2010 began with cause for careful optimism among Hong Kong movie buffs. The city’s cinemagoers were still heading into theatres as the economic downturn dragged on, and they drove 2009’s overall box-office takings up 6.5% from a year earlier. Before the Hollywood hit Avatar opened, attendance was even slightly up for hometown productions. But a more exciting indicator of film industry health has come this year with an upswing in production which pairs large-budget movies geared more toward mainland play with an improved slate of locally focused attractions. It’s hard to miss a new sense of confidence.
In the summer of 2009, the big news was a string of cinema successes in the mainland. This showed Hong Kong filmmakers had become more adept at cracking the China market after years of experiments, false starts and critical disappointments. Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s Overheard, Wong Jing’s On His Majesty’s Secret Service and Brian Tse’s animated picture Mcdull Kung Fu Ding Ding Dong, scored well with China’s audiences and managed modest success with home crowds too. Toward the end of the year, filmmakers were abuzz with talk of a hefty slate of pictures for 2010’s Chinese New Year, handily reversing the decline of what had once been peak season for ticket sales. Sure enough, moviegoers were spoiled for choice with four major releases out for the February Chinese New Year long weekend, and a clutch of other movies in the weeks before and after. Theholiday-season box-office champ: 72 Tenants Of Prosperity, a vibrant Hong Kong-themed play on Chor Yuen’s 1973 community comedy House Of 72 Tenants, packed with young TV stars and in-jokes and co-directed by Eric Tsang, Patrick Kong and Chung Shu-kai.
While cinemagoers were crowding into movie houses for February’s festive-season highlights, a rich selection of coming attractions was being readied for release.
Many were launched at the March-April Hong Kong International Film Festival. These included Ivy Ho’s much anticipated romantic comedy Crossing Hennessy, Pang Ho-cheung’s whirlwind romancer Love In A Puff, Chan Hing-kai and Janet Chun’s film-buff odyssey La Comédie Humaine and Heiward Mak’s edgy youth drama Ex. The weight of local themes in the most recent Hong Kong movies has set tongues wagging, and one picture even gained currency beyond film circles. Alex Law’s Echoes Of The Rainbow, with a Berlin prize to its credit, added urgency to urban-renewal debates in late February (a threatened street and nostalgic scenes feature in the movie). More very Hong Kong stories were set to follow, like Pang Ho-cheung’s Dream Home, a slasher with a property-market angle.
The rise in production through 2009 for a proudly local mid-budget cinema is encouraging news for those lamenting how past attempts to crack the mainland market had dulled the local character of films. Co-productions with mainland Chinese partners remain significant, however, and the business case for partnerships is clear.
Overheard, for instance, nabbed more than six times its Hong Kong haul at the China box office. For On His Majesty’s Secret Service, the China takings were over 13 times higher. But playing by the rules to reach Chinese cinemas can still mean satisfying censors, and audience tastes across the border differ from those in Hong Kong.
Early in 2009, Mak and Chong’s Lady Cop & Papa Crook was a reminder of the downsides. By the time the movie reached cinemas after much delay, meddling to make it mainland-friendly had left the theatrical cut in disarray.
More of this year’s notable midsize attractions, on the other hand, are going it alone without co-production, helping ensure a line of fresh, unequivocally local pictures.
(The government’s Film Development fund is also providing financial help, having partially backed features as varied as La Comédie Humaine, Echoes Of The Rainbow and the new Mcdull feature.) The movement toward greater Hong Kong sensibility could be a boon for a younger generation of Hongkongers increasingly asserting and playing up local identity and heritage. It’s a chance to reinforce local moviemaking as something distinct and special when the mainland’s filmmakers continue to step up their game in genres and forms Hong Kong once excelled in. Throughout all, though, questions remain as to whether enough Hong Kong moviegoers and overseas buyers will support a reinvigorated scene.
