline of older people’s happiness and as a result, the youth have become less happy than older people. Since 2011, Hong Kong youth have been more politically dissatisfied than their elders.

According to the “Youth Development Strategy for Hong Kong: Public Engagement Report,” young people commonly perceived that there is a lack of positive career prospects in non-pillar or non-professional industries in Hong Kong. Unlike the mainstream industries, such as financial services, shipping and logistics, and tourism, the overall creative industry is still emerging in Hong Kong society. Information from youth.gov.hk, the online portal set up for young people by the Hong Kong government, reveals that from 2005 to 2014, the number of Hong Kongers engaged in the creative industry has been increasing at an annual growth rate of 1.6%, yet young people remained unconvinced of the long-term viability of the field.

In the film industry, the absence of the young generation is seen to be a structural issue. Jyu Jyun Fong, a famous Hong Kong entertainment reporter, wrote in her book Hollywood Hong Kong that:

“On the30th anniversary gala of Hong Kong Film Awards in 2011, there were three hosts on the stage: Teresa Mo Shun Kwan, Lawrence Cheng Tan Shui, and Vincent Kok Tak Chiu. They asked the audience how many of them have been in the film industry for more than 30 years. Including their own, numerous hands raised. This scene was so touching and yet unfortunate. People who struggle on today for the glory of Hong Kong cinema are actually the pioneers who laid the foundations 30 years ago. Where are the successors?” (Fong 2011)

Established director Wong Jing points out a similar issue in his speech at the seminar titled ‘The New Norms of Film Co-production between Hong Kong and Mainland China,’ held during the Entertainment Expo Hong Kong on 14 March 2017. He claims that:

“We have to take actions to save Hong Kong film talents. The young generation of directors does not have enough opportunities to participate in making co-productions (with Mainland China). New directors, such as Philip Yung who made the Port of Call, are not young. I shot my first film at the age of 25, nowadays many Hong Kong directors shoot their first work at nearly 40.” (Kknews 2017)

The co-productions with mainland China have drawn film talents north of the border and caused the scarcity of training opportunities for the younger generation locally. As Shu Kei, the previous Dean of the School of Film and Television at the Academy for Performing Arts, said, the current market does not allow young filmmakers to shine (Chow, 2016).

The overall sentiments of unhappiness, anti-mainland fervour, and political dissatisfaction shared by young people in Hong Kong can be discerned from the contents of local productions made by the SAR New Wave filmmakers in the 2010s. Being politically-minded, as they acknowledged, is pretty much being forced on them:

“I was forced to care, to partake in politics after the handover. Otherwise, the situation will only degenerate (Ho 2016).” — Kwun-wai Chow (young director)

“I used to prefer both romance and political films, now in this political predicament, it has boosted my desire to deal with political subjects” (Zeng, 2016).”  — Au Man Kit Jevons (young director)

As young filmmakers feel increasingly called to create films that address contemporary social issues, it is inevitable that political conflict becomes a more frequent theme in their work, because the antagonism between Hong Kong and mainland China has become incorporated into every aspect of Hong Kong people’s lives.

One may challenge the idea and ask were the Hong Kong filmmakers of the Baby Boomer New Wave always apolitical? Peter Ho-sun Chan dismisses political interpretations many reviews had of the film Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996) by saying “that was not intended.” He continues, explaining that “it’s not intended to be a political film, but all films have some politics in them” (Wood, 1998:23).

It was also primarily out of market considerations that Hong Kong cinema before the SAR New Wave did not witness a flourishing of political films. Hong Kong audiences were particularly in favour of stimulating visuals, such as Kung Fu films, comedies and gangster films, plus the overseas audience, an important source of revenue, found political materials harder to comprehend (Lei, 2016). Since the Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong’s sovereignty, its peoples’ political anxieties have increasingly been registered in films, but in an indirect, comical and ironic way. The political satire Her Fatal Ways (1990) is an example of this point. Director Alfred Cheung Kin Ting sensed the city’s tension and decided to explore it in a genre that rarely appears in Hong Kong cinema. The film encountered an overwhelmingly positive response. Its box office performance inspired more political satires to be produced, such as the Mainland Dundee (1991), released the next year. Comedies such as theTricky Brains (1991), starring one of the most outstanding Hong Kong comedians, Stephen Chow Sing Chi, have been spiced up with political jokes as well (Cheung, 2016 & Chen, 2016).

The real difference, as one respondent, a globally renowned film producer, points out, lays in the skills utilised in storytelling. The established generation was able to master the skill of hiding messages to make them acceptable to the censors and simultaneously entertaining to the audience (Interview 43, David, film producer/scriptwriter). The emerging young filmmakers seem eager to make their voices heard, but according to him are lacking the skills to hone their works into films that have broader market and audience appeal.

The new features of young filmmakers, namely being more self-expressive, locally-concerned and politically-minded are rooted deeply in economic, cultural, and political factors. This young generation has seen exhibited an alternative landscape among the dominating Hong Kong/Mainland co-productions, and brought about some new source of vitality for the contemporary Hong Kong cinema. 

References

A Collection of Information about Hong Kong Film Industry (2012-2018). Xiang gang dianyingye ziliao huibian [A Collection of Information about Hong Kong Film Industry]. Hong Kong Film Development Council. Retrieved from https://www.fdc.gov.hk/en/press/publication.htm
 
Bordwell, D. (1998) Foreword in Wood, M. (1998). Cine East: Hong Kong cinema through the looking glass (1st ed.). Guildford: FAB. pp.6-7

Bordwell, D. (2000). Planet Hong Kong: Popular cinema and the art of entertainment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bordwell, D. (2011). Planet Hong Kong: Popular cinema and the art of entertainment. (Second ed.). Madison, Wisconsin: Irvington Way Institute Press

Chan S.H. (2000). Rewriting History: Hong Kong Nostalgia Cinema and its Social Practice In Fu, P., & Desser, D. (2000). The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, arts, identity. Cambridge, UK; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.pp.252-272

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