Abstract
Inspired by the protests and political turmoil taking place in Hong Kong during 2019, this dissertation explores the emergence of a new cinematic movement in Hong Kong that emerged in response to the growing sinicisation of Hong Kong’s cultural and political centres. This process led to an erosion of Hong Kong’s national identity and has been reflected in changes made to Hong Kong film industry’s rules. Following a steady decline, the Hong Kong film industry was rejuvenated by the 2003, Close Economic Partnership, which granted local filmmakers quota free access to the mainland market, but only if their work adheres to the strict state sponsored censorship code employed by the Chinese Film Bureau. As a result of this, Hong Kong filmmakers who reject the ideological ring fencing imposed by China are free to explore cultural issues in films that would otherwise be censored for their political content. One of these film, Ten Years (2015), exemplifies the defiant attitude of the emerging Fresh Wave movement by exploring five potential futures for Hong Kong in the year 2025. Like all Fresh Wave films, the five narratives of Ten Years are inspired by the directors and writers’ personal experiences of living in the Chinese Hong Kong and represents a growing resistance against further Chinese interference in the political, cultural and economic structures of the city.
Table of Contents
1. Literature Review……………………………………………………………7
2. Hong Kong New Wave……………………………………………………..12
3. CEPA…………………………………………………………………………18
4. Fresh Wave…………………………………………………………………..22
5. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...27
6. A critical analysis of Ten Years (2015), and the emergence of the Hong Kong Fresh Wave Movement……………………………………………..32
7. Ten Years…………………………………………………………………….40
8. Response…………………………………………………………………….42
9. Aftermath……………………………………………………………………..46
10. Ten Years analysis………………………………………………………….49
11. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...65
Ten Years, and the emergence of the Hong Kong fresh wave
Hong Kong became a British colony on January 25th, 1842, which resulted in strong cultural links being developed between China, Britain and Hong Kong, contributing to the formation of a local identity that describes as a “contradictory entity”, “being both Chinese and Capitalist” by (Williams, 2000) As a result of this, identity has become a defining characteristic of Hong Kong, and its significance has been a defining factor in the formation of the city’s cinematic identity. The territory's status as a colony provided Hong Kong citizens with freedoms un-known on the Mainland, freedoms that have over time forged cultural and national divisions between Mainlanders and Hong Kongers, divisions that were increased as the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China neared (Bordwell, 2000, p29). Despite 92% of Hong Kong’s population (n.d., 2016) being ethnically Chinese, the geographical, cultural, political and linguistic separation between the territory and the mainland has had a dramatic impact on Hong Kongers’ sense of identity (Abbas, 1997). Ackbar Abbas argues that these differences have become so great in fact, that one must consider Mainland Chinese and Hong Kongers as “culturally and politically quite distinct”, going on to say
“It is not true, as some might wish to believe, that if you scratch the surface of a Hong Kong person you will find a Chinese identity waiting to be reborn” (Abbas, 97. P2)
The prospect of an alien identity being imposed upon the local population was brought in to acute relief following the 1982 visit of Margaret Thatcher Beijing, the purpose of which was to negotiate the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, following the expiration of Britain’s lease. After two years of negotiation, an agreement was reached on December 19th, 1984, between Zhao Ziyang, Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, and the United Kingdom, with the singing of the ‘Joint Declaration’. The bi-lateral agreement would restore Hong Kong to the PRC’s sovereignty on July 1st, 1997 and initiate a fifty-year ‘one country, two systems’ guarantee during which time the PRC would not interfere with Hong Kong’s economic or political systems. The signing of the Joint Declaration and the twenty-three-year transitional period that followed are seen by many as the start of an extended period of uncertainty in Hong Kong that would force the region and its inhabitants to reconsider their relationships with the Mainland (Ching-kiu Chan, 2001, p.488). Following the signing of the declaration, anti-Chinese sentiment began to increase across the territory (Ma, 2015), which increasingly found expression in a variety of cultural texts that began to position 1997 as a “cultural symbol of fear and apprehension”. (Hok Se-leung 2004. P455) in (Ferguson, 2010))”.
