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The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity
The Cinema of Hong Kong examines one of the most popular and dynamic cinema traditions in the history of film. Providing an overview of major directors, genres and stars, from its origins to the present, this volume examines Hong Kong cinema in transnational, historical, and artistic contexts. Individual essays focus on Hong Kong cinema before and during World War II; the cinema of the turbulent 1960s; its rise to world prominence in the 1970s and its reception in the United States, and the revival of Cantonese cinema, among other topics.
- GenresFilmAsiaNonfiction
348 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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May 18, 2025
An excellent introduction to the varied cinema that constitutes Hong Kong cinema which has sadly declined since what is considered by many as its heyday from the period of the early 80's to around mid-late 90's. The book is divided into various essays on various aspects of Hong Kong cinema such as the portrayal of city life versus rural life, the reading of political allegories into its films, Hong Kong new wave cinema from around 1979 as well as the mandatory Kung fu craze which really started to kick in around 1973 with the works of Bruce Lee.
The strongest association usually for people when it comes to Hong Kong films is very often either placed in the category of Kung Fu films stemming from the early 70's produced by either the Shaw Brothers (in the majority of cases) or Golden Harvest (a film production company I would claim diversified itself more than Shaw Brothers) or alternatively the crime-action-drama films of the mid-eighties where directors such as John Woo, Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark come to mind. However, as this book reminds us there is a lot more to Hong Kong cinema where we may for instance mention the Hong Kong new wave entering the scene from 1979 with directors such as Ann Hui (perhaps most famously with her film Boat People) , Patrick Tam (who served as an inspiration for Wong-Kar Wai later when his career really started to kick off) as well as early Tsui Hark with films such as ' Dangerous encounters of the First Kind'. There is also a chapter dedicated to the films of 40's which are less explored in terms of cinematic terrain as well as remarking upon the fact that the famed Wuxia films of Hong Kong owe a lot of debt to mainland China as a lot of expertise was brought in from the mainland. One author in particular mentions the origin of Kung Fu films to martial arts films in the 1920's from Shanghai.
There is also considerable attention brought to critically acclaimed Kong Kong dramas such as the excellent films of Wong-Kar Wai and I was happy to see a longer discussion on the film 'Comrades: almost a Love Story' with the iconic Maggie Cheung who has sadly since retired from the Hong Kong film scene.
In all an excellent introduction to the Hong Kong movie scene where my only lament was that several bits of information was repeated by various of the essays which undoubtably sometimes went into a bit too similar film discussions at times. Other than that I would highly recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in Hong Kong cinema.
(Note: I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating system of thumbs up/down. This later rating system increases in my humble opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to engage with a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars of a given book.)
The strongest association usually for people when it comes to Hong Kong films is very often either placed in the category of Kung Fu films stemming from the early 70's produced by either the Shaw Brothers (in the majority of cases) or Golden Harvest (a film production company I would claim diversified itself more than Shaw Brothers) or alternatively the crime-action-drama films of the mid-eighties where directors such as John Woo, Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark come to mind. However, as this book reminds us there is a lot more to Hong Kong cinema where we may for instance mention the Hong Kong new wave entering the scene from 1979 with directors such as Ann Hui (perhaps most famously with her film Boat People) , Patrick Tam (who served as an inspiration for Wong-Kar Wai later when his career really started to kick off) as well as early Tsui Hark with films such as ' Dangerous encounters of the First Kind'. There is also a chapter dedicated to the films of 40's which are less explored in terms of cinematic terrain as well as remarking upon the fact that the famed Wuxia films of Hong Kong owe a lot of debt to mainland China as a lot of expertise was brought in from the mainland. One author in particular mentions the origin of Kung Fu films to martial arts films in the 1920's from Shanghai.
There is also considerable attention brought to critically acclaimed Kong Kong dramas such as the excellent films of Wong-Kar Wai and I was happy to see a longer discussion on the film 'Comrades: almost a Love Story' with the iconic Maggie Cheung who has sadly since retired from the Hong Kong film scene.
In all an excellent introduction to the Hong Kong movie scene where my only lament was that several bits of information was repeated by various of the essays which undoubtably sometimes went into a bit too similar film discussions at times. Other than that I would highly recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in Hong Kong cinema.
(Note: I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating system of thumbs up/down. This later rating system increases in my humble opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to engage with a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars of a given book.)
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review