Hong Kong

THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBALIZATION

Prompted by anxiety over the imminent 1997 reunification with China, a significant number of Hong Kong's film producers, directors, scriptwriters, actors, and actresses emigrated throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Some were drained by Hollywood, but many simply gave up their careers. In addition to talent loss, Hong Kong suffered a serious economic downturn during the 1990s, and even the bigger studios such as Golden Harvest were affected. As well, pirated tapes, VCDs, and DVDs flooded the local market. By 1999 audience attendance had hit bottom; the only films that attracted a wide market were Hollywood blockbusters such as The Lion King (1994) and Titanic (1998).

At the same time, the commercial potential of Hong Kong cinema drew international attention. The success of Ying xiong ben se ( A Better Tomorrow , 1986) by John Woo (b. 1946) in the United States had a lasting impact, popularizing Chinese kung fu in American action movies. Since then, many Hong Kong films have been shown in mainstream (versus art) cinemas in the United States. Directors such as John Woo and Tsui Hark, and actors such as Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat (b. 1955), and Jet Li (b. 1963) frequently work in Hollywood on films for global distribution. Chan's Ngo si sui ( Who Am I? , 1998), for example, attempts to connect Hong Kong with the international community in its action-packed story involving a transnational mafia, the CIA, and locations in Africa and Amsterdam. Like many other films made during the 1990s, it also considers the question of identity, but seeks to answer it through a superficial connection with global communities. Since then, Chan has continued to build his world cinema either through local producers, with Hollywood financing ( Rush Hour , 1998), or by coproduction ( Bor lei jun [ Gorgeous ], 1999, and Shanghai Noon , 2000). Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, coproduction became increasingly necessary, for financing and to facilitate world distribution.

Amidst the gangster fantasies, ghost stories, and absurd comedies (especially those by the popular comedian Stephen Chow [b. 1962]) of the 1990s and 2000s, there were a number of important realist films made by a little-known loner, Fruit Chan (b. 1959), the first and arguably the only independent feature filmmaker of the period. Xianggang zhizao ( Made in Hong Kong , 1997), Qu nian yan hua te bie duo ( The Longest Summer , 1998), and Liulian piao piao ( Durian Durian , 2000) have neither big action nor big stars, but their observations of the lives of ordinary Hong Kong citizens is poignant. The significance of these films for independent filmmaking, which was previously almost absent in Hong Kong, is still unknown. Major companies such as Golden Harvest and other production houses founded in the 1980s are still trying to find ways to adapt to the challenges of the twenty-first century.