Esther Yau argues that Great Britain’s decision to return Hong Hong to Chinese rule was a defining factor in the increasing sense of collective anxiety surrounding Hong Kong’s political future during the 1980s and 90s, as it “brought back memories of a refugee past” (Yau, 1994, p.181). Further to this, Stephen Teo terms the collective anxieties surrounding China a ‘China syndrome’ (Teo, 1997, p207) and points to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 as the more potent turning point in the attitudes of Hongkongers towards Mainland China. As attitudes transitioned from those of ‘hope and optimism’ to ‘despair and frustration (Teo, 1999)’ the population of Hong Kong, confronted with the reality of a future over which it would they would very little say (Teo, 1997, p.243), experienced “a kind of last-minute collective search for a more definitive identity". (Abbas. P4).
Through this dissertation, I aim to explore the impact of the 1997 hand-over on the Hong Kong film industry, and how, through resistance to an increased strategy of Mainlandisation, a group of young filmmakers have forged a new cinematic movement that is forming a new identity for Hong Kong cinema. This ‘local’ movement emerged as a response to the increasing control of Hong Kong film production by the Mainland, and has positioned itself as a voice of defiance and critique in an increasingly fractured state, and film industry.
Since their inception both Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong film industries have developed side by side and exerted substantial influence over one another, as filmmakers and performers routinely worked between both territories, sharing practices and learning from each other. In fact, it could be argued that ‘Hong Kong cinema’, as it is understood today, did not truly come in to existence until 1949 after the Japanese invasion of China ended, and did not discover a separate and identifiable Hong-Kong-centric identity until the late-1970s with the emergence of the ‘First Hong Kong New Wave movement. The anxieties exposed during the lead up to and signing of the Joint-Declaration in 1984 fed into the formation of a distinct cinematic identity for the Hong Kong industry, one that was culturally distinct form the Mainland Chinese productions, and more technically explosive than the American cinema that dominated south-east Asian markets. This a surge in Cantonese film production is seen by (Desser, 2000. P.230) as an assertion of the colonies “cultural liberation from the mainland”, and contributed to the creation of a definitive identity by re-positioning Cantonese as the lingua-franca of Hong Kong cinema (Teo, 1999, p. 255). This surge is detectable in a majority of post-Joint Declaration films produced in the territory, through which mistrust and suspicion of the mainland are central within many narratives. Tony Williams argues that the work of John Woo, director of Hong Kong action classics A Better Tomorrow (1986), Bullet in the Head (1990), Hard Boiled (1992), and the Killer (1989), best exemplify the search for a more definitive identity as his films during this time exhibited ‘dark apocalyptic overtones in which both historical and immediate present become overwhelmed by visions of a dark spectacular ontological future’ (Williams, 2000, p. 150). Such pessimistic perspectives contributed to an increasing sense of mistrust and suspicion between Hong Kongers and mainlanders (Abbas, 1997), which is detachable throughout Tsui Hark’s Once Upon a Time in China series released between 1991 and 1993. The plot of OUATIC: Part II (1992) follows historically inspired local hero Wong Fei-hung as he travels to the Mainland to do battle with an ultra-orthodox Chinese cult bent on destroying all western institutions. This suspicion and conflict between Hong Kongers and the Mainland has remained a prevalent part of Hong Kong’s cinematic identity, but is also found in modern mainland productions, such as Johnnie To’s Drug War (2012), which juxtaposes heroic Chinese police officers with Hong Kong criminals and a corrupt HKPD.
The realization that a Chinese identity was to be imminently imposed upon them has meant ‘identity’ has become an increasingly important characteristic of the territory and its people throughout the transitional period (Ferguson, 2010, p. 29)’. As the 2047 reunification with China loomed larger, films produced in Hong Kong have increasingly tended to depict “a society in crisis over its identity and permanent uncertainty”. (Ferguson, 2010, p. 29)’. Ackbar Abbas supports this view and argues that Hong Kongers have always known that an ideological showdown with China was inevitable, and that anxieties surround the hand-over did not stem from a fear of total cultural annihilation, rather it emerged as a response to what many saw as a “culture of disappearance; an original or untheorized form of culture” (Abbas, 1997). Narratives of loss, alienation, doubt (Stringer, 1997) and disappearance are certainly present throughout the transition period, and they support the argument made by Abbas that anxieties over disappearance are central to Hong Kong’s cinematic identity at this time. Many of these narratives featured prominently in nostalgic works by local New Wave directors Stanley Kwan, (Rogue, 1987), Tsui Hark (Shanghai Blues1984) and Wong Kar-wai, whose In the Mood for Love (2000) uses nostalgia to explore cultural issues by evoking ‘indirect parallel of social anxieties in past periods’ (Chu 2004, p341).
