The number of local movies in Hong Kong cinemas dropped further in 2013, falling from 52 in 2012 to just 42 films, and continuing a slump in production that has been in evidence since the mid-1990s. But while that figure was certainly alarming, not everything was down in the Hong Kong movie business last year: Hongkongers are still big on cinema, as a 4 per cent rise in overall box office receipts, and a slight increase in the total number of releases showed. Remarkably, the market share for local movies held steady at around 22 per cent, thanks to some very strong performers. What’s more, over in mainland China, Hong Kong filmmakers won top honours by delivering the year’s top-grossing film.
The top local film in the Hong Kong charts last year was Dante Lam’s Unbeatable, a high-end entertainer that scored with positive messages. For moviegoers feeling down in the face of social issues and economic concerns, the story of a no-hoper Hongkonger who becomes a mixed martial arts ace, and honourable father figure, was inspirational cinema. The upbeat theme boosted ticket sales, and it helped that popular star Nick Cheung hunked it up as a shirtless hero after months of intense training. Unbeatable’s theme was similar to Adam Wong’s delightful The Way We Dance, another local-film top 10 entry. In Wong’s film, amateur dancers strive for dreams and conquer adversity. Audiences responded well to the story and its fresh stars.
Benny Chan’s The White Storm was another top draw. Hongkongers poured into movie houses for the highbudget brotherhood tale of three men (A-listers Nick Cheung, Lau Ching-wan and Louis Koo) who go to Thailand for a drug bust that goes horribly wrong. That Chan’s film was shackled with the most preposterous of twists didn’t matter – it was the male bonding and blood-soaked heroism, which stirred nostalgia for older home-grown cinema epics, that counted in generating good word-of-mouth.
Films like Unbeatable and The White Storm – the two local movies in the city’s overall top 10 last year – reflect a key trend in Hong Kong cinema. The films exemplify a resurgence of a more local-style filmmaking, as well as the positive responses key films can receive. The city’s audiences these days are more likely to support movies reflecting a clear Hong Kong identity, as distinct from that of the rest of China, and films finding greater hometown success often reflect local attitudes, culture, hopes and fears. The current film movement goes back to the likes of Derek Kwok and Clement Cheng’s award-winning Gallants, which in 2010 playedup a plucky local vibe to counter mainland-oriented mega-productions. The commercial viability of such films was underlined by Pang Ho-cheung’s trash hit Vulgaria, a very Hong Kong-style picture that came second among local films in 2012.
Key to finding Hong Kong success with pricy big hitters is meeting local tastes, while at the same time appealing to moviegoers in the mainland, where the bulk of box-office takings can be found. High-end Hong Kong cinema requires mainland co-production status to access the fast-growing film market across the nation, and entry has been smoothed for Hong Kong filmmakers since a 2003 trade agreement spurred on collaborations. Much to their credit, Hong Kong directors and producers are delivering hits in the mainland, but the improved business prospects have also come with challenges. Difficulties persist in catering to different preferences on either side of the border, and in meeting the sometimes unpredictable censorship rules, and there have been fears that concessions to snag good box-office returns in the mainland could erode Hong Kong cinema’s identity. The balancing act can be tricky, especially when co-productions are released in the same cuts in Hong Kong and the mainland. One person who demonstrated how to succeed in the big-budget stakes in 2013 was Stephen Chow, who reaffirmed his ticket-selling clout when the spectacular Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, which ended up as the year’s number one film in the mainland.
Journey, directed by Chow and Derek Kwok and based on a Chinese literary favourite, also took top honours during Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. This was down to the popular Chow’s distinctive authorial stamp, as well as the movie’s universally appealing effects-filled fantasy-adventure formula. Another filmmaker faring well with a high-profile release last year was Wong Karwai.
The famed auteur achieved his best Hong Kong box score yet with the long-in-production The Grandmaster, a film which found large mainland returns too. Wong’s tale of duels and honour among martial artists, including the storied Ip Man (played here by Tony Leung Chiu-wai), took genre material in elegant and breathtaking new directions.
The Grandmaster wasn’t the only film to tap into Ip’s story: Herman Yau’s biographical Ip Man – The Final Fight, with Anthony Wong excelling in the lead, applied a healthy dose of Hong Kong nostalgia in to a straightforward biopic.
