The Hong Kong Film Archive is celebrating 20 years in its Sai Wan Ho home by telling stories of the films it helped to bring back to life at festivals such as the FEFF.
When it is suggested to the people who run the Hong Kong Film Archive (HKFA) that they are sort of like the Indian Joneses of the cinematic world, there’s a collective laugh at the thought.
But there is a certain truth behind the notion – the HKFA’s work involves scouring the world for hidden or lost treasures.
This year, the HKFA is celebrating 20 years in its home in Sai Wan Ho with a retrospective – “Treasure-Hunt Stories” – that shows 36 Hong Kong classics that have been found and restored to their full glory during the past two decades.
An example of the exciting nature of their work can be found in the tale of a trip staff took to San Francisco in 2012. A chance introduction to Jack Lee Fong, founder of San Francisco's famed Palace Theatre, led them into a darkened basement.
Priscilla Chan, an assistant curator (programme) at the HKFA, picks up the story.
“We walked in and thought ‘Wow, this is amazing!’” Chan recalls. “There were more than 20 film titles, all nitrate prints. It was like finding lost treasure. It was like when a child walks into a toy store. We just felt so lucky to have that good fortune.”
The archive is situated in Sai Wan Ho, a suburb of Hong Kong that was once the waterside dock for local sugar cane plantations. For visitors to the city, there’s easy access via the city’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) – and a visit is well worth the time, either to take in one of the regular screenings (often with guest speakers) or to check out the latest exhibition they are hosting.
If you can’t make it to Hong Kong, festivals such as FEFF have, over the years, been able to give these classic films an international platform, and collaborations with the HKFA have been able to introduce them to generations of film lovers.
“FEFF began by digging deep into Hong Kong cinema, and the Hong Kong Film Archive has always been there to help us dig into the city’s history,” says FEFF president Sabrina Baracetti. “The films the HKFA has acquired have been brought to life on our screens and have delighted generations of FEFF audiences. It has been an honour to work with them in the past and we are excited about future collaborations.”
Former or current HKFA staff who have helped programme its films at FEFF include the veteran critics, academics, and programmers Law Kar, Sam Ho, and Kiki Fung, and it has been thanks to these collaborations that FEFF fans have been able to see such gems as Wong Tin-lam’s musical masterpiece The Wild, Wild Rose (1960), starring Grace Chang, where they should be seen – on the big screen.
A recent visit to the HKFA’s home at 50 Lei King Road brought together the organisation’s head Rowena Tsang, along with Chan and Koven Lo, the HKFA’s assistant curator (conservation).
The HKFA’s story begins about a decade before they were given their own home, when the notion that the city needed a place to restore, store and celebrate its rich cinematic history had just begun to take root.
The then Urban Council, overseers of the city’s cultural life, had begun to look into how it might track down copies of Hong Kong films, many of which had vanished from circulation, and would probably need extensive work, given the notoriously temperamental nature of old nitrate-based film stock. A visit to Rank Film Laboratories during a trip to London in 1992 revealed the lab had unearthed some Chinese-language film stock. Among the discoveries was a copy of The Orphan (1960), which starred an 18-year-old Bruce Lee. The film became the fledgling HKFA’s first acquisition.
“The archive came about because of how important Hong Kong films are to local culture,” explains Tsang. “Because of the deterioration of the films, there was an urgent need to restore them, and a need for space to store them. In order to better preserve our film heritage, we had a planning office set up in 1993, and we were lucky enough to find a home here in 2001. We are devoted to preserving Hong Kong films.”
This year’s “Treasure-Hunt Stories” – which runs until December 31 – has been devised to share the films the HKFA has found, and to engage audiences in the stories of how they were found – tales that often read like a film script of their own.
There’s the story of the Ying Yunwei-directed war-time classic Eight Hundred Heroes (1938), donated by Dolores Wang, and a film that her late father Daniel Wang kept hidden from Japanese soldiers throughout the war, at what was probably great personal risk.
Then there was a visit HKFA staff made to the ancestral home of the Wu family in San Francisco, owners of the famed World Theatre, which operated from 1909 to the mid-1980s. Once they arrived, HKFA staff were amazed to find a basement full of old classics from the 1950s and 1960s, including the Mok Hong-see -directed Lady Bond (1966) starring the great Connie Chan Po-chu.
“We always have hope,” says Tsang. “We always think that maybe a miracle will happen tomorrow.”
There are now hundreds of films stored at the HKFA, where a restoration team works diligently and tirelessly trying to stem the passage of time. First they must find the films, then they must restore and preserve them – and a recent switch to digital technology now ensures that some of the great moments of Hong Kong cinema history will be saved.
“Restoring old films is a challenge,” says Lo. “Because of the hot weather and the conditions in Hong Kong, most old films are not in good shape when they come to us. Age has damaged them. Some of them have been cut up. The first thing is to stop the deterioration. Then we can store them and work to preserve them. Over the past few years, we have been digitalizing them, so we can share them with Hong Kong people, and with future generations.”
Other classics the HKFA has helped bring back to life over the years include the once -lost Fei Mu-directed gem Confucius (1940) and Yun Ho’s Colourful Youth (1966) – both screening as part of the “Treasure Hunt Stories” programme.
The HKFA has also sought out film memorabilia and associated artifacts. Part of the HKFA’s 20th anniversary celebrations includes an exhibition drawn from the history of the famed Tai Ping Theatre, which hosted screenings from the 1930s until 1981. Upstairs at the HKFA centre, there is also a library and resource centre that has proved a boon to cineastes and those researching the history of Chinese cinema.
Tsang believes there are more challenges ahead for the HKFA. It must increase engagement with local schools, through screenings and talks about history and what goes on behind the cameras, and it must improve its efforts at recruitment. The HKFA needs to find workers for everything from restoration to research, from programming to translation.
Twenty years have passed since the HKFA opened its doors in Sai Wan Ho, but the search for films continues.
“We are always trying to reach out to people who have film collections,” says Tsang. “We continue to search for films and other materials so we can protect Hong Kong’s film heritage.”
Mathew Scott