A primary concern of Hong Kong residents since the signing of the Joint-declaration is that of Mainlandisation, and when scholars point to the ‘anxieties’ in Hong Kong, they are in most cases referring to this process that has been ongoing since the handover. In this sense Mainlandisation refers to
"Attempts by the Communist Party and its allies to exert greater control over Hong Kong politically, economically, socially and culturally, to integrate in into the mainland before the end of the 50-year "one country, two systems" period in 2047 (Tsung-gan, 2017)"
The methods in which China has been ‘mainland-ising’ Hong Kong are too numerous to cover here, but several large-scale infrastructure projects have been in development as part of a controversial plan to integrate the SAR into China (Kuo, 2018). Examples such as the building of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge linking Hong Kong and Macau with the mainland, and the construction of a high-speed rail line between the islands, have been pointed too as ways for the CCP to tightly bind the HKSAR region to closer Mainland rule (Kuo, 2018). More concerning for many was that Hong Kong taxpayers paid the combined sum of US$104.4 billion (n.d, n.d) for both projects, with many seeing investments like these represent the ways in which the CCP has overstepped its promise laid down in the Joint-Declaration, representing of a larger strategy to transform aspects of government and society through the manipulation of established institutions in Hong Kong (Tsung-gan, 2017).
Hong Kong New Wave
During the early years of the 1970s, Cantonese cinema productions had all but halted in Hong Kong and this allowing Mandarin cinema to dictate market tastes and the identity of cinema produced in Hong Kong, beginning a process of maindlandisation and Sinicisation; a process whereby non-Chinese societies come under the influence of Chinese Culture, has been an on-going threat in the territory. In response to increasing cultural and political differences with the mainland, and the signing of the Joint-Declaration, Hong Kong almost most completely ‘de-sinicised’ by the mid 1980s (Ma, 2007), and the new wave movement emerged at time when Hong Kong was caught at a crossroads over its identity, where "previously de-sinicised discourses of localism and internationalism are re-negotiating with the new discourses of nationalism and patriotism (Ma, 2007)”.
A defining characteristic of Hong Kong cinema has been it’s filmmakers consistent resisted to threats of foreign identities being imposed upon them, and this resistance has informed the creation of several ‘New Wave’ movements that emerged at times of social and political upheaval in the territory. The first ‘New Wave’ movement was an important development for several reasons; firstly, Cantonese is spoken by over 80% of the population in South East Asia, which, for many years, had been the bedrock of the industries distribution networks, giving local cinema a voice distinct from the of the mainland (Teo, 1999). Secondly, the new wave helped modernise Hong Kong film production as local Cantonese speaking directors, having been educated abroad, returned to Hong Kong and combined cultural, social and political narratives with traditional Cantonese cinema genres. Tsui Hark, the face of the first New Wave movement, set about the reinvention of Cantonese social realist and fantasy genres with films like Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind (1980), and The Butterfly Murders (1979), whilst Ann Hui’s Vietnam trilogy (1978-1981) formed the basis of a cultural market in which for the first time, the primary allegiance of local cinema producers was to Hong Kong, not the broader South-east Asian (Choi Po-King in (Bordwell, 2000, p. 32)).
Whilst Hark, Hui and the New Wavers were reinventing the genres that defined earlier Cantonese language film, emerging stars such as Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and Michelle Yeoh, reinvigorated the Kung Fu genre by moving away from the historical settings of traditional martial arts cinema, and, instead situated the action in modern, urban environments. Chan, in particular found local and international success by modernising traditional genres and transposing familiar warrior narratives in to modern, recognisable arenas of combat. In films like Police Story I & II (Chan, 1985, 1988) and Winners and Sinners (Hung, 1983), familiar stars play out these narratives set against a backdrop of housing issues, over-crowding, excessive consumerism, and police corruption, albeit in a light-hearted and indirect manner. Like the new wave directors, the new generation of martial arts directors and stars were engaging with issues central to Hong Kong life and politics, whilst modernizing traditional genres and production practices.
