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Hong Kong New Wave Cinema (1978â"2000)

Intellect Ltd

The Emergence of the New Wave

In 1978 a new force burst into the Hong Kong film industry like lightning on a clear day. These young directors were, on average, not over thirty years of age. A conservative estimate places their number at over thirty. Born around 1950, most of them graduated from film schools in the United States or the United Kingdom and returned to Hong Kong in the mid-1970s. All at about the same time, they went to work for Hong Kong's television stations – which were dubbed 'Shaolin Temples' – and underwent two to three years of training. In this way, they accumulated practical experience in making dramas and became proficient at the language of film. Then, without prior arrangement, they left the television stations and joined the film industry. Passionately committed to film, they made movies rich in feeling, with unique ideas and structures. This group of young people, like an irresistible force, stirred up a colossal wave when the film industry was at low tide and opened up new vistas. The influx of so much new blood into Hong Kong cinema was unprecedented. The media and the critics dubbed these new directors 'The New Wave' of Hong Kong cinema.

The Origin of 'The New Wave'

The term 'The New Wave' originated from the French New Wave Cinema. In 1959, Truffaut and Godard, who were critics in Cahiers du Cinéma, made their first films, respectively: 400 Blows and Breathless. These two films not only injected vitality into the ossified forms of cinema, they also explored film as a subject in itself. 400 Blows, a semi-autographical film, boldly included personal experiences and feelings. Breathless incorporated hand-held cinematography and the technique of 'jump-cutting' to deliberately create disharmony and depart from common motifs and conventions. These two films proclaimed the birth of the French New Wave.

The first to name this group of young directors, who at the time were still working in television, as the 'New Wave' was a periodical of film and television criticism, Da Texie (Close Up), founded by Tang Shuxuan. In the first issue, dated 1976, one article asserted that 'The three television stations are enthusiastically nurturing new directors. A new wave is rising that will force veteran directors to advance. In the long run, the new generation will sooner or later replace the current so-called big directors who only occupy a seat but produce nothing.' That same year, Ming Pao Monthly also predicted that 'The young directors (in television) are unquestionably different from the veterans, namely King Hu, Li Hanxiang, and Song Cunshou, in terms of subject matter and style. They will make Cantonese films and there will be social overtones to their works. It is believed that in two years a "New Wave" in Hong Kong will arrive. 'Not surprisingly, the guess proved to be true. In 1978, Yim Ho, Dennis Yu and Ronnie Yu formed a company to make the film The Extra. Tsui Hark was also feverishly planning his feature Dangerous Encounter – 1st Kind. Da Texie published an article entitled 'A New Wave in Hong Kong Cinema – Revolutionists Who Challenge Traditions', dubbing this group of directors who had moved from television to film as the 'New Wave' and expressing high expectations of them. These directors represented a new force and new orientation in Hong Kong cinema, and their appearance was a sign of its future vitality.

The Extra, produced in 1978, marked the beginning of the New Wave. Here, the sphere of cinema was taken as a metaphor for society. This film is about a freelance actor of bit parts from the lower class of society and his struggle for survival. Behind a light façade are tears and distress. The film is full of human feeling, rich detail and sharp images, which caused the audience to look at things with new eyes. That same year, the film won the first-runner-up award in 'the Election of Top Ten Movies', which illustrates the extent to which it had won the respect of the critics. In 1979, the films The Secret (Ann Hui), Butterfly Murders (Tsui Hark), Cops and Robbers (Alex Cheung) and The System (Peter Yung) appeared one by one, creating momentum. They were warmly received by the public. In the same year, Diyidai Shuangzhoukan (First Generation Biweekly) conducted a series of interviews with these fledgling directors, and already referred to them as 'The New Wave'.

In the same year, the magazine Xinyidai (A New Generation) started a column called 'The Collective Images of New Wave Directors', which was overseen by Michael Fong and Clifton Ko. More than ten new directors, including Ann Hui, Tsui Hark, Alex Cheung, Yim Ho and Patrick Tam were interviewed. The 94th issue of the magazine contained these lines: 'We use the term "New Wave" to describe the current situation in the film industry of the emergence of a new force. ... This term is generally recognized in the cultural domain. "New Wave" has become a general name to refer to this new breed of directors and their films. It has even sparked off a spate of discussions and interviews.'