An even bigger cinematic spectacle turned up with Firestorm, directed by first-time director Alan Yuen. The film was an all-out action show which depicted havoc on Hong Kong streets, and was helped at the box office by the star power of local hero Andy Lau. Yuen and his team focused on audacious action, providing the rare sight of explosive set pieces staged in the Central business district. Another local top-ten entry with blockbuster intentions was the Pang Brothers’ Out of Inferno, which flung Lau Ching-wan and Louis Koo into heroics in a burning Guangzhou office tower. Turning up at the start of this year was more firefighter action in Derek Kwok’s As the Light Goes Out, a superior mix of highstakes disaster-movie cinema, relationship stories and melodrama featuring younger talent, including Shawn Yue and Nicholas Tse, in lead roles.
Celebrated filmmaker Johnnie To delivered two very different productions in 2013. In Blind Detective, To and regular collaborator Wai Ka-fai (on hand here as co-producer and co-writer) continued themes from their earlier mainstream hits in crafting a quirky romantic comedy-crime flick. The film’s reuniting of Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng, stars of major To and Wai efforts from around decade ago, in itself added a pleasantly nostalgic Hong Kong touch. To’s later Drug War, on the other hand, was a darker, fully mainland-set affair about cops pursuing Hong Kong drug runners. Drug War won admirers for venturing into challenging plot territory in the face of the tough mainland film approval process. In To’s film, bad guys are humanised and the lead cop operates beyond the rules – touches appreciated by Hong Kong audiences but potentially risky with mainland censors.
Movies made by local filmmakers, but perceived as being geared more towards mainland tastes, whether in themes or in casting, can see striking differences in reception between Hong Kong and the mainland. Consider Tsui Hark’s fantasy epic Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon, a prequel to the Andy Lau-led 2010 film Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.
Hark’s film (without Lau this time) took in a fraction of the original movie’s box-office haul in Hong Kong, but became the mainland’s fifth most popular film in 2013.
Badges of Fury, from first-time director Wong Tsz-ming, played like an old-school Hong Kong action comedy made for an audience in the mainland, where it was indeed a success. Jet Li and Wen Zhong took lead roles in the fun throwback to early 1990s-style Hong Kong action – a type of cinema Hongkongers have largely moved on from and, sure enough, gave short shrift to when Badges hit local cinemas. For a film with a mainland story and characters to gain traction in Hong Kong, robust campaigns are needed, requiring resources few can afford in the small market. Among the better performers was Peter Chan’s American Dreams in China, about three mainland university mates who become successful entrepreneurs. Chan’s film, which entered the year’s top 10 in the mainland but not even the top 50 in Hong Kong, arrived in local cinemas with a trailer pushing nostalgic touches related to Hong Kong culture, and had the weight of distributor and cinema-chain operator Edko behind it.
In the low- to mid-budget arena, the influence of highly local films like Vulgaria is especially visible. The success of the raunchy and foul-mouthed Vulgaria revealed not just popular demand for more hometown themes, but also the renewed viability of skipping mainland release, embracing stronger genre material and aiming for over-18s. Clearest in the post-Vulgaria lineage in 2013 were SDU: Sex Duties Unit and Mr and Mrs Player, both involving Vulgaria’s director Pang Ho-cheung and its star, popular actor Chapman To. The Pang-produced and Gary Mak-directed SDU drew on mid-1990s local police flicks as a launch pad for lewdness as cops sneak off to Macau for a night of whoring. Mr and Mrs Player, helmed by the prolific Wong Jing and with Pang turning up as an actor, served up sex comedy with To playing a ladies’ man committing to 100 days of celibacy. Vulgarity itself was meanwhile the driving force in Hardcore Comedy, a messy trio of shorts with sleaze shoehorned in, however awkwardly, at every opportunity.