Through the production of modern, socially conscious and locally produced films the Hong Kong industry to repel Hollywood’s dominance of the south-east Asian markets during the first ten years of the transitional period. Fueled by the growing fear and anxiety surrounding 1997 "an expansion of culture through the social realm" (Abbas, 1997, p. 6) to a further "explosion" of cinematic output by local studios in the late 80s, and the run up to the handover. Even before the signing of the Joint Declaration, new wave filmmakers had been reflecting on the anxieties surrounding the mainlandisation of Hong Kong by combining traditional genres with modern techniques. Not as aesthetically consistent as other ‘new wave movements’, the films of the Hong Kong new wave are united by a shared Hong Kong-centric focus, and remain some of Hong Kong’s most socially conscious, and commercially successful films. Ann Hui’s The Boat People (1982), considered the first Hong Kong film “to address the phobia and anxiety of Hong Kong people about 1997” (Teo, 1997, p.214), and Tsui Hark’s Dangerous Encounters of a Dangerous Kind: Part I, are excellent examples of the socially conscious re-focusing of independent cinema in Hong Kong. Both narratives take place within shifting political and geographical landscapes in which the struggles of individual peoples are framed against a shifting society, reflecting nations on the brink of collapse. Dangerous Encounters in particular captures the confused identity of Hong Kong’s youth by exposing the root causes of their disillusionment, poor, cluttered housing and lack of political representation. Throughout his career, Hark’s narratives have tended to lend themselves to allegory, and through Dangerous Encounter’s antagonist, a group of foreigners who come to Hong Kong to inflict pain upon the island, he positions Hong Kong’s culture and political areas as points of invasion from the outside. Hark even scored the opening of his film with the ‘borrowed’ theme from Dawn of the Dead (Romero, 1978), underscoring his dystopian view of Hong Kong in which its citizens, running through the city covered in blood, prey on one another, layering the film with a cannibalistic sense of dread, a city eating itself.
The new wave and the new Martial Arts filmmakers’ reinvigoration of the local industry coincided with an economic boom in the territory that saw living standards increase, and more money available for higher quality film productions. Up until the 1970s Hollywood ruled the box office in South East Asia, but after the development of the new wave movement and the modernisation of local film infrastructure, which included theatre refurbishments and improvements, (Teo, 1999) Hong Kong produced films began to top yearly top 10 charts in the region, largely in part to the way in which local films and foreign films where distributed. (Bordwell, 2000, p. 34) shows that most locally produced films would go straight in to twenty to thirty large, multiplex cinemas, whereas Hollywood films would be screened on ‘fewer than ten mini-theatres’, effectively limiting the earning potential of non-locally produced films through an unofficial quota system. During the push for modernisation of the film industry in Hong Kong, studios flooded the market with generic, low budget genre films, but the growing availability of electronic goods such as VHS, and later DVD players, and rampant piracy, saw local audiences becoming a lot more discerning in their tastes. David Bordwell goes one step further and argues that as living standards increased in Hong Kong, many Hong Kongers, who were now exposed to a broader cinematic palette, rejected local cinema, with many considering “their own films trash” (Bordwell, 2000, p. 34).
After peaking in 1992, the Hong Kong industry entered a period of dramatic decline and considerable re-structuring that resulted in an overseas revenue drop of 85% and a local market share dipping to a record low 25% in 2008 ((HKMPIA, 2010; Chan et al., 2010) in (Chen, 2013). When scholars discuss the so-called ‘Rise and Fall’ of the Hong Kong industry the year 1993 is consistently cited as the year the industry reached it’s peak, producing a record 238 film, and dominating that year’s domestic box office top (ltd.#, 2018). Starting in 1993, when Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993) and Cliff Hanger (Harlin, 1993) occupied the first and tenth places respectively in that year’s Top 10 box office performers list, beginning a trend that would see the number of Hong Kong productions appearing in yearly box office ‘top 10s’ declining dramatically. [Fig .1] (ltd.#, 2018).