The term 'New Wave' was, therefore, given to this group of new film-makers by the broadcast media, whilst the films made by these directors were, quite naturally, referred to as 'New Wave films'. However, the names of these young directors, who originally came from television, were already relatively well known before they began making feature films. For example, in the annual 'Appraisal of TV Programmes 1977' the results were as follows: the Best Feature Drama was A House Is Not A Home(TVB); the Best Anthology Series(s) were Social Worker (scriptwriter: Patrick Tam),Seventeen 1977 (scriptwriter: Yim Ho), Dazhangfu zhi 'club' nü [Real Men: the Club Girls] (scriptwriter: Michael Mak) and Below the Lion Rock: The Wild Child (scriptwriter: Allen Fong). Selina Chow Leong Suk-yi was awarded The Outstanding Television Worker. Among the winners, Patrick Tam, Yim Ho and Allen Fong would later become outstanding members of the New Wave. Also, Chow, who at the time was the head of programming for TVB, together with Wong Shek-chiu, the Chief Manager of Rediffusion TV (the former of Asia TV) and Cheung Man-yee, the head of the television unit of RTHK, contributed greatly to the development of Hong Kong's television industry.

The Road to Localization

The development of Hong Kong cinema has all along had a close and complex relationship with Mainland China. The relationship began in 1909 when the Asia Film Company in Shanghai shot Stealing a Roast Duck in Hong Kong. This was Hong Kong's first narrative film. The first locally produced short drama was made in 1913 by the Huamei (Chinese-American) Film Company, established by Lai Men-wei. The capital for this production came from Benjamin Brodsky, the founder of Asia Film. This also makes it immediately evident that the connection between the Shanghai and Hong Kong film industries was a strong one. During the War of Resistance against Japan, and the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists in the 1930s and 1940s, Hong Kong saw an influx of Shanghai film workers, both on- and off-screen. They worked together with local film-makers to expand Hong Kong's film industry. Most of them had the mentality of émigrés. To them, Hong Kong was only a transit station; they had no plans to reside in Hong Kong over the long term, and still set their sights northwards, towards mainland China. This attitude was depicted in Cai Chusheng's Boundless Future (1941). The film centres around mainland expatriates in Hong Kong of various backgrounds, who, oppressed by the capitalists, eventually return to the mainland to participate in the war against Japan.

Close Ties with the Motherland

The Great China Film Company, founded by a group of film-makers from the mainland, produced films such as Tongbing xianglian [Compassion for Similar Misfortunes] (1946), Kulian [Bitter Love] (1946), Changxiangsi [The Long-lasting Love], (1947) and Geyou qianqiu [Of Various Talents] (1947), with stories set in or related to the mainland. Tongbing xianglian, set in occupied Shanghai, is about various tenants in an apartment building, who ostensibly live in harmony, but who are in fact hostile to each other at heart. Again, set in Shanghai, the love tragedy Kulian tells the story of a Gong Qiuxia, a stage artist, who falls in love with a married man, Lu Yukun, and becomes pregnant. The lovers leave the city to live elsewhere. They constantly quarrel and finally divorce. Gong returns to Shanghai and works as a music teacher to raise their daughter, while Lu commits suicide. Another film, Changxiangsi is set in China during the war of resistance against Japan. After the husband of female protagonist Zhou Xuan joins the battle, not a single piece of news is heard of him. In a period of crisis, their friend Shu Shi looks after Zhou's family. Just as the two come to admire each other, Zhou's husband returns, having lost an arm. Sense tells them they ought to terminate their love relationship, and Shu Shi chooses to depart abruptly and silently. The next film under discussion, Geyou qianqiu, depicts Zhou Xuan, a female protagonist fighting for women to have equal opportunities for education. Persistent in pursuing her ideals, she opens a nursery to educate the next generation. This narrative is similar to the story of a character in another film, Sannüxing [Three Women] (1947). Here, one of the female characters, insisting on independence and autonomy, starts up a nursery and contributes unselfishly to society. All of these films, although shot in Hong Kong, deal with problems on the mainland, such as family ethics and the status of women.

In the 1950s, films made in Hong Kong started to portray the social problems of Hong Kong; however, the contents and spirit of these films were still interlinked with the motherland of China in the same way that the Chinese films of the 1930s and 1940s were. For example, Renlun [Human Ethics] and Garden of Repose were both adapted from Ba Jin's novel A Garden of Repose. Renlun, focusing on family ethics, was a criticism of the upper class, particularly, of the feudal landlord class. The film describes a young master who leaves his family, but fails to make a living, and finally lands in prison. Likewise, Garden of Repose is a story about the younger generation rebelling against a large feudal family. A Mother's Tears (1953), on the other hand, extols the value of mothers. This film is about a mother who endures all kinds of hardships to bring up three children. However, her dedication is not repaid. Her eldest son commits a crime and is sentenced to death, and her second child, a daughter, is killed in an accident. It is only the youngest, also a son, who can take care of her until her death.

