Hong Kong was a profoundly changed city in the opening months of 2020. Due to the rising pandemic and the more than six months of widespread political strife which had preceded it, the city’s inhabitants had weathered an extraordinary period of stress. It was a time of great pressure for Hong Kong’s film business, too.
The headline figures for Hong Kong cinema in 2019 initially didn’t look too bad: cinema takings dropped only 2 per cent to HK$1.92 billion (US$24.8 million), with a rise of 6 per cent in the first six months offsetting later falls amid the city-wide protests. But the details were more troubling. Just 46 local productions were released in 2019, down from 53 films in each of the previous two years. Market share for local works sat at 13 per cent, and once again no hometown production reached the overall top 10.
Hongkongers are still keen on cinema, but they mostly prefer to flock to US hits like last year’s Avengers: Endgame – now the territory’s all-time box-office champ – instead of catching local fare on the big screen.
The turbulence that upended Hong Kong life began in the summer of 2019. Long-running social and political tensions surged as protesters massed on the streets, calling for the government to withdraw a bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China.
The legislative exercise had drawn widespread resistance, driven by fears that such a move would damage the “one country, two systems” principle Hong Kong is governed under. Turnout for a June 9 march was immense, with organisers putting attendance at just over 1 million, and even more protested the next weekend.
By the time the city’s leader announced – three months later – that the bill would be withdrawn, the situation had escalated. Radicals had stepped up action, and the movement’s demands had grown to include calls for full elections and an independent inquiry into widely alleged police brutality against protesters.
The impact of the tumult was widespread, and cinemagoing and filmmaking were both affected. During the peak months of the unrest, many young people turned their attention to activism rather than entertainment. Others found it hard to reach cinemas when protests unfolded near theatres and tear gas shrouded the streets. For several weeks, evening shows became difficult to catch as the trains had stopped running.
Meanwhile, intense polarisation split much of the city into two camps (pro-democracy and pro-protest on one side; pro-establishment and pro-police on the other). This impacted the mass appeal of certain filmmakers and types of stories. The drop in the public’s approval of the police means it won’t be business as usual for cop movies in future, for instance, and some film figures have fallen from favour, or faced calls for a boycott, after voicing support for the administration or criticising protesters.
In the 2019 year-end cinema charts, the anti-corruption flick Integrity held the top slot among local films. Directed by Alan Mak and equipped with flashy production values, a complex plot, and top-tier stars, the film was the local winner among the Lunar New Year releases. Herman Yau’s The White Storm 2 Drug Lords was another popular thriller. On the big screen, the tale of a wealthy Hongkonger trying to stem the flow of narcotics offered some sensational scenes, including a car chase in an underground train station.
More excitement turned up in Line Walker 2 Invisible Spy, an ambitious name-only sequel from relative newcomer Jazz Boon. Drawing heavily on the moods of Hong Kong’s “heroic bloodshed” cinema of the 1980s and early 1990s, the picture launched into grand action set pieces including one staged amid Spain’s running of the bulls.
Those seeking traditional martial arts action could find plenty in Ip Man 4: The Finale. Promising a conclusion to the main line of features starring Donnie Yen as wing chun grandmaster Ip Man, the film moved the popular biopic series to the US and delivered strong fights overseen by veteran choreographer Yuen Woo-ping.
Other key thrillers in 2019 included David Lam’s P Storm and Wong Jing and Jason Kwan’s Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch. The former continued a trashy series centred on Hong Kong’s anti-corruption agency, and shifted the saga to a prison setting, while the latter looked back at the exploits of flamboyant Hong Kong kidnapper “Big Spender” Cheung Tze-keung (previously covered in three other films).
Guilt by Design, helmed by the trio of Paul Sze, Kenneth Lai and Lau Wing-tai, offered slick (if absurd) scenes of courtroom drama with an added thriller styling, while Fruit Chan, usually noted for his small-scale, gritty and highly local works, melded martial arts and bizarre CGI sea-monster antics in the oddball police actioner Invincible Dragon.