Part of the reasons for the decline in popularity of Hong Kong cinema is that the films have become increasingly localised, with Bordwell pointing out that some films became so localised that “even subtitlers began to use expressions that Chinese outside of Hong Kong find hard to follow” (Bordwell, 2000, p. 45), further limiting the appeal of local films on the global market. Other academics point to the 1997 Asian Economic crisis, the outbreak of the SARS epidemic, and the crippling effect of piracy on local film production as key contributors to the decline in Hong Kong film production, but Wellington Fung, secretary general of the Hong Kong Film Development Council, argues the decline was part of a “natural cycle”. Fong goes on to argue that it is the producers of local cinema who are also to blame for the decline because of their “overproducing” of films with similar themes and characters, that resulted in local audiences losing interest and confidence in Hong Kong produced cinema (Hoad, 2011).
CEPA
One of the key factors in the development of the local film industry that this dissertation examines was the introduction of the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), in 2003. Recognising the decline in Hong Kong film production, the Government of Mainland China, in partnership with the local SARHK legislative council, enacted the 2003 Close Economic Partnership Agreement with the aim of bolstering the Hong Kong industry through mainland and local studio co-productions. Since its introduction, the agreement has reshaped local film industry and its relationship with Mainland China and should be classed as a ‘success’, if one considers the maindlandising effects on the Hong Kong industry. By the end of 2016, 420 CEPA films have been produced, with over 50% of those being produced Hong Kong productions, with an average budget of around HK$10 million ($1.3 million) (Chao, 2018, p. 3). Despite the increases in production, CEPA productions have for the most part failed to capture the attention of local audiences when compared to the previous two decades, in which Hong Kong films routinely out performed their Hollywood counterparts. Failure to find large audiences in Hong Kong presents a serious of questions that the territory’s filmmakers and scholars must address when trying to identify the core effects of CEPA on the local industry. Firstly, given that the local share of the market is a mere ‘drop in the bucket” (Chao, 2018) when compared to the expanding Mainland market, we must consider the marginalisation of local filmmakers who opt to not engage in the co-production model, and the dangers of ‘Mainlandisation’ to the Hong Kong film industry. Secondly, those films hoping to access CEPA funding and secure a release license on the Mainland must adhere to the National Film Administration’s strict censorship code that aims to censor, edit, or outright ban films that contain content objected to by the CCP. Despite working under such constraints, {Yueh-yu, Sho-yan Cho, p2) stress that CEPA directors are free to pursue their creative agenda, however, local filmmaker and CEPA late-comer Johnnie To says that “In HK we are given the freedom to be creative” but, given the Mainland’s policies “the first thing we think about is: What will be acceptable to the censors?” (Bettinson, 2017). Films that do not meet the criteria such as the Golden Horse Awards Best Film winner Trivisa (Au, Wong Wai-Kit, Hui, 2016) or Derek Yee’s Jackie Chan led The Shinjuku Incident (2009) which was denied a released permit after Yee refused to re-edit his film or shoot less violent scenes, are banned on the Mainland. Other filmmakers tend to negotiate the criteria by shooting alterative takes or scenes for Mainland-only release, such as Johnnie To’s Election (2004), the Mainland release of which contains additional sequences during the film’s prologue depicting Chinese authorities executing a criminal, whom in the local version escape justice
Returning to Hong Kong after a brief stint in Hollywood, new wave director Tsui Hark’s first post-handover film Time & Tide (2000) embodies a tone of retrospectivity through its preoccupation with the idea of starting over. In a nod to Hong Kong’s future, the film opens with the narration of a creation myth by 21 year old rising star Nicholas Tse, framing the narrative as a tale of rejuvenation and reinvention. Hark's narratives have always had a tendency towards allegory and here, the film’s protagonist Tyler’, after he joins a local, unlicensed bodyguard outfit to support his pregnant partner, finds himself stuck between elder generation of gangsters trying to maintain the status quo, and his desire to form his own future.
