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Richard James Havis

Although there were ups and downs, the golden age of Hong Kong cinema extended from the 1960s to the 1990s. But significant problems beset the film industry in the first decade of the 2000s, and it suffered a massive slump.
We take a deep dive into its difficult decade.
The way we were
Local films used to rule the roost in Hong Kong, beating out Hollywood blockbusters.
The decline set in around 1993, with the situation getting worse throughout the rest of the 1990s. Viewers increasingly preferred the high production values of Hollywood films, and local films lost their dominant position at the box office.
Hong Kong filmmakers did not want to give up without a fight.
Special effects were improved for films like The Storm Riders, but they could not match Hollywood’s technology. Studios like Media Asia internationalised their films with movies like Purple Storm, but the results were not brilliant.

Golden Harvest tried to give its releases a Hollywood sheen, but neglected to develop good scripts to match.
By the early 2000s, producers’ worries had turned to panic. Hong Kong films had lost ground not only in the city but in Southeast Asia, where the 1998 Asian financial crisis had led to a drop in both sales and investment.
Down but not out
Box office takings declined in the 2000s and the number of films made plummeted.
Clarence Tsui wrote in the Post that 2006 was a “distressing year” for Hong Kong’s film industry.
“There was scarcely a month when bad news didn’t emerge, whether it was another underwhelming performance at the box office or a cinema shutting down,” he added.

Post critic Paul Fonoroff had a similar point of view writing at the end of 2007.
“This year will hardly go down in the annals of Hong Kong cinema as one of its more distinguished years. With annual production hovering around 50 features, there simply isn’t enough quality to fill a traditional top 10 list.”
There were some high spots, mainly at the start of the decade. In 2000, the industry was buzzing from the amount of money flowing to film studios from newly founded web companies. The worldwide dotcom crash put paid to all that.
In 2002, the success of Infernal Affairs rekindled Hong Kong film-goers’ interest in local films and brought the industry back from the brink. But this had a negligible lasting effect on business. The same could be said for the later success of Ip Man.
Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle both did very well at the box office, but that was more of a vote for the films’ star and director Stephen Chow Sing-chi.


The industry also had to cope with the impact of the Sars epidemic in 2003, although the negative effects on film production seem to have been temporary.
Home and away
Did the mainland China market save Hong Kong’s film industry in the 2000s? That is a question that merits further discussion.
Hong Kong films used to be treated as foreign films by mainland China, subject to similar import quotas to US and other non-mainland films. But a series of changes opened up co-production and distribution channels for Hong Kong films in the 2000s.
This helped large producers, who could take advantage of the then lower production costs in mainland China and also release their films in mainland cinemas.

But it was not all good news. Hong Kong audiences often disliked Hong Kong-mainland co-productions, as they were geared towards the China market rather than the local one.
China lacked a proper film classification system, so Hong Kong directors had to water down the content of co-productions to make films palatable.
Any mention of sex was out, political censorship was heavily enforced, and horror and ghost films could not be made because of the lingering Maoist strategy of expunging supernatural elements from Chinese culture to modernise it.
There was no room for moral ambiguity in mainland Chinese releases. Criminals had to be punished for their crimes, for instance. Notably, Infernal Affairs had to be fitted out with an entirely different ending for China in which the villain was caught.


Consequently, Hongkongers often found the co-productions bland. But mainly, they missed watching films about their own city that voiced their own concerns.
“Investors eye with glee the vast box office the far larger population on the mainland represents,” Tsui wrote. “Directors and critics, however, fear for projects to place emphasis more on pleasing mainland audiences – and most importantly, censors – than maintaining the characteristics that made Hong Kong cinema special.”
A star is born
How did Hong Kong’s wide roster of stars cope with the changes?
Many of Hong Kong’s top male performers, such as Andy Lau Tak-wah and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, managed the transition well. Meanwhile, rising stars like Louis Koo Tin-lok and the hardworking Donnie Yen Ji-dan developed in stature over the decade to become the superstars we know today.
New faces included Chapman To Man-chat, popular comedian Ronald Cheng Chung-kei and Daniel Wu Yin-cho, who also made an impression as a director.

Actresses had a harder time. Big 1990s stars like Rosamund Kwan Chi-lam stopped working or gradually fell off the radar. New Hong Kong talent was often stymied as female roles increasingly went to stylish and professional actresses from mainland China.
New Hong Kong female performers Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin, Gillian Chung Yan-tung (both of pop duo Twins) and Miriam Yeung Chin-wah managed to build lasting careers. But others came and went.
As for directors, the old guard were active in mainland China, where John Woo Yu-sum, Tsui Hark and Peter Chan Ho-sun made expensive war epics. Chan’s The Warlords did well at home, but Woo’s Red Cliff and Tsui’s Seven Swords were relatively unloved.
Lowbrow legend Wong Jing found himself out of fashion, as did Jackie Chan, who fell increasingly out of favour as the decade progressed.
Johnnie To Kei-fung went from strength to strength, balancing smaller Hong Kong films with more commercial hits. The often forgotten Herman Yau Lai-to just about kept working, directing film after film in his idiosyncratic, thoroughly local style.

Directors on the rise included Wilson Yip Wai-shun, who hit it big in the second half of the decade with Ip Man, as well as the quirky Pang Ho-cheung and Soi Cheang Pou-soi, who went full steam ahead with his eccentric cinematic visions.
However, in spite of some new ideas, as one Hong Kong local put it in the 2000s: “The golden age of Hong Kong cinema feels a long way away.”
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.
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Hong Kong’s film industry suffered a huge slump from 2000-2009, but did the mainland Chinese market and China co-productions save it?


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The way we were

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