Filmmakers embarking on expensive big-screen works like these must look beyond the small Hong Kong market for financing support and bigger audiences. In most cases, that means opting for a Hong Kong-Chinese mainland co-production. Thanks to measures contained in a 2003 trade pact, Hong Kong firms partnering with mainland film companies can open movies across the border as domestic works that are not subject to quotas. They therefore have the chance of achieving a vastly greater income.
But opening a film in China is not easy to do. Mainland censorship requirements are fluid, and can result in clunky workarounds and delays, while other Beijing regulatory pressures have slowed production during the past two years. The mainland censors’ requirement for all wrongdoers portrayed on screen to either be punished or to die, for instance, can result in predictable plot turns. Blocks on supernatural material and stories featuring unresolved legal grey areas cut the scope for genre productions.
In addition, a difference of viewing tastes between Hong Kong and the mainland mean that a film’s mainland stars may be unpopular, or even unknown, in Hong Kong, and a comedy style or a theme may not click for both audiences.
Hong Kong filmmakers have to choose whether to gear a co-production to both markets or just one market, either Hong Kong or the mainland. Trying to do well in both markets can be difficult. For instance, the appeal of patriotic high-budget works in Hong Kong, where many viewers have become resistant to Beijing amid the city’s political pressures, is low. But such films are popular in the mainland.
Andrew Lau’s The Captain, in which an airline pilot averts disaster, and Daniel Lee’s The Climbers, which pays tribute to a mountaineer, are good examples. Both were blockbuster National Day releases in the mainland last year, but they played as minor attractions in Hong Kong cinemas.
Co-productions have also run into increased scrutiny amid Hong Kong’s recent protests, resulting in major works having their hoped-for release dates dropped. Some have needed fixes to gain approval. (To get a release anywhere, including screenings at film festivals, co-productions first need a green light from the mainland censors.)
Meanwhile, talent issues can arise, most notably with filmmakers risking blacklisting or boycotts in the mainland if they publicly show support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp. Such a situation can pummel box-office takings, or even derail the release plans for a completed film.
Nonetheless, co-production and its higher budgets can help filmmakers go big in realising their cinematic visions. Beyond the top modern-day Hong Kong thrillers that hit screens in 2019, consider Teddy Chen’s Double World – a big-budget period epic unfolding in an extensive fantasy world. Moreover, with careful planning some co-productions can play well in the mainland while retaining strong Hong Kong themes and flavours, thereby addressing fears of co-production weakening the local identity of Hong Kong cinema. The White Storm 2 and Line Walker 2, popular across the nation’s movie houses in the summer, both carried a strong Hong Kong cinema feel.
Heiward Mak’s gentle food-themed family drama Fagara followed a trio of women from Hong Kong, the mainland and Taiwan, but was centred on a small local restaurant and its heritage. Early in 2019 Herman Yau drew heavily on local social grievances with his co-produced drama A Home with a View, about a family struggling with issues linked to property, bureaucracy and education. And i’m livin’ it, a work from first-time director Wong Hing-fan, offered community melodrama focused on homeless people and grassroots workers.
Filmmakers heading across the border to shoot can also leverage a wide range of material there. Derek Kwok-cheung Tsang looked at vicious school bullying on the mainland with his accomplished youth drama Better Days. With its universal theme, the film could strike a chord with viewers anywhere, and it became one of 2019’s standout works. Johnnie To paired the mainland’s trend for snazzy TV talent quests with mixed martial arts to deliver Chasing Dream. With the story fully set outside Hong Kong, long-time fans of To’s work with collaborator Wai Ka-fai could revisit the zippy loopiness of the pair’s past hometown comedies in new settings.
New King of Comedy, a Lunar New Year offering produced by Stephen Chow and co-directed by Chow and Herman Yau, was a charming star-is-born tale set in a mainland film-studio town. It was entertaining, with a fun script and quality performances. On a much smaller scale, Benny Lau’s Your World, Without Me took to the hills of Sichuan to infuse a cute little love story with scenic vistas far removed from the Hong Kong grind.
Filmmakers who opt out of mainland co-production are freed from central censorship constraints and often focus on highly local material. But budgets for these works are naturally much lower, and there’s the risk of a lukewarm audience response at home, where cinemagoers often dismiss local works as sub-par and may not even notice new releases.
