In the decade before the first Far East Film programme screened in Udine in 1999, Hong Kong cinema had been riding high in the West, scoring attention it hadn’t seen since the kung fu craze of the 1970s. The freewheeling, genre-mashing output of directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To became must-sees for cult-film fanatics, art-house audiences and critics alike, and it’s easy to see why. For every accomplished dramatic work that would make the festival rounds, there’d be a slew of other films holding such sensations as diabolically dangerous stunts, thrilling fantasy and shocking shifts in tone.
Through the mid-1990s, gushing books on Hong Kong film hit the presses and esteemed journals ran special issues, touring programmes played picture palaces and university campuses, and specialist video companies funnelled Cantonese treats into home VCRs. Even bizarre Hong Kong subtitles went viral when email took off. Add to this the widespread attention to Hong Kong itself, given the city’s 1997 handover, and it was the perfect moment for building an audience abroad.
That excitement wasn’t being echoed in the films’ home, however. Back in Hong Kong, local cinema was falling into crisis. Homegrown movies were easily the main attraction in Hong Kong through the 1980s and early 1990s, but after Jurassic Park wowed moviegoers in 1993, and more so after Titanic berthed in 1997, many Hongkongers came to see local film as a poor cousin to fancy imports and local market share slumped. To be sure, the charge of inferiority was too often accurate: many works slapped together just to honour foreign advance sales as well as triad-backed quickies weren’t quality affairs. Plus, the ageing Cantonese-circuit cinemas, with their small seats, grotty toilets and even mono sound, were being upstaged by snazzy multiplexes and their foreign fare. When Taiwan investors cut their backing for Hong Kong pictures and the wider regional market largely sank, filmmakers lost key sources of funding just as many cinemagoers were giving up. The rise of piracy and the cheapening effect of low-quality video CDs didn’t help either. By the end of the 1990s aficionados of local film wouldn’t be surprised to find themselves alone in a theatre when the curtains opened and the projector started whirring.
But even as production numbers fell, viewers could still delight in the city’s boldest offerings – and thanks to those films many look back fondly on the creativity and diversity of 1990s productions. Before he went to Hollywood, John Woo dazzled with the actioner Hard Boiled (1992), and other great thrillers came from Ringo Lam (Full Contact, 1992; Full Alert, 1997) and Benny Chan (Big Bullet, 1996). In the realm of martial arts and fantasy, Tsui Hark delivered impressive films like the Once Upon a Time in China martial arts series (1991-97) and the luscious fable Green Snake (1993), as too did Ronny Yu with his dark wuxia tale The Bride with White Hair (1993). In addition to directing action-fantasy faves The Heroic Trio (1993) and Executioners (co-director, 1993), Johnnie To laced his crime-cinema style through Loving You (1995) and shot a gripping disaster film in Lifeline (1996) before co-founding with Wai Ka-fai the production house Milkyway Image. Wai’s brilliant fate-themed gangster picture Too Many Ways to Be No. 1 (1997) arrived as Milkyway’s first production, setting the tone for a strong line of crime pictures and comedies.
Meanwhile, Wong Kar-wai was winning admirers with vivid pop-arthouse crossovers like Chungking Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995) and Happy Together (1997). The United Filmmakers Organization was pushing things upmarket through light comedies and polished dramas by Peter Chan, Lee Chi-ngai and more, with Chan’s acclaimed migrant story Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996) being a particular high point. Actor-director Stephen Chow was amassing a huge fan base with comedies including From Beijing with Love (1994) and The God of Cookery (1996). A band of directors got busy chronicling Hong Kong society through intimate dramas, from Lawrence Lau’s prostitution tale Queen of Temple Street (1990) to Jacob Cheung’s poverty-home story Cageman (1992) to Ann Hui’s Alzheimer’s picture Summer Snow (1995). The film business’ penchant for making ever wilder attractions carried through to scores of adults-only shockers like Herman Yau’s cannibalism horror-comedy The Untold Story (1993). And all the while the city’s impending handover loomed large in many features, including Yau’s identity-swap zinger Walk In (1997) and Fruit Chan’s doomed-youth saga Made in Hong Kong (1997).
Even though local audiences were drifting away, talents who persevered through the 1990s delivered pictures that helped shape Hong Kong film as we know it today. Whether it’s a screen veteran now drawing on action cinema traditions popularised in the likes of Hard Boiled or a new director hoping to echo the social realism of such films as Cageman, for many Hong Kong filmmakers the finest works of the 1990s remain key influences as they push their local cinema forward.
Tim Youngs