The year 2019 was not a peaceful one for Hong Kong and Hongkongers. The chain of events arising from the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters legislation bill (commonly called the extradition bill) affected all aspects of Hong Kong life, and there were weekly demonstrations against the bill all over Hong Kong during the second half of the year. The demonstrations, along with the conflict between the protesters and the police which arose during the demonstrations, impacted the entire film and exhibition industry.
When the protests started in late May/early June, the weekly demonstrations did not have much effect on the local box office. Films like Aladdin still grossed over HK$60 million. But the industry started to feel the effects in September when the conflict between the protestors and the police became more severe, and the Chief Executive showed no sign of accepting the demands of the protestors. The brutal and abusive treatment of the protestors by the Hong Kong police did not stop the protests, and actually had the effect of increasing them.
The conflict areas were close to shopping malls, inside which many cinemas are located, so theatre owners were required to take emergency measures and close early to avoid conflict inside their premises. The demonstrations occurred in almost every district of Hong Kong after July, so all the city’s cinemas were affected. The box office dropped 32% from HK$135m in September 2018 to just HK$92m in September 2019.
Moviegoers usually go to cinemas in popular areas like Mong Kok, Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay, where the most severe conflicts between police and demonstrators occurred. Audiences avoided those areas and went to cinemas near their homes instead. In November, a shopping mall was destroyed by the protestors, and this resulted in the closing of a cinema for almost two months from mid-November.
In addition, the MTR Corporation (the underground train service in Hong Kong) was blamed by protestors for aiding the government by cancelling train services during demonstrations. The protestors retaliated by destroying some MTR facilities. In response the MTR closed train stations at 8pm or 9pm instead of 1am. This affected the 9pm and 9.30pm cinema shows. Audiences stayed away as they could not get home, and the box-office take for the 9.30pm shows was almost zero.
But films which had an anti-government message, or featured protests, benefitted from the situation. The US film Joker reflected viewers’ anti-government feelings, and grossed over HK$61m in October. Warner Bros, the distributor, considered it a big success. The Taiwanese film Detention is another example. The film’s theme is about the value of freedom, and it reflected the hopes, and the political demands, of the Hong Kong audience. It was released in early December on only 12 screens, but attendance quickly became a sign of support for the protest movement, and it took HK$11.62m at the box office.
The protests also affected the film festival circuit. The box office of the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival (HKAFF), which runs in late October, was diminished by the effects of the conflict, and some screenings were cancelled. But the protests helped the box office of the Hong Kong Independent Film Festival. The 2020 edition focused on social movements, and there were many documentaries about social movements in other countries, and social movements in Hong Kong. All the screenings sold out.
The protests affected all aspects of living. Internet users classified shops as “Yellow” if they supported the protests and “Blue” if they supported government. Citizens encouraged Hongkongers not to use the Blue stores. Hongkongers were also encouraged not to attend Lunar New Year films with a production background in mainland China, or those which had benefitted from government investment.
Dayo Wong’s comedy The Grand Grandmaster won public support. Director and actor Wong is an icon of the Hong Kong public’s resistance to the government, and Golden Scene, the distributors, are “Yellow”. The HK$29.9m box office of The Grand Grandmaster was more than the sum of the other three Chinese New Year Hong Kong films together.
Boycotting films, while understandable, could lead to problems for the local industry. The market share of Hong Kong films has only been about 13% for the past three years, and even before the protests, local films were having a tough time getting enough viewers. A knock-on effect may worsen investment in the film industry, and cause serious problems for its survival.
Ryan Law