Avid followers of Hong Kong films must eye cinema schedules closely, as minor works can be limited to poor timeslots in out-of-the-way theatres and not promoted at all. Local disinterest is in part addressed by delayed releases: typically smaller pictures first have a local festival premiere and/or limited end-of-year screenings for awards eligibility, then wait months for full release in the hope of building a buzz through prizes and overseas festival play.
Biggest among locally focused works in 2019 was Oliver Chan’s feature debut Still Human, released widely in April after a festival run and limited shows starting in November the year before. Boasting several awards (including the audience award in Udine) to drum up attention, the film easily charmed with its tale of affection between an ageing paraplegic and his Filipino domestic helper.
Among other key smaller pictures last year was My Prince Edward, the first feature directed by Norris Wong. Centring on a Hong Kong wedding-services mall, the novel picture was both a gentle relationship drama and a quirky look at Hong Kong-mainland ties. Ray Yeung’s Suk Suk offered an exquisite low-key attraction in its tale of two elderly closeted gay men torn between their feelings for each other and family life. Strong performances from the leading men caught attention come awards season early this year, but the community portrait Yeung presented was also impressive.
Fruit Chan, meanwhile, turned in an unsettling mother-daughter drama with his indie flick The Abortionist. Early in the year, Chan’s sleazy Three Husbands gained wide release, channelling local fears over integration with the mainland into a filthy allegory surrounding a mysterious woman pimped on a boat.
Nick Leung’s Lion Rock drew on the true story of a wheelchair-bound Hong Kong mountain climber to offer an inspirational youth saga, while Chow Kwun-wai’s dark drama Beyond the Dream brought mental illness to the fore in a story of a young man hit with erotomania – a condition in which he dates the illusion of his future therapist.
Dearest Anita, directed by Clifton Ko and Pako Leung, focused on the late pop singer Anita Mui and examined why she’s so treasured by her fans, while Luk Yee-sum looked to pregnancy and marriage trouble in her comedy-drama Secret Diary of a Mom to Be.
Further light fare turned up in the 2019 Lunar New Year. Aside from New King of Comedy and Integrity, the season featured Wong Cho-lam’s musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!, which adapted an off-Broadway play and staged large-scale song-and-dance numbers in public places, and Pang Ho-cheung’s freewheeling comedy Missbehavior, among others.
Other smaller-scale offerings held ambitious genre-cinema concepts through 2019. A Witness Out of the Blue, directed by Fung Chih-chiang, had a straightforward cop saga at its heart but dressed it up with quirky art direction, zippy action and a chatty parrot. Calvin Poon’s Fatal Visit saw a murder story gradually come to light in a lakeside US home. The Lady Improper, the first mainstream picture from director Jessey Tsang, melded highly local food-themed drama with a tale of a woman overcoming fear of sexual intimacy.
In Ronnie Chau’s Missing, Hongkongers encounter wormholes in the countryside and major family troubles ensue. We Are Legends, helmed by Daniel Chan, followed two boxers in a neatly formed fight saga based on the exploits of a real-life mixed-martial arts star.
In Lee Cheuk-pan’s The Fallen, tensions play out in Hong Kong and Thailand when Hong Kong gangland figures try to boost their drug business. The film was the second from newcomer Lee in a year – his earlier G Affairs offered a bleak crime puzzler dotted with sex and corruption.
A neat anomaly in 2019 was the animated film The Great Sherlock Holmes – The Greatest Jail-Breaker, directed by Toe Yuen and Matthew Chow. Promoted as a 100 per cent Hong Kong production, the movie pleased with a mystery set in Victorian England leavened with social consciousness and timely local resonance.
The top leading men in major Hong Kong pictures last year were all familiar figures. Andy Lau and Lau Ching-wan took major spots in the thrillers The White Storm 2 and Integrity respectively, and the busy Louis Koo appeared in major works like The White Storm 2 and P Storm as well as quality smaller films.