One of the reasons Hong Kong cinema held its ground in 2009 was a steady flow of attractive new releases - a situation unlike that of preceding years, which had stretches, even for weeks at a time, without anything new or notable. The Chinese New Year hit All’s Well End’s Well 2009, directed by Vincent Kok, clung on to the top slot at the box office all year, its triumph heralding the nonsense comedy’s return to holiday success. Soon after, Derek Yee’s Shinjuku Incident pitched Jackie Chan as a migrant into a Japan-set crime story, and John Woo’s star-studded Red Cliff II closed a celebrated epic story with exhilarating battlefield heroics. (A condensed version of Woo’s two-part epic meantime went international in a more action-heavy guise.) Teddy Chen’s Bodyguards And Assassins, a period piece long in production, late in the year delivered rip-roaring action and political intrigue set in early colonial Hong Kong. Chen’s re-creation of the cityscape on a studio lot was audacious, and quality screenwriting made it stand out all the more. No such praise for the Pang Brothers’ CGI-stuffed fantasy The Storm Warriors, a follow-up to the 1998 hit The Storm Riders. Its lacklustre action was weighed down further with tedious storytelling.
Below such major releases came a variety of popular thrillers. Herman Yau’s Turning Point took a character killed off in a TV show (broadcaster TVB co-produced the movie) and dropped him into a zippy gangland spinoff.
Triad theatrics were on the agenda, with a dose of the ever-popular undercover-cop action thrown in. The slick Overheard also delved into the crime world, following surveillance cops caught up amid insider trading and infidelity with grim results. Co-helmers Mak and Chong managed to appease China’s censors with all the right plot moves, yet also made sure their picture connected to investment-crazy Hongkongers with accessible stockmarket themes. Also managing decent returns in cinemas was Murderer, a would-be Se7en-style shocker from new director Roy Chow. A ham-fisted script demolished any tension with an outrageous twist, prompting muchunintentional comedy, but it still made the local top ten by year’s end.
Festival favourite Johnnie To and his Milkyway Image team pushed ahead with an international foray in Vengeance. The Hong Kong-France co-production returned To and many of his partners-in-film to Macau, the plot following a Gallic hit man settling scores with his daughter’s attackers. Even more accomplished work came from the production house in Soi Cheang’s Accident, which flipped thriller norms by removing guns from the picture. A story of assassins who create elaborate mishaps to kill and cover their tracks, Cheang’s movie was taut, engaging and entirely fresh.
On the small-screen, the company’s Tactical Unit series expanded on DVD with the clear highlight being Lawrence Lau’s No Way Out, a feature-length underworld saga chock full of district character and fierce personal drama. Further thriller material in 2009 came from Herman Yau (Rebellion, chronicling an underworld flunky’s chaotic drunken night) and co-directors Wong Jing and Billy Chung (To Live And Die In Mongkok, about an ex-con returning to his old stomping ground). Almost as prolific as Yau, Wong also helmed I Corrupt All Cops, an enjoyable take on the founding of Hong Kong’s anticorruption agency. More straight-up action arrived early in 2010 with two period martial-arts pictures. True Legend was a somewhat muddled kung fu revenge epic from Yuen Woo-ping (with partial 3-D), while Daniel Lee’s complex but emotionally empty 14 Blades had Donnie Yen as a Ming dynasty killing machine.
Among screen romances and dramatic works, the strongest performer at the ticket window was Andrew Lau’s Look For A Star. A high-budget affair set amid Macau’s colossal new casinos, the story had megastar Andy Lau finding love with a humble cabaret girl before an upbeat showbiz finale. Cinemagoers were whisked back to the former Portuguese enclave later in the year for Chan Hing-kai and Janet Chun’s livelier romantic comedy Poker King, which also revolved around Macau’s glitzy gambling dens. Written By, a puzzler from Wai Kafai, was no less colourful but set itself apart with an ambitious, fantastical and sentimental story exploring turns of fate after a car crash leaves a father dead and his daughter blind.
Mcdull Kung Fu Ding Ding Dong carried on a franchise built around a popular animated piglet and, while the story line had dimwitted Mcdull and his tenacious mum journey to China, the plot stayed rooted in Hong Kong values and pop culture. Prince Of Tears (like Accident a Venice competition entry) saw director Yonfan relax his characteristic cinematic flamboyance for an accomplished family drama set in Taiwan’s turbulent 1950s White Terror years. Even more muscular, though, was Ann Hui’s Night And Fog, focused on a Hong Kong murder- suicide case and the social system that surrounded it. Hui’s movie, somewhat of a partner to 2008’s low-key The Way We Are, was unflinching in detailing the domestic abuse a mainland Chinese immigrant mother and her children endured.
