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Ghosts and Humans from China
Although China was the source of the anxiety felt by Hong Kong people in the ’80s, it is also true that the relationship between the territory and the Mainland had never been so close since 1949. This was the result of Deng Xiaoping's open door policy proclaimed in the late ’70s. The ’80s saw Hong Kong companies queuing up for coproductions with the Mainland and shooting on locations there. The most representative example may well be Li Hanxiang's two-part historical saga of the demise of the Qing Dynasty, Burning of the Imperial Palace and Reign Behind the Curtain (1983). The most curious example, however, is Ann Hui's "anti-communist" production The Boat People (1982), a film financed by Mainland money and shot on Hainan Island. Hui apparently secured the trust of her Mainland investors so that she later made her two-part epic Romance of Book and Sword (1987) in China as well. Companies in the Mainland got into the act by soliciting financing from Hong Kong-based companies.
Mainland kung fu star Li Lianjie (Jet Li) made his name in a coproduction with Hong Kong, The Shaolin Temple (1982), which also used behind-the-camera expertise from the territory. Its success influenced many Mainland companies to follow the trend and set off a profusion of made-in-China kung fu movies.
As mentioned above, the kung fu genre with traditional Chinese settings was going out of fashion in Hong Kong itself. In its place came the action film with a modern setting. However, the traditional kung fu genre could still develop as long as certain elements were adapted to suit the changing tastes. For example, the hero could no longer be an exponent of orthodox kung fu methods but must be a superhero with supernatural abilities. Tsui Hark's Zu, Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1982) was the pathbreaker for such superheroes, and so was Yuen Woo-ping's The Miracle Fighters (1982). But the genre that would launch the new breed of superheroes was a blend of kung fu and the ghost story, with its attendant supernatural creatures, monsters, and strange beings.
The new genre of kung fu and ghost story became the most popular of the ’80s. Although apparently influenced by Hollywood ghost movies, it was a new attempt to revitalize Chinese-style special effects arising from the strange and wonderful world of Chinese ghost stories. Ann Hui's The Spooky Bunch (1980) may well have been the first movie in the '80s to expound the renewed emphasis on a tried genre. Following on her heels, Sammo Hung and his troupe of kung fu stuntmen brought the genre to new heights with Encounter of the Spooky Kind (1980) and The Dead and the Deadly (1982). The series of films beginning with Mr. Vampire (1985) consolidated the success of the kung fu ghost story genre and confirmed its status as the dominant genre of the '80s. The Mr. Vampire series brought back to Hong Kong scenes a touch of traditional Chinoiserie, not to mention superstition. It was the new genre that brought China back into the minds of Hong Kong filmmakers.
The ghost story pandered to the prevailing sense of crisis felt by Hong Kong people. The characters of Chinese ghosts personified the fear with which Hong Kong people viewed their cousins from the Mainland. Nevertheless, Hong Kong Chinese still maintained a profound connection with the Mainland, although through a love-hate relationship. While distrust of the Chinese was reserved for the "evil" ghosts, they showed a happy face to "good" ghosts. A film with good ghost characters, The Happy Ghost (1984), was one of the most commercially successful pictures in the '80s.
Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung
in Rouge
The new genre developed from bad ghost to woman ghost, as represented by Ching Siu-tung’s A Chinese Ghost Story (1984) and Stanley Kwan’s Rouge (1988). Both films possessed characteristics of "Chinese-ness" and were critical and box-office successes. Other films belonging to the ghost story genre include Life After Life (1981), Dream Lovers (1984), and The Iceman Cometh (1988), but these also incorporated special effects and elements of science fiction, reincarnation, and time travel.
The mistaken identity of human and ghost and contradictions between the nether and real worlds bring up the theme of the identity crisis. It is, of course, a theme that is also explored by films in other genres, such as Alex Cheung’s Man on the Brink (1981) and Ringo Lam’s City on Fire (1987). Both are police thrillers with undercover cop protagonists. Another identity-crisis film is Ann Hui’s martial arts epic Romance of Book and Sword (1987), which examines the historical enmity between Han Chinese and the Manchus, the rulers who established the Qing Dynasty.
The attitudes of Hong Kong people toward their Mainland cousins are reflected as contradictory and dynamic elements sustaining interest in Hong Kong movies. This can be seen in two 1983 releases, Johnny Mak’s violent crime thriller Long Arm of the Law and Yim Ho’s Homecoming. The latter shows its leading character, a Hong Kong woman, returning to her native village in China and reuniting with her childhood friend. Mak’s Long Arm of the Law, like Homecoming, seems to paint its Mainland protagonists in an unfavorable light but in fact acknowledges commonality with its rather unsavory characters. It indirectly recognizes that Hong Kong people have discriminated against immigrants from the Mainland.