Also drawing audiences for distinctly local fare last year were films by Patrick Kong and Wilson Chin. Kong, a specialist in scrappy but popular love sagas, offered A Secret Between Us and The Best Plan Is No Plan. The first captured a young woman turning to prostitution amid hard times, and the latter followed three men with women troubles. Each film showed the low-end auteur moving new directions, but neither showed advances in the screenwriting department. Chin has stumbled into box-office success since 2011, with his Lan Kwai Fong booze-soaked clubland sagas, films that are high on cheap titillation but low on production standards. Lan Kwai Fong 3 played true to form as a poorly written hodgepodge of mildly racy relationship stories centred on a nightclub. Seen against the higher profile of Kong and Chin’s films, the poor local audience reception to Ho Hong’s Doomsday Party was disappointing. The debut director’s sprawling low-budget thriller followed characters who come together at a bank robbery, and their stories together reflected political and social pressures.
Doomsday Party was poorly served by a low-key release and lacked major stars, meaning too few potential viewers even heard of the film.
Enthusiasm for Hong Kong-focused productions has given horror films a lift. Last summer’s Tales from the Dark series offered two compendiums of shorts (Fruit Chan, Lee Chi-ngai and actor Simon Yam directed for the first part; Teddy Robin, Lawrence Lau and Gordon Chan for the second). The films delivered clear local flavours alongside proper horror, as concessions to censors in the mainland, where ghosts are not allowed on screen, were happily absent. Fruit Chan’s Jing She, a series highlight, appealed to hometown viewers with its political digs, and snapshots of local superstition. More successful commercially, and ultimately making the 2013 local-film top 10, was Rigor Mortis, the directing debut of Juno Mak. The ultra-stylised film, about gory goings-on in a decrepit housing estate, paid tribute to the 1985 horror-comedy classic Mr Vampire and drew on the darker concepts of old-school black magic shockers.
Rigor Mortis was one of several features from new directors in 2013, movies which were often made with the backing of forward-thinking producers. That was the case with A Complicated Story, a full-length drama made by students, with Johnnie To and Edko boss Bill Kong among the producers. Also supporting next-generation filmmakers is the Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s Fresh Wave initiative, which continues to fund and screen short films made by students and emerging filmmakers paired with industry mentors. The government First Feature Film Initiative is now backing three film projects selected through a competition, and feature-film financing support is being offered through the Film Development Fund. The latter has helped finance works by first timers like Flora Lau, whose Bends, about crises faced by a wealthy Hong Kong woman and her mainland driver, premiered at Cannes last year.
Putting a spotlight on fresh talent, too, are the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival, both premiering works by new filmmakers.
In the first few months of 2014, localism was still in evidence in Hong Kong cinema. Chinese New Year saw the release of Soi Cheang’s much-delayed The Monkey King, a hugely expensive CGI-fuelled fantasy based on the same source used for Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West. The film, equipped with big names Donnie Yen, Chow Yun-fat and Aaron Kwok, shot into the all-time top five in the mainland box office, yet it was eclipsed in Hong Kong by two smaller films with distinctly local flavours.
Taking second place over the lunar new year was From Vegas to Macau, Wong Jing’s latest film to follow from his 1989 classic God of Gamblers. The writer-director- producer’s trump card this time was the return of Chow Yun-fat to Cantonese comedy after close to two decades away, and the actor proved himself every bit the charmer in the goofiest of gags. Number one in the festive season was Matt Chow’s Golden Chickensss, returning lead actress and producer Sandra Ng’s prostitute character Kam from the nostalgic Golden Chicken (2002) and its sequel. As in the earlier films, encouraging messages sprang from the unlikeliest of material, including the tale of a top triad (Nick Cheung) returning to a much-changed Hong Kong society after 18 years in prison. Golden Chickensss also pushed the envelope on how local a major release can go, with punch lines based on obscure hometown references thrown into the mix.
As Easter approached, film buffs anticipated more major releases with a clear Hong Kong flavour – some co-productions, others not. Fruit Chan’s The Midnight After promised a highly local take on sci-fi, Pang Ho-cheung lined up a network of intimate Hong Kong stories in Aberdeen, Dante Lam’s That Demon Within was set to meld police action and superstition, and Lee Kung-lok’s 3D Naked Ambition wooed with a tale of a Hongkonger becoming an unlikely porn star in Japan.
For now, at least, the resurgence of local screen stories from Hong Kong is showing little sign of letting up. And, considering the success stories of films like Journey to the West and The Monkey King, the city’s movie business seems closer to finding the right mix of films for entertaining two sets of Chinese-language audiences, whether separately or together.
Tim Youngs