In the 1940s, Hong Kong's American branch of Tai Kwun Films produced The Light of the Overseas Chinese, the first partial color (three original colors) stereoscopic film in Hong Kong. In the spring of the same year, the director of Nanyang Film Company, Mr. Shaw Chun-yan, initiated a movement called "Cantonese Film Renewal Movement". He believed that in order to improve the Hong Kong film industry, it was necessary to improve the quality of the film, and advocated that we should start with the script first in order to produce a good film, and he also recruited technicians from all walks of life, networked a real first-class actors and a group of young people who had a professional training in the art of writing and cinema to serve as screenwriters, such as Koo Lung, Ko, Fung Fung Ko, etc. The "Nanyang" movie was the first of its kind in this revolutionary movement. Under this innovative movement, "Nanyang" produced such masterpieces as "A Thousand Smiles", "The Strange One", "The Mountain of Hope", and "When Will You Come Again". After that, Hong Kong was plunged into a period of war, "From December 1941, when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong and bombed the Tai Kwun Film Studio and other film facilities, the Hong Kong film industry was at a complete standstill in early 1946." 12 In fact, since the end of 1945, there were already demobilized film companies such as "United Artists", "Hua Sheng", "United Sound", etc., resumed operation, but due to the fact that some major film workers such as Kwan Man-ching, Wu Chor-fan, Pai Yin, etc., were still overseas, and some of the original Hong Kong film studios such as the "Nanyang Studios" and the "Taikwan Studios" were damaged and turned into a piece of rubble; coupled with the lack of some film production equipments, therefore, the Hong Kong film industry It was not until 1946 that the Hong Kong film industry began to recover.
"After the revival of Hong Kong, the entertainment business became more and more prosperous, especially in the cinema, where the audience was more crowded, and the seats were filled up in the early morning whenever a good movie was shown." 13 It was also said that "in 1946, the Hong Kong film industry was in the midst of a major economic crisis. 13 It is also said that "The late 1940s to the mid-1960s was a period of great success for Cantonese-language films. Every year, 200 Cantonese films were released, many of which were Cantonese opera films." 14 But in fact, after the 1946s, in addition to Cantonese films, Mandarin films also developed at the same time. This was due to the turbulent situation in Shanghai during the civil war, and famous domestic filmmakers such as Zhang Shankun, Li Zuyong, Zhu Shilin, and actors such as Zhou Xuan, Yan Jun, and Baiguang went to the south in droves. At this time, Zhang Shankun and Li Zuyong set up the "Wing Wah Film Company" in Hong Kong (1947-1954), and in 1948 they made two famous and sensational movies, "The Soul of the Nation" and "The Secret History of the Qing Dynasty". At the end of the 1940s, there were also Chinese-language studios such as Great China, The Great Wall and Cathay Pacific, which produced many famous movies, such as The Great Wall's release of "A Generation of Demonesses", which was a sensation and became a calling card of the generation.
The 1950s was the golden age of Hong Kong cinema.15 As Hong Kong society had not fully recovered from the war, the influx of refugees caused serious social problems. In order to cater to the general public and provide cheap entertainment, Cantonese films at this time were released in a number of crude and abusive Cantonese productions, which were referred to as "seven days' freshness" because they could be finished in a week. However, there were many serious works at this time, such as "Home" (based on a novel by Ba Jin) by "CUHK". CUHK was founded in 1952, and there were 21 founders***, all of whom were elites in the Cantonese film industry, such as Wu Chor-fan, Cheung Woo-yau, Ma Shi-tsang, Wu Hui, Pak Yin, Wong Man-li, etc. They had a vision in founding "CUHK", which was to provide cheap entertainment to the public, and therefore released a lot of crude and abusive Cantonese films. They had one goal in mind when they founded "CUHK": "To leave behind Cantonese opera films that are detached from reality and vague in content, and to produce socially conscious films that entertain the public as well as educate them." 16 In order to improve the vulgarity of Hong Kong's Cantonese films, a group of 164 aspiring filmmakers, such as Wu Chor Fan, Wu Hui, Qin Jian, Gao Luquan, Red Thread, Li Yueqing, and others, launched the "Cantonese Film Cleanup Campaign" (pictured on the right) to improve the quality of their films. (pictured right) to improve the quality of films and the development of Hong Kong cinema.
Cantonese films were produced in the mid-1950s and early 1960s in a wide variety of genres, including opera, martial arts, comedy, literature, and ethics. However, as the post-war generation grew up, the society became more prosperous and westernized, and the younger generation had a higher education level, the traditional Cantonese films could not satisfy their tastes. Therefore, there were urban comedies based on brokers, white-collar workers and factory workers, detective action films imitating the western spy films, and westernized song and dance films, and there was a wave of youthful idols such as Chan Po-chu and Siu Fong-fong.
At the same time, "Since 1961, when Shaw Brothers opened its new studio in Clearwater Bay, the production of Mandarin-language films has gone beyond the small-budget Cantonese-language productions." 17 The most popular films among the public in the 1960s, the Shaw Brothers films, were made in Cantonese. 17 In the mid-1960s, the most popular martial arts films were in Mandarin. In 1967, Shaw Brothers released Dragon Inn and The One-Armed Sword, which became a sensation in the movie industry. The production of Cantonese films began to decline. At the same time, the director at that time made a lot of low-budget Cantonese pornographic movies in order to maintain the development of the production of Cantonese movies. In the 1970s, director Lee Han-cheung started to make a lot of erotic movies based on the theme of sex and moonlight, and the emergence of pornographic movies became a feature of the movie industry in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In 1971, Bruce Lee's "The Brotherhood of Tangshan" once again pushed kung fu movies to the peak. At this time, Hong Kong movies were still dominated by Mandarin films, and it wasn't until 1973 that a new Cantonese film, "The House of 72 Tenants," appeared again, and the following year there was also HUI Koon-man's "Ghosts of the Twin Stars," in which the production of Cantonese films exceeded that of Mandarin films in 1977, and so it was not until the middle of the 1970s that Cantonese films reappeared.
