The financial crisis didn’t seem to hurt the overall box
office take in Hong Kong - in fact, it actually increased.
According to the Motion Picture Industry Association
(MPIA), the total box office amounted to HK$1.09 billion
in 2008. That’s around 7% higher than that in 2007. But
it’s important to note that the general ticket price
increased from HK$55 to HK$60, and admissions
recorded a decrease of 2%.
The box office increase was not reflected in the take
for Chinese-language films. Chinese films (including
those from mainland China and Taiwan) only grossed
around HK$240 million in 2008 - a significant decrease
of 16% from 2007. The market share of Hong Kong
films also dropped, decreasing from 28% in 2007 to
22% in 2008. Stephen Chow’s CJ7 was the top Hong
Kong performer, with a gross of HK$51.44m. But CJ7
didn’t come out on top overall. The Hollywood blockbuster
The Dark Knight took HK$58.52m to become the
highest grossing movie since 2002.
Summer is still stands as hard time for Hong Kong cinema.
This year, as always, there were the blockbusters to
compete with: Kung Fu Panda, Hancock, The Dark
Knight, Wall-E, The Mummy 3 and The Journey To The
Centre Of The Earth. Only John Woo’s Red Cliffand Ching
Hing-kar and Janet Chun’s La Lingeriemanaged to gross
around HK$24.26m and HK$8.54m. That’s a fair result.
It’s certainly tough to compete with those Hollywood
Summer blockbusters.
Hong Kong films did a bit better during the rest of
the year. Besides CJ7at Chinese New Year, Daniel Lee’s
Three Kingdoms grossed almost HK$17m at Easter.
Two National Day holiday movies, Benny Chan’s
Connected and Gordon Chan’s ancient Chinese tale
Painted Skin grossed HK$13.65m and HK$10.38m
respectively. But only 7 Chinese films grossed over
HK$10m last year. That is a relatively disappointing
result.
Some films did better than expected. Kelvin Tong’s
Hong Kong-Singapore collaboration Rule No.1 had a
very limited release and faltered in its opening week. But
it performed better in its second week. Good reviews led
to a “task force” to promote the movie in local discussion
forums. A similar thing happened with Heiwark
Mak’s debut High Noon. That ended-up showing for
more than 45 days. A surprise success was Cash Chin’s
Category III production The Forbidden Legend: Sex &
Chopsticks. Running for 55 days, it played for longer than
any other local cinema release. It finally grossed over
HK$3.2m.
Last year was also a time for exploding the myth of
director Patrick Kong, also known as Yip Nim-sum. This
legendary film critic turned director hit big over the last
few years. While his L For Love, L For Livesgrossed over
HK$10m in March, his other two films - Forgive And
Forget and Nobody’s Perfect - failed to gross over
HK$2.5m. They got bad reviews, too. Perhaps he took on
too many projects. Meanwhile, director Tsui Hark continued
to sink at the box office. His ocean thriller Missing tanked, and his All About Women - which was aimed at
mainland audiences - grossed less than half a million
and stayed in cinemas for less than 2 weeks.
The relatively strong box office performance of
Taiwan’s Cape No. 7 impacted Hong Kong. It led to more
Taiwanese films being released here. But while Cape No.
7grossed over HK$7m, other Taiwan release like Miao
Miao and Winds Of Septemberhad very limited releases.
The situation was even more difficult for mainland films.
There were more titles from mainland China released in
Hong Kong cinemas, but distribution was very restricted.
Feng Xiaogang’s The Assemblyand If You Are The One
were both released in a low key fashion, even though a
lot of people went to see them. It seems there is still a
lot for local distributors to learn about releasing mainland
Chinese films.
By contrast, Japanese films became stronger at the
Hong Kong box office. The comedic Detroit Metal Cityand
the TV drama adaptation Suspect X- both distributed by
Panasia films in Hong Kong - grossed over HK$10m
each. But Korean films were only released in limited distribution.
Korean blockbuster The Chaser grossed less
than HK$0.5m, while most Korean films had only singlescreen
distribution.
Towards the end of 2008, despite the bad economic
climate, Hong Kong cinema had a small rebound at the
box office. Wilson Yip’s Mandarin film production Ip
Man, which starred Donnie Yen as martial arts master,
unexpectedly became the Christmas hit. It grossed over
HK$25m. In January 2009, John Woo’s Chinese blockbuster
Red Cliff IIand Vincent Kuk’s crazy comedy All’s
Well Ends Well 2009 dominated the Chinese New Year
box office with accumulated grosses of over HK$24m
each. This may give local filmmakers hope for upcoming
productions. In addition, films produced under the
Government’s film development fund will start to hit
theatres this year. This may bring hope for local filmmakers.
Ryan Law