The feelings of the new immigrants from China toward the Mainland may in truth be even more complex than that of "native" Hong Kongers. Their marginalized existence in the territory is like that of the half-human, half-ghost protagonists of ghost movies. Their existence at the lower strata of Hong Kong society indicates the great gulf between them and the middle to upper classes.
The Hong Kong cinema has all along tended to satirize Mainlanders but this attitude may slowly be changing. In The Greatest Lover (1988), Chow Yun-Fat plays an illegal immigrant from the Mainland who becomes a rich playboy and communicates with the Governor in Mandarin. His character in The Romancing Star (1987) is a similarly uncouth immigrant from the Mainland who sees the contradictions between Hong Kong and Mainland societies as well as between Hong Kong's rich and poor. The film underlines these contradictions with a fairy tale myth in which the Mainland frog may turn into a Hong Kong prince.
This outlook of Mainland characters in the Hong Kong cinema may point up a demographic fact of the late ’80s — that the population in the territory would consist of mainly working-class immigrants from China and Hong Kong's own lower strata of society, since much of the middle and upper classes have emigrated overseas. This also means that high-quality works in Hong Kong cinema became more rare, and the lowest-common-denominator factor in production remained in force.
In the late '80s, Hong Kong cinema was still examining the satirical aspects of the China–Hong Kong relationship, particularly in two Michael Hui comedies, Chicken and Duck Talk (1988) and Mr. Coconut (1989). The former deals with the theme of Chinese conservatism and the need for change and modernization. It ends optimistically with the message that modernization will succeed. In the latter film, Hui gives a comic performance as a country hick from Hainan who comes to Hong Kong, bringing along all his distasteful habits and quaint manners. Hui’s characterization, however, is not obnoxious but, on the contrary, points up the lovable nature of the character.
By 1990, although Hong Kong was still recovering from the shock of the June 4 incident in Tian’anmen Square the previous year, and the rush to get out of Hong Kong became more intense, filmmakers do not seem to have greatly reverted to making villains of Mainlanders. If anything, they became even more lovable, as evidenced by the generally positive characterizations of Stephen Chow in All for the Winner (1990), Hong Kong’s most successful film up to that time, and Carol "Dodo" Cheng in Her Fatal Ways (1990), both characters hailing from the Mainland. The Hong Kong cinema no longer looks at Mainland characters as transients or strangers but as people on the same side, brought together by fate.
Andy Lau (in glasses) with
Carrie Ng in Gun and Rose
The Hong Kong cinema has ultimately come to recognize that it cannot shake off the Chinese connection. The attempt to break into the international market would also necessarily entail an acknowledgment of Chinese roots since it is thought that international audiences would be more interested in Chinese culture and Chinese kung fu action. Those who have emigrated from Hong Kong soon realize that they cannot repudiate their roots and culture. There is also the fact that Chinese people themselves are undergoing a process of Hong Kong- and Taiwan-style modernization, which effectively means Westernization. It is clear that the ’90s will be a crucial decade in which the gulf between China and Hong Kong will close. Whether the establishment of a common identity will lead to exhilaration or despair remains to be seen.
The Merits and Shortcomings of the New Wave
The Hong Kong cinema in the ’80s not only recorded advances in technique, production values, and "packaging" styles, but grew more daring in tackling social, political, and artistic concerns. However, this cinema has not gone deep enough into arts, politics, or society and has not come up with more mature examples than have been provided thus far. The Hong Kong New Wave, which surfaced in 1979, briefly captured world attention, but was soon eclipsed by "new wave" movements in China and Taiwan.
In studying the reasons for the demise of the Hong Kong New Wave, one may first suggest that Hong Kong is an extremely commercialized and opportunistic city in which the cinema is regarded purely as a medium for mass entertainment. Second, as a free city port where East and West freely intermingle, Hong Kong excels in adapting to new trends and developments but lacks a knack for analysis in depth and a holistic approach to development.
The more creative filmmakers such as Ann Hui, Allen Fong, Tsui Hark, Yim Ho, Alex Cheung, Patrick Tam, and John Woo may attempt to move into deeper terrain but upon doing so, usually falter in logic and reasoning, often falling into a trap of superficiality and confusion. The group of filmmakers following on the heels of these pioneers have been more practically minded. Directors such as Stanley Kwan, Alfred Cheung, Mabel Cheung, Alex Law, Gordon Chan, Ching Siu-tung, and Lawrence Ah Mon have tended to shy away from "big themes" or difficult experimentation. Instead they have tried to balance art with entertainment and have dealt with human relationships in more sentimental terms. These directors, however, lack the vision or the imagination that distinguished the New Wave directors.