Following several underwhelming post-hand over Hong Kong films, prominent Hong Kong based directors including Hark, Peter Chan, and Gordan Chan moved their operations to Beijing to engage in state sanctioned, high concept, China friendly co-productions. In doing so they began in earnest the process of ‘mainlandisation’ of Hong Kong’s cinematic identity by embracing ‘sinicisation’ and the adoption of a nationalist approach to their productions. The work of the Hong Kong ex-pat director’s has become increasingly oriented towards Putonghua speaking Mainland Chinese audiences whilst neglecting Hong Kong, further contributing to the mainlandisation of the territory’s cinematic identity (Pang, 2010). Taking further advantage of the declining industry, the mainland studios quickly started a course of industrial upgrading and “marketisation” (He, 2011), a process by which the mainland studios have utilised their film industry to consolidate state power. This was achieved by temping a significant proportion of Hong Kong’s talent base and its main players to the Mainland in a strategy to modernise the Mainland industry by passing on Hong Kong production practices, in exchange for quota free entry into the market (Esther M.K. Cheung, 2015).
From its introduction, most large scale CEPA productions have employed Hong Kong directors to oversee the repurposing of traditional Hong Kong genres to tell Mainland stories, and the work of Tsui Hark’s best exemplifies the methods by which Mainland cinema has facilitated the reformation of Hong Kong cinematic identity inside a market that dwarves Hong Kong (Esther M.K. Cheung, 2015, p. 45). Hark’s Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2012), a remake of the Hong Kong classics, adopts the narrative and generic forms of the martial arts epic, but uses them to reinforce Mainland history, culture and nationalist sentiment in a process of “cultural renationalization” (Esther M.K. Cheung, 2015, p. 26). Flying Swords tells the story of a several rival groups of travellers who find themselves stranded at the Dragon Gate Inn during a fierce sandstorm. The film sits between Chinese and Hong Kong national cinema styles and is an example of the ways in which Hark et al. have re-formed their style to suit the mainland market. Techniques more commonly found in traditional Chinese Wuxia films such as dramatic panning shots of beautiful Chinese landscapes, are intercut with intense,”wire-fu" martial arts battles that borrowed heavily from Hark’s Once Upon a Time in China series. Like OUATIC, the protagonist of Flying Sword’s is portrayed by Jet Li, but instead of battling against the mainland corruption of Hong Kong, his character is now in service of the ”good leaders” (Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, 2011) of China, whom he must liberate from the control of Imperial Eunuchs. Film’s like Flying Swords present a challenge to the Hong Kong cinematic identity as their success limits the screening opportunities for non-co-production films, whilst contributing to the increasing “renationalising” of the Hong Kong industry.
As the mainland industry grew in size and influence the power balance that historically favoured the Hong Kong studios, shifted in the favor of the mainland (Cheung, 2018). Mainland studios now take larger shares of profit than they have in the past and are no longer reliant on Hong Kong talent, having developed a stable of bankable Chinese stars and directors to replace their Hong Kong predecessors (He, 2011). This shift is also notable in audiences tastes in China, where historically during the Chinese New Year period, films directed by and starting Hong Kong talent such as Chinese Odyssey 2002 (Lau, 2002) and All‘s Well, Ends Well (Cheung, 1997) have tended to perform best. However, in 2018, mainland blockbuster Operation Red Sea (Dante Lam) topped the box office charts, and in 2019 the New Year’s box office was topped by Chinese action blockbuster The Wandering Earth, which went on to gross US$693,885,286 (Mojo, 2019) at the Chinese box office, continuing a trend of Chinese produced blockbusters replacing Hong Kong films as the preferred choice of audiences in China.
