In Hong Kong few interesting movies are coming out and nothing is being exported to
the U.S. Market. Why is the happening? Are creative ideas just not there anymore or
is there a bigger problem?
To answer these questions, a brief look at the Hong Kong film industry is needed.
In the late 70's Shaw Brothers was churning out hundreds of low-budget Kung Fu
movies that eventually made their way to America. In the 80's, Golden Harvest had
major star power with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao to draw audiences into
the theaters. Even Hollywood took notice of Hong Kong Cinema with the 90's boom that
had special effects, slapstick comedy, sex, horror, and exciting martial arts
action.
Category III films, meaning adults only, emphasized sex and soft corn porn that made
lots of money for the theaters until the home video market took profits from the
major theaters. Once that happened the Hong Kong Film industry went into a decline
that it never recovered from. The financial crisis happening all throughout Asia,
meant that the average person had less to spend on entertainment and took a bite out
of film financing. During the boom years so many movies were just churned out that
quality dropped. Ticket prices increased to cover the cost of multiplexes. Hong
Kong's middle class turned their noses at locally-produced movies as B-movie trash.
However, the biggest blow was from Hollywood. Most people in Hong Kong would rather
watch American movies than anything else. In fact, Hong Kong's biggest actors like Jackie Chan and Jet Li are more often than
not appearing in Hollywood movies. Jet Li made a name for himself in Lethal Weapon
4, currently his biggest box office hit.
Also, due to the success of Japanese horror movies, Hong Kong is trying to cash in
on this craze by making their own Japanese style horror films.
The biggest star in the declining years, is Stephen Chow and his comedy films like
Shaolin Soccer, and Kung Fu Hustle.
A major problem is a lack of any key personality coming up in Hong Kong at the
moment. First, there was Bruce Lee, who had the greatest chance of success. Then
came Jackie Chan, followed by Jet Li. All three stars had Kung Fu training to back
up their action scenes. The young stars today are more likely to be dancers, or just
actors with no martial arts training. As a result the next Bruce Lee is either going
to be a long time coming or non-existant if the Hong Kong film industry cannot pull
itself back up.
In fact, the next star to come up is not from Hong Kong but Tony Jaa and his style
of Muay Thai boxing in movies like Ong Bak and The Protector. Future talent is
probably going to come up from other Asian countries. Hopefully, some new blood will
pop up to pump life back into Hong Kong.
To comment on this or any other PCR article, please visit The Message Board. "The Asian Aperture" is ©2010 by Jason Fetters. Webpage design and all graphics herein (except where otherwise noted) are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2010 by Nolan B. Canova.