By integrating into the commercial mainstream cinema, the New Wave brought in new blood and a greater impetus for change. Their contribution to the Hong Kong cinema has also added momentum to the rise of the Chinese and Taiwanese new waves, both of which tended to be bolder in artistic experimentation.
Heroes and Beautiful People in a State of Crisis
One trend in the Hong Kong cinema that has remained consistent from the ’70s is the dependence on "heroic" personalities, whether in comedies or action thrillers. Changes in styles have brought about a greater emphasis in the '80s on emotions and the role of women, as compared to the emphasis on macho males in previous decades.
Ann Hui, probably the most influential director in the ’80s, did the most in giving new emphasis to female roles. Her first film, The Secret (1979), was a model of female creativity. All the major creative departments were filled by women, including Hui as director, Joyce Chan as writer, composer Violet Lam, producer Audrey Li, and star Sylvia Chang. Among her other films in which female leads form the center of the narratives are Starry Is the Night (1988) and Song of the Exile (1990). However, Ann Hui cannot be described as a feminist director. She does not take an anti-male stand. She strives for a vision of an ideal state in which females exist as equals to men and she laments the fact that such a state seems impossible. Her male protagonists are more ideal characters than the male leads in other directors’ movies. Their masculinity does not preclude shows of sentiment or commitment to honor and duty.
Her comedy film The Spooky Bunch (1980) not only brought the genre into the realm of ghosts and spirits (which the Hong Kong cinema would later combine with the kung fu film), but also feminist concerns and a love story theme. The film indirectly influenced the newly established Cinema City to specialize in comedies with a romantic theme, with Chasing Girls (1981) a typical example. In the same way, Hui's The Story of Woo Viet (1981) was not only one of the first films to deal with the sense of political crisis that would engulf Hong Kong but was also a precursor of the hero thrillers, although Hui's film is of a more modern disposition. It also differs from later hero thrillers in its narrative of a love story between the male and female leads.
 Maggie Cheung in The Actress  |
Love stories and "women's films" increased in output. Action films with women as heroines also became more popular (for example, 1985's Yes, Madam). However, this is not to say that women entirely displaced men as protagonists. Indeed, as elsewhere in the world, women continued to be viewed as subordinate, and as objects of beauty to be admired and fought over by men.
As for male heroes on the screen, they have continually maintained their dominant status, compared with female heroines. Comedy heroes have always been popular but in the '80s became less visible. Although active throughout the decade, comedy stars such as Michael Hui, Karl Maka, and Richard Ng are echt ’70s symbols. Hence the status of "heroes" of the screen belonged to the characters of violent action thrillers, who were really the modernized alter egos of the old swordfighting knight errants or kung fu martial artists.
One may point to Jackie Chan as the most representative and successful personification of this type of screen hero. He and other stars of this style, such as Sammo Hung, have actually dressed up traditional kung fu acrobatics and techniques in modern clothes. But the real modern-day heroes of Hong Kong's screens are those depicted in a series of John Woo–directed thrillers, beginning with A Better Tomorrow (1986) and culminating in The Killer (1989). But even these films are the result of an evolutionary process in cinema genres. These modern heroes are nothing more than Western-suited variations of the old swordfighting heroes of the popular Chu Yan adaptations of the Gu Long martial arts novels in the ’70s. The emphasis on an underworld code of honor is a consistent theme. So too are the stylized aesthetic of violence and the plot turns in which friend becomes enemy or vice versa.
The evolution of swordfighting martial arts hero into gun-toting gangster must necessarily entail a new concept in production design. Accordingly, the ’80s saw a greater emphasis on special effects hardware and more elaborate stuntwork, to make the gun battles more gory and realistic. If nothing else, the development of special effects and action stunts was the major technical achievement of Hong Kong cinema in the ’80s.
The interest in special effects hardware was already evident in the late ’70s. Tsui Hark's Butterfly Murders (1979) was one of the more famous attempts to incorporate special effects into the traditional swordfighting martial arts genre. In that film, Tsui suggested that medieval China already possessed modern gadgetry such as missiles, armored carriers, and even machine guns. Tsui's film was not a box-office success, which suggests his audience was not convinced.
Violent modern-dress thrillers were more receptive to special effects. It was in the genre of gangster movies (and also traditional ghost stories) that special effects found its niche. Ann Hui's The Story of Woo Viet and Terry Tong's Coolie Killer (1982) were early examples of the advent of "hero" thrillers, but it is the films of John Woo from A Better Tomorrow on that best exemplify this development.
Woo, who began his career in the swordfighting martial arts genre, has spoken of his fondness for the French thrillers of the '60s (those usually starring Alain Delon or Jean-Paul Belmondo and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville). Hence it is perhaps only fitting that Woo should have helmed A Better Tomorrow, produced by Tsui Hark, which by now can be put up as a classic example of the fully evolved Hong Kong contemporary martial arts thriller, a model of cinema influenced by both East and West. This combination of East and West, old and new genres, evolution and transformation, reached a peak with Woo’s The Killer (1989).