Fresh Wave
In the early years of post-colonial HK cinema, violence, crime and corruption (themes found throughout HK cinema history) became increasing intertwined with sophisticated genre films like Infernal Affairs (Lau, Mak, 2002) and PTU (To, 2003), but since the Umbrella movement and occupy protests in 2014 the same themes have become increasingly linked with socio-political filmmaking that position local citizens as victims of the state, local laws or out dated attitudes. 2016's Trivisa uses the impending 97 hand-over as a motivator for criminals who see the introduction of Chinese law as the end of a golden-era in Hong Kong. Having witnessed and experienced the pressure from the Mainland, and the failure of the SAR local government to implement democracy as outlined in the handover agreement, young filmmakers reject and oppose the Chinese hegemonic rule and instead are attempting to "articulate a cinematic vision of grassroots resistance against capitulating to Chinese dominance"(Chu, 2015)
The emergence of the Fresh Wave movement has deep roots within Hong Kong film history and has found success by adopting characteristics of the “mixed” system that has been prevalent throughout Hong Kong film history. Since the decision by the Shaw Brothers Studios to stop producing films in 1972, the Hong Kong industry became a “mixed system” industry characterised not by studio dominance, but by “fragmented production chains” in which “highly networked individuals” share their labour on individual projects before moving on to new productions (Chen, 2013). Following CEPA, there has been a concerted effort to re-introduce studio-dominant model to the local industry and centralise most film production under a Chinese banner which has "resulted in an accelerated restructuring of the Hong Kong film industry towards Mainlandisation". The strict requirements of CEPA and the legacy of “mixed” approaches to production has unintentionally created a space for locally produced, socially conscious films to be made. As a result of this, the Hong Kong industry has since splintered in to two distinct groups, with most filmmakers electing to self-censor their work and conform with Mainland expectations in exchange for greater financing and distribution options. In doing so their co-production films are required, in some way, to engaged in the propagation of Chinese national identity and the marginalisation of Hong Kong’s local identity, usually through the depicting the island its inhabitants in a less than idealised manner. Examples of anti-Hong Kong sentiment can be found in most CEPA produced films such as Drug War (To, 2012) and Chasing the Dragon (2017), but it is through the work of Hong Kong star Donnie Yen that most obviously the hand of the Film Bureau can be felt. Wong Jing’s Chasing the Dragon (2017.) is a dramatized dramatic re-telling of drug lord Crippled Ho (Yen) and corrupt Hong Kong cop Lee Rock (Andy Lau) as they navigate the corruption of Hong Kong’s British rulers whilst they flood the territory with drugs. Hong Kong as a locale is placed front and centre in the narrative and is presented an oppressive and dangerous place where local police officers are violent thugs, and criminals are just trying to survive against the tyranny of ruthless British rulers. Most interesting about the film is how obvious and open Wong Jing is in his anti-British message, saying in an interview “we’re showing how the British colonial powers didn’t do anything good for Hongkongers. They were only colluding for bribes”, (Lee, 2017) a sentiment star Donnie Yen repeated in the same press interviews whilst talking about his own experiences of racism. Yen is no stranger to the promotion of the CCP’s ideologies, appearing in a series of short video messages promoting “socialist core values” (n.d., 2018) which were made mandatory before screenings of films in China in 2017. In his short, Yen promotes president Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” and Communist Party slogan the “Four Comprehensives” with readings from Mao Zedong’s Red Book. Yen, once the face of Hong Kong martial arts cinema has now become the Hong Kong star to have the largest effect on the marginalisation of local cinema with a succession of Mainland blockbusters.
One local filmmaker who resisted the call to China and instead remained in Hong Kong was Johnnie To, director of some of the Hong Kong industries most definitive crime films. Instead of moving to Beijing after the hand-over, he opted to remain in Hong Kong and form Milkyway Image Ltd., through which he has “committed himself to rehabilitating Hong Kong’s film industry with a synthesis of commercial filmmaking, expert craft, storytelling, and poetry” (Bettinson, 2017). At Milkyway, To, and his production partner Wai Ka-fai, oversaw a film mentoring program and put young, local filmmakers to work as screenwriters, editors, directors and even performers in his efforts to “rehabilitate” Hong Kong film (Bettinson, 2017) and form a new identity. Later, To established the Fresh Wave Awards (2017) in recognition of the growing talent on Hong Kong (Cook, 2012). One of the graduates of these programs is local filmmaker Jevon’s Au, screenwriter of To’s Mad Detective (2010), who has become the face of the Fresh Wave movement, an emerging movement that aims to reflect the prevailing attitudes and anxieties of local people. Au, the first director to win back-to-back Best Film awards at the HKFA for Ten Years (2015), and Trivisa (2016) has now become the most prominent face of the movement having been blacklisted in China. Positioned outside of the mainstream system, Au and his contemporaries are restricted from the Mainland market and are unable to access the funding required to compete with Chinese and American cinema, however, a consequence of this is that they are also free to explore sensitive political and cultural issues with very little expectation for financial success (Chao, 2018).