On October 25, the 15th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival kicked off in Hangzhou. Ten films of different styles, including "Myth", "A Thousand Miles", "Ambush on All Sides", "No Thief Under Heaven", "Zhang Side", "Kung Fu", "New Police Story" and "Huo Yuanjia", have been shortlisted for this year's Hundred Flowers Film Festival.
Hong Kong films are competing with mainland films for the "Golden Rooster" and "Hundred Flowers" for the first time, and it's hard to know whether this will be a useful boost to the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival's awarding system, which has been laying "multiple yolks" for many years. Whether this will be a useful promotion of the award system of the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, which has been laying "many yellow eggs" for many years, is hard to know. However, the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival has opened its doors to Hong Kong films, which may mean that Hong Kong and mainland films have realized cooperation in form and are gradually moving towards real integration.
In the 1980s, after the success of "Shaolin Temple" knocked on the door of mainland cinema, Hong Kong films flooded into the mainland like a tidal wave. Although there was no lack of martial arts films, gunfighting films soon became the mainstream, and the fiery scenes of Hong Kong-produced films left too much of a novelty impression on mainland audiences. During this heyday, Hong Kong produced more than 300 films a year, a record high. Although not every film achieved excellent box office revenues, it is an indisputable fact that the vast majority of films eventually broke into the mainland and were widely received by mainland audiences, and a number of Hong Kong movie stars also stood out from the crowd.
The popularity of Hong Kong films on the mainland in the 1980s was mainly due to the cultural shortage on the mainland. This shortage did not simply refer to the number of film and television productions on the mainland, but the uneven quality of the mainland film and television productions themselves, which could not withstand the onslaught of Hong Kong films. However, with the rapid economic progress, mainland films have gradually gained a firm foothold, and a number of internationally influential films have slowly recovered the market. On the other hand, Hong Kong filmmakers, salivating over the vast film business opportunities brought about by the economic take-off in the Mainland, began to add some "Mainland elements" to their films, whether consciously or unconsciously, in order to win the favor of the Mainland audience. When the mainland audience began to feel tired of the kind of Hong Kong films, Hong Kong filmmakers had to seriously think about the tastes of the mainland audience. This style of production, which takes into account the "taste" of the mainland audience, will inevitably lead to the loss of Hong Kong's local audience. But compared to the vast market of hundreds of millions of viewers on the mainland, who cares about that kind of small talk in the past?
Also, in the face of the rapid rise of the mainland's film and television industry, Hong Kong movies have been forced to use more and more mainland stars. We saw Chen Daoming in "Infernal Affairs" and Chen Baoguo in "Baby Plan". On the other hand, both Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang have tried hard to find some kind of balance between the two cultures, with Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Liu Ruoying in Ambush on Ten Faces and World Without Thieves.
So it seems that the decline in Hong Kong's box office receipts should be an inevitable result of cultural integration between the two places. This also indicates that Hong Kong movies have entered the "post-Hong Kong movie era". In the "post-Hong Kong movie era", from the surface of the phenomenon of the number of local artists in Hong Kong is quite prominent phenomenon, is still for Jackie Chan, Andy Lau and so on a few evergreen trees hard to hold. But we do not have to worry too much about this, because more and more Hong Kong artists began their "northern drift" career, to join the mainland development. Alan Leong has starred in the movie "On the Mountain of Taihang", and handsome young man Junjie Wei has also starred as the hero He Shichang in the recent TV drama "Red Memory". Although the audience questioned the role at first, Junjie Wei's excellent performance was eventually accepted by the audience.
The "post-Hong Kong movie era" is a sign of the history of Hong Kong movies, but it is definitely not the end of the Hong Kong movie industry. At least in terms of the vast domestic movie market, the integration of Hong Kong movies with mainland movies is inevitable. Since it is a fusion, after the pain, it will always return to a relatively balanced state, and this should perhaps be the best state of Hong Kong local films. Besides, although on the surface there seem to be fewer Hong Kong films, more filmmakers have actually gone north to drive the progress of the entire mainland film industry, and the "Hong Kong element" of mainland films has also increased.
Ten years will be renovated people, indeed, in the complex entertainment industry, especially the new generation of Hong Kong's entertainment industry, TVB TVB and ATV ATV compete with each other to promote the development of Hong Kong's entertainment industry, Hong Kong Miss election, Hong Kong male election, Miss China, Miss Asia election, TVB artist training courses, a variety of singing competitions, training the new generation of new people! Whether it's a current superstar, a future star or a former superstar, Hong Kong's entertainment industry has seen it all! Of course, in the financial turmoil, SARS period of Hong Kong is still so united, no matter how many things happen in the entertainment industry, the Hong Kong Performing Arts Society has always been for the people of Hong Kong in the service, to ensure the safety of Hong Kong artists! After the return of Hong Kong to the motherland, Hong Kong has become more prosperous, and there are more co-productions with Mainland China and Taiwan! But there are also some unhappy things, like Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Ke Shouliang, Weng Meiling, Bruce Lee, Teresa Teng, Wong Ka Kui, Luo Wen, Chan Pak Keung and other superstars passed away, but also let the Hong Kong entertainment industry people have felt the fragility of life, should be more to cherish life!