Nick Cheung had a good year with Integrity and Line Walker 2, as well as Bodies at Rest, a high-end Hong Kong thriller directed by Beijing-based Finn Renny Harlin. Anthony Wong was widely lauded for his part in Still Human, Donnie Yen remained a top martial-arts draw with his new Ip Man picture, and Aaron Kwok gave a fine showing in i’m livin’ it. Impressive as these stars’ performances may be, it remains worrying that younger talents aren’t gaining a foothold in the top ranks.
Ardent moviegoers can point to quality performances by leading men in small pictures – among them Louis Cheung (A Witness Out of the Blue), Chu Pak-hong (My Prince Edward) and Lau Chun-him (Beyond the Dream) – but few of these actors could be considered box-office draws.
Among the city’s top actresses, Sammi Cheng and Stephy Tang scored strong performances during the past year. Cheng drew attention for her work in Fagara and Fatal Visit, while Tang continued her fine run in smaller works with My Prince Edward. Karena Lam held prominent roles at the high end in The White Storm 2 and Integrity, and Charlene Choi also kept active in mid-size pictures.
Other standouts in the past year included Cecilia Choi (Beyond the Dream), Ng Wing-sze (The Abortionist), Michelle Wai (Lion Rock) and Cecilia So (Guilt by Design).
While the number of local movies slumped in 2019, support for new behind-the-scenes talent did not wane. Many of the year’s new films were helmed by first-time feature directors, with major production companies and distributors giving strong backing.
Also helping was the government’s First Feature Film Initiative (FFFI), which uses annual screenplay competitions to award full production funds for feature directing debuts. Last year’s acclaimed Still Human was an FFFI picture, and My Prince Edward and G Affairs gained its support too.
The Hong Kong Asian Film Festival continues to prominently champion new talent, and also helping new filmmakers is the annual Fresh Wave programme, which backs low-budget shorts of up to 30 minutes each. Over on the small screen, public broadcaster RTHK is giving airtime to young film talent through chat shows and shorts.
2020 got off to an awful start amid the spread of Covid-19, and the film scene was hard-hit. Ahead of the normally lucrative Lunar New Year holidays in late January, mainland authorities blocked seven major festive-season releases, including Dante Lam’s maritime epic The Rescue and Peter Chan’s volleyball picture Leap, to help clear cinemas and prevent the spread of disease. Soon after, many mainland film shoots were stopped, and cinemas there were closed.
In Hong Kong, the Lunar New Year break saw box-office takings drop 30 per cent compared with the previous year’s holiday haul, as people started to avoid public places. (The best performing local film was The Grand Grandmaster, a plucky martial arts-themed picture starring and directed by popular comic Dayo Wong.) Movie houses after the holidays took steps like seating viewers in alternate rows, cancelling morning shows and boosting cleaning times. When a second wave of infection arrived in mid-March, all of the city’s theatres were finally ordered to shut.
As the health crisis unfolded, a good range of local movies sat waiting in the wings. Films that had limited screenings in 2019, but were still awaiting a proper cinema release in early April included i’m livin’ it, My Prince Edward, Suk Suk and Beyond the Dream.
Further works were ready for premieres, but others had been delayed by the mainland’s heightened censorship scrutiny or production stoppages. While the disease situation created obstacles to filming and threatened industry jobs, some looked to the downtime as an opportunity to focus on pre-production, including spending time on improving scripts, which have long been a weakness in Hong Kong cinema. To that end, extra government support was announced in February. Measures included spending HK$100 million (US$12.9 million) to partner new directors with veteran ones to make 10 to 12 films; launching a Scriptwriting Incubation Programme, involving a competition and mentoring; boosting film financing and raising the number of FFFI films; and funding industry training courses.
Much uncertainty remained in Hong Kong as Easter came and went. The coronavirus situation had become a pandemic, and locals hardened by memories of the city’s 2003 SARS crisis braced for a months-long fight against the disease, as well as its major economic impact. Cinemas eventually reopened in early May, but big new releases were still delayed and seating capacities were halved.
Meanwhile, many expected major protests to flare up again, given the city’s unresolved political and social issues. And come May, a bombshell decision in Beijing to enact a tough national security law for the territory raised tensions sharply. Hong Kong now finds itself in a situation that won’t be easy to rebound from, and a smooth recovery for its battered local film scene will be just as hard to achieve.
Tim Youngs