Inspired by “SAR New Wave” filmmakers Herman Yau and Vincent Chui, - independent filmmakers who in the early 00’s “demonstrated a willingness to address local political controversies” (Tse-Hei-Lee, 2017) - the Fresh Wave directors have emerged to challenge the restrictions put in place by the CCP. These young filmmakers are part of what I term the Hong Kong Fresh Wave movement - a group of filmmakers who continue to explore "many localist subjects with a keen awareness of intra- and inter-cultural flows within Greater China", but whose works are distinguishable by their rejection of the "stunning visual effects, lavish fighting scenes and tearful melodramas" (Lee, 2017) that have characterised local cinema. Instead, their works have shifted towards socio-politically attuned narratives that speak to unexplored issues in Hong Kong society. The films of the Fresh Wave directors have explored attitudes towards race, mental health and education, and also the consequences of Chinese rule, living under the Two systems, one country system, and the perceived dangers of the Chinese state, and present a vocal declaration of a unique Hong Kong identity. For example, the theme of education reform and the use of Mandarin in local education has become a recurrent theme in films like Dot-2-Dot, She Remembers, He Forgets, and Distinction. Fresh Wave films are further characterised by smaller budgets and less commercially driven motives, often relying on charity support and public donations to fund projects, as was the case for Jevons Au’s Distinction (2018). The project was funded by the AR Charitable Foundation, who aim to impact Hong Kong culture through cinema and the exploration of cultural issues in the city, after the film's likely modest return and narrow scope (Hong Kong education system) put off potential investors (n.d., 2018).
Against the back-drop China’s increasing dominance over Hong Kong’s cinematic identity, there are still investors in Hong Kong willing to invest in smaller-budget productions not aimed at the mainland (Shakelton, 2019). The Hong Kong Film Development Council currently operates two initiatives aimed at stimulating the local market by giving both student and industry filmmakers opportunities to produce films outside of the co-production model. Launched in 2013, the First Feature Film Initiative has so far funded several projects that are Hong Kong centric; socially aware stories like Mad World (2016), and Still Human (2018).
Filmmakers unwilling to self-censor are granted the freedoms afforded their pre-handover counterparts, but are left to scrape together financing whilst facing infinitely smaller financial and distribution returns (Pang, 2007; Szeto and Chen 2012, from (Fong, 2018). Despite this, the advent of social media and digital technologies has supported the emergence of the Fresh Wave movement by allowing producers to circumvent traditional distribution and exhibition channels, and promote work exploring issues otherwise banned by co-production rules (Jaffe, 2006; Nakajima 2006 in (Fong, 2018)). These works of the Fresh Wave movement reflect a thriving independent film movement that has developed in Hong Kong, coming in to focus following the political unrest of 2014.
Conclusion
The Hong Kong film industry has always represented something of a "Theoretical conundrum" for film scholars and it has been classed a "cinema without a nation, a local cinema with transnational appeal" (Tse-Hei-Lee, 2017), however, I argue that the emergence of the first New Wave movement in the city lead to the formation of recogniable cinematic identity. This identity has been defined and informed by several aspects of Hong Kong culture, and emerges as a symbol of defiance against capitulation to mainland Chinese political practices in the territory. Since the new wave, the industry has gone through several phases and all of these have been underscored by either widespread anxieties in the lead up to the handover, or the increasing political tensions the city has experienced since 2003. As this dissertation is being written, Hong Kong is facing a state of national emergency following the planned implementation of a controversial bill that would have allowed Beijing to extradite criminals of the state to the mainland. The violent outburst experienced over the summer of 2019 are, I believe the result of years of mainlandisation and sinicisation that has been taking place across the territory, and I argue that these causes have been increasingly prominent within local, independent film productions, helping re-form the local Hong Kong film industries identity