A Better Tomorrow
A Better Tomorrow was, of course, the film that officially started the trend of "hero" movies (the word "hero" here is culled from the film's Chinese title which, translated literally, means "The Essence of Heroes"). Apart from its balletic set-pieces of gunfights, the film ran a gauntlet of emotions from violent excitement to melodramatics to softhearted sentimentality. It also dealt with the notion that honor among thieves and murderers was the highest type of honor — a theme common in the swordfighting martial arts genre, as is the theme of revenge for betrayal. It epitomized the sense of crisis and achievement that characterized the public mood of Hong Kong and was rewarded for doing so with phenomenal box office success (the all-time highest grosser at the time).
What is noteworthy in the rise of the "hero" movies is that, apart from attaching greater value to the theme of underworld honor than to the forces of law and order (no doubt a reflection of the perception that the Hong Kong government would become a lame duck administration in the run-up to 1997), it also laid a particular emphasis on male bonding and the homoerotic aspects of violence which "beautiful looking" male gangsters mete out to each other. In the age of AIDS consciousness, "hero" movies were curiously renewing the tendency to discriminate against women, and downgrading the general line towards love and romance.
I don't wish to go into the complex reasons for this reversal phenomenon, except to say that the sense of crisis felt among Hong Kong people is a result of modernization and its attendant effects, including the rise of the status of women, and changes to traditional thinking and morality — all of which have tended to threaten the longstanding position of men in society. Hero movies came along at just the right time for men to bolster their weakening sense of security.
Another reason may have to do with a distinctive feature of Chinese tradition — that is, in times of crisis, love and romance are not a priority and are in fact incompatible with the prevailing mood. Heroes should be celibate and have nothing to do with women.
Simply put, the genre of hero movies contains a traditional anti-woman bias and renews the macho sensibilities of underworld-honor concepts of triad gangs and secret societies. The resurrection of such "traditional" values in the hero movies during our modern age of crisis is one of the reactionary developments of Hong Kong cinema.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that although the Hong Kong cinema resolutely clings to the principle of fulfilling the dreams of the mass audience, it sometimes fails to deliver and does not always satisfy the audience. Hence we must be wary of saying that what we see on Hong Kong screens fully reflects the psychology or sentiments of Hong Kong society. Filmmakers may sometimes make mistakes and use the cinema as a medium for expressing pent-up individual feelings.
Time may prove that the hero thrillers were a flash in the pan. Moreover, Hong Kong people have come to realize, in the wake of the 1989 Tian’anmen massacre, that fists, swords, and even guns alone cannot win the battle for them. They must count on wits and be quick on their feet in a gamble with destiny.
It is little wonder that in late 1989 "gambling" movies returned to Hong Kong screens with a vengeance. What is more, filmmakers again came up with concoctions of mixed genres, grafting hero thrillers onto the now more popular gambling movies. The ultimate "hero," Chow Yun-Fat, was recruited to provide box-office insurance. In God of Gamblers (1989), he was packing decks of cards instead of handguns, but the crisis-achievement dichotomy is still evident, the contradictions being resolved at a gaming table. God of Gamblers broke all box office records, its achievement only to be surpassed the following year by yet another gambling movie, All for the Winner (1990).
Hong Kong cinema can only be taken whole. It is impossible to focus on any one particular angle. It is obvious that it incorporates both brains and brawn, both martial arts and fine arts, both love between couples and honor among thieves. The year 1990 marks the start of yet another evolutionary process in the development of Hong Kong cinema. It has been the year of a new superstar, Stephen Chow, the star of All for the Winner with its proposal of a new set of screen values: action plus comedy plus gambling. It goes further by incorporating virtually all the successful ingredients of screen genres seen in Hong Kong cinema in the '80s, including romance, traditional lady knight errants, and illegal immigrants from China. The most successful movie up to its time in Hong Kong theaters, All for the Winner is the picture that sums up the '80s as well as setting the trend for the upcoming '90s.
January 2001 | Issue 31
Copyright © 1991, 1994, 2001 by Sek Kei
Originally appeared in issue 13 of our discontinued print edition
Sek Kei, one of Hong Kong's foremost critics, was born in Macau in 1946. He writes regularly for the Ming Pao Daily, is Advisor for the HK International Film Festival and HK Film Archive, and has been a member of the jury for Taiwan's China Express Film Award and China's Zhuhai Film Festival. This article is reprinted by permission of the author and the 1991 Hong Kong International Film Festival in whose catalog it first appeared.
ALSO: Our collected articles on Hong Kong cinema
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