Guide 01 Asian cinema independent information
Hong Kong cinema history, from studio kung fu to Infernal Affairs
Hong Kong made films at a pace and with a confidence that few cities have matched. This guide follows the main strands, so you know where to start and what you are looking at.
The golden age of Hong Kong cinema and its studios
Hong Kong films were made for local audiences and for Chinese-language viewers across Southeast Asia long before festivals paid attention. Two companies shaped the postwar industry: the Shaw Brothers studio, with its large studio lot and steady output of period dramas and martial arts films, and Golden Harvest, founded in 1970 by Raymond Chow, which signed Bruce Lee and helped carry Hong Kong action to a worldwide audience with Enter the Dragon in 1973.
The result was a cinema built around genre. Swordplay, kung fu, ghost stories, comedies and crime films were all made quickly, and directors learned their craft by working inside those forms.
The Hong Kong New Wave and the 90s action boom
In the late 1970s a younger group of directors, several trained in television or abroad, brought a more modern look to local stories. Ann Hui and Tsui Hark are among the names most often linked to this Hong Kong New Wave. Their films dealt with city life, migration and politics while still working with genre.
In the 1980s the action film became the city's calling card. John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) made gunfights feel operatic, and Jackie Chan built a style of stunt comedy in which he performed his own physical set pieces. If you enjoy choreography you can see how much of it was designed for the camera.
Wong Kar-wai and the romantic mood
Wong Kar-wai took a different route. Chungking Express (1994) and In the Mood for Love (2000) use close spaces, saturated colour and music to describe longing in crowded Hong Kong. His collaboration with cinematographer Christopher Doyle on several films is a good example of a director and camera operator shaping a look together.
In the Mood for Love earned Tony Leung the best actor prize at Cannes in 2000, and Wong had earlier won the best director award there for Happy Together in 1997.
Crime, comedy and the 2000s
Infernal Affairs (2002), directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, tells of an undercover police officer and a triad mole inside the force. It was followed by two more films, and Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) is an American remake. Watching both is a simple way to compare how the same story changes with its setting.
Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer (2001) shows the comic side of the same industry: it mixes kung fu with football and special effects in a deliberately absurd way. Together these two films show how wide the range was in the same few years.
What happened to Hong Kong cinema?
Output fell from its peak in the 1990s. Writers usually point to several causes together: the uncertainty around the 1997 handover, the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998, piracy, and a market that shifted toward co-productions aimed at mainland China. Hong Kong filmmakers still work and win prizes, so 'dead' is too strong a word, but the industry is smaller and different from the classic era.
Hong Kong cinema classics: where to start
A short path: one Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan film for classic action, A Better Tomorrow for the gunplay style, In the Mood for Love for mood, then Infernal Affairs and Shaolin Soccer. Many older titles exist in restored editions, but availability changes by country, so check current listings.