Two other similar movies are Parents' Hearts and Father and Son (1954). The former describes the relationship between two generations. The father works as a street singer to earn money for his son's education. However, his expectations for his son are not fulfilled, as the child 'awakens' to live a different life – he quits school and starts to work. The latter film portrays a father who sends his son to an exclusive school in the hope that he will become spectacularly successful. However, the child is subjected to a great deal of ridicule at school. The movie satirizes the idea of pushing the next generation hard in order to achieve excellence. These films show that the spirit of the realist movies of the 1950s can be traced back to the Chinese movies of two to three decades earlier, which focused on similar traditions of family ethics, and the unconditional sacrifices made by the older generation for the younger generation. The realist stories of the fifties have themes such as anti-feudalism and anti-capitalism, which are also closely linked with the leftist philosophies of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as with the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

First Step in Localization: Strongly Westernized Content

The 1960s was a time when the generation born immediately after the war reached adulthood. In Hong Kong, this young generation had a weak sense of nationhood and held neither long-term goals nor ambitions. They received a western education in the colony, and the society at the time was suffused with western popular culture. This was reflected in a handful of youth-oriented films, such as Romance of a Teenage Girl(1966), I Love A-Go-Go (1967), Joys and Sorrows of Youth (1969), Social Characters (1969) and The Teddy Girls (1969). These films, which depicted social issues, especially the problems that young people were facing, were the first step in the localization of Hong Kong cinema. Woo Feng, the male protagonist in Romance of a Teenage Girl, was a youth who initially had ambition, but who gives up after a series of setbacks and becomes involved in drug trafficking and anti-social behaviour. With the encouragement of his girlfriend, Josephine Siao Fong-fong, he repents. In I Love A-Go-Go, Josephine Siao's adoptive father is a poor man, while her biological father is an immensely wealthy man. Her biological father wants to retain the right to raise Siao. This nearly kills Siao's poor adoptive mother, who has endured hardship for more than half her life to bring the daughter up. Siao eventually remembers the grace and virtue of her adoptive parents and decides to stay with them. The theme of this film is similar to that of a Mandarin movie, Mambo Girl. In the latter, the female protagonist, Ge Lan, searches everywhere for her biological mother, but in vain. Finally, she returns to her adoptive parents. The message is that biological parents – one's own origins – are no longer very important, the implication being that ties to the motherland have been cut.

In the Joys and Sorrows of Youth, everyone is tempted by money, to the point where humanity becomes distorted. Cheung Ching is the typical prodigal son. His father, who works as a jazz player, declares bankruptcy. The son becomes a delinquent and the daughter, Tina, is raped. She later becomes a call girl. Many other characters in the movie are triad members and extremely decadent.. Another film, Social Characters, likewise portrays a group of seven young boys and girls who live a wild life. They spend their days dancing and taking hallucinogenic drugs, the symbols of a decadent western youth culture. Lacking family warmth, and under the influence of a bad social climate, the female protagonist of The Teddy Girls becomes a delinquent. She is eventually sent to the youth rehabilitation centre. The film discusses the seriousness of juvenile delinquency and is strongly didactic. The 1960s was a period of rebellion and challenges to authority. It was also an era in which numerous protests and demonstrations swept from America to France to China and to Czechoslovakia in Eastern Europe challenging the bourgeois capitalist order. Hong Kong was under a highly repressive colonial regime at the time. Although the economy was growing, the distribution of wealth was uneven and there were massive contradictions within society. Youth felt that they had no way out. Under such circumstances, the society was in crisis and on the point of exploding. The result was the 1967 leftist riots, where leftist and rightist political forces confronted each other. Hong Kong can be said to have pursued progress in the midst of serious contradictions at that time. What were reflected in the films mentioned above were gaps and conflicts between generations, the rebellion of youth and willful decadence. The influence of western popular culture on young people was so great that they lost their sense of self and their confidence in their native culture. This was one reason why the youth films of the 1960s failed to genuinely localize. Those who had been born and raised in Hong Kong were, culturally and politically, growing increasingly distant from China. Unlike their father's generation, there was no intersection with the nation. Even as the older generation gradually withdrew from the stage of history, the younger generation no longer had native memories of China and little national consciousness. In addition, as the economy prospered, and as Hong Kong became increasingly urban and international, a local consciousness naturally developed simultaneously. That is to say, while a local consciousness emerged in the 1960s, it was not until the 1970s, when television entirely adopted Cantonese as the medium of communication (in Chinese channels), and when the programmes were localized and the New Wave emerged, that the task of the localization of cinema was completed.

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Excerpted from Hong Kong New Wave Cinema (1978â"2000) by Pak Tong Cheuk. Copyright © 2008 Intellect Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
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