Audiences keeping up to speed with youth cinema found a mixed bag of movies through 2009, when generally poor box-office returns suggested a disconnect with younger filmgoers. Herman Yau offered up the unpredictable low-budget wonder Split Second Murders, a picture relying on a string of creative comedy set pieces centred on a hapless comic artist’s exploits. But the film, laden with local knowledge, bombed at cinemas, placing it among the year’s most underrated works.
Much of the cast returned to screens later for Danny Pang’s Seven 2 One, a nifty mini-thriller comprising a web of coincidences, missteps and petty crime. Seven 2 One was the best of three youth pictures individually directed or co-directed by the Pang Brothers - also released were the terminal-illness tale Basic Love and the dismal Trick Or Cheat, about a college musical.
Patrick Kong’s star faded as the preeminent low-end auteur of young-love sagas when his haphazard Love Connected failed to reach the heights set by his earlier, hyperemotional L For Love, L For Lies. Other less-traveled areas of Hong Kong cinema in 2009 included horror (Herman Yau’s spooky The First 7 th Night was a pleasing diversion), sci-fi (Jeff Lau’s robots ’n’ romance number Kungfu Cyborg: Metallic Attraction), classical-literature- based sleaze (Cash Chin’s The Forbidden Legend: Sex & Chopsticks II) and even a tasteless shockumentary (The Unbelievable).
The year also saw pleasant surprises in Hong Kong’s indie arena. Unlike their traditionally anti-commercial forerunners which seldom reached beyond film-fest sidebars, several new independent pictures won deserved wider play. Cheung King-wai’s KJ was most successful, its astonishing theatrical run of limited screenings (no more than one show per day per cinema) lasted from July and ended early this year. Cheung’s music documentary, shot with a seven-year span and expertly edited, followed a child prodigy along his captivating personal journey. Also making it to cinemas was Philip Yung’s Glamorous Youth, an accessible look at Hong Kong’s mainland Chinese connections placed alongside a youthful relationship story, while other independent works slipped into multiplexes via small retrospectives and showcases.
In terms of talent in front of the cameras, there has been limited change in the roster of performers, and too few newcomers making a strong impression. Of the leading men, Andy Lau remains a key attraction for many Hongkongers, while Lau Ching-wan, Louis Koo, Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Ronald Cheng and Aaron Kwok are also strong draws. Wong Cho-lam has been on the rise with pictures like James Yuen’s episodic romantic comedy Short Of Love, and Donnie Yen rules the roost in the action stakes, though Andy On, Louis Fan and Vincent Zhao were no slouches either. While Wong and On are clearly on the rise, few other young actors look set to hit the big league anytime soon.
Many of Hong Kong cinema’s best leading ladies continue to be big names from China: Zhang Jingchu, Zhou Xun, Xu Jinglei, Zhao Wei, Fan Bingbing and newcomer Li Yuchun all put in strong turns through 2009. Beyond them, Michelle Ye, Shu Qi, Sandra Ng, Stephy Tang and Kara Hui all impressed, the latter going international in the Malaysia-set At The End Of Daybreak. Promising new actresses included Michelle Wai, Fala Chen, Kay Tse and Angelababy.
The limited bank of engaging young stars is just one of the problems that Hong Kong cinema continues to face, no matter how vibrant the schedule of new movies may be this year. Big-budget movies can still be made with reckless disregard for quality scriptwriting, catering to the China market remains difficult and extending last year’s stable box office results, let alone spurring healthy growth, will be a challenge if Hong Kong cinemagoers don’t rally behind local productions. The record-breaking success of Avatar had some producers trumpeting 3-D as way to boost the city’s pricier screen entertainment, but it will take more than technology fixes to make Hong Kong cinema’s recovery sustainable. Aficionados of the local film scene may be relishing 2010’s more engaging new pictures, but the industry’s recovery to full strength is still far from complete.
Tim Youngs