Commentary 1

Second, in the phase of competing studios (1956 to 1965), the two largest
companies in Hong Kong – Cathay-owned MP&GI and Shaw Brothers – had
evolved into arch-enemies engaging in fierce competition to dominate the Hong
Kong and Southeast Asian markets. In addition to cultivating their own stars and
production personnel, they invested in modern musicals, opera movies and youth
romances that appealed to a wide spectrum of audiences. Female stars prevailed
in the era of singing and dancing known as ‘Mandarin pop’ (shidai qu), and
screen fashions became a major attraction for a society that gradually moved
from poverty and scarcity to sufficiency and affluence. Meanwhile, Cantonese
cinema enjoyed its ‘golden age’, its opera movies as popular as ever and its urban
melodramas attaining a new level of sophistication.

Third, in the phase of reinventing genres (1966 to 1978), the Cultural Revolu-
tion in the PRC spelled box-office disaster for the pro-PRC companies, while
the termination of Cathay’s feature production and the emergence of Golden
Harvest in the early 1970s heralded a time of reinvention in studios and genres.
The new-style martial arts film represented by Zhang Che’s visceral swordplay
and Bruce Lee’s heroic gongfu fights dominated the screen, and masculinity and
violence replaced femininity and romance as male stars eclipsed their female
counterparts. By the mid-1970s the Hui brothers’ comedy became a serious
contender to martial arts pictures, and Cantonese cinema was revived after a
dreadful decline in the early 1970s. The inauguration of the Hong Kong Inter-
national Film Festival in 1977 declared the significance of Hong Kong cinema
in the world, and the thriving television industry cultivated a group of young
artists who would soon make a major impact with Hong Kong new wave cinema.
‘Since the 1970s, [Hong Kong] has been arguably the world’s most energetic,
imaginative popular cinema’ (Bordwell 2000: 1).

FROM SHANGHAI TO HONG KONG, 1945–55

The postwar transition from Shanghai to Hong Kong involved not just two
waves of migration into the territory but also the new immigrants’ psychological
adjustment to make Hong Kong their new home as well as the new focus of their
cinematic experience. Inasmuch as film history is concerned, the relationship
between Hong Kong and Shanghai has long been a fruitful one and can be traced
to the early twentieth century (HKIFF 1990: 102–15).

Highlights of early Hong Kong cinema, 1896–45
Hong Kong’s film history started in 1896 when the Lumières sent its staff to
shoot documentaries in this exotic British colony. As mentioned in Chapter 2,
Brodsky’s Shanghai-based Yaxiya managed to produce short features in Hong
Kong, thus making Stealing a Roast Duck, directed by Leung Siu-po (Liang
Shaopo) in 1909, the first feature in Chinese film history. In 1913 Brodsky

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established Huamei in Hong Kong and produced its only release, Zhuangzi Tests
His Wife, with the assistance of Li Minwei and Li Beihai. In 1923 the Li brothers
founded Minxin in Hong Kong but had to relocate its operations to Shanghai
due to a prolonged labor strike in 1925–6, which involved 250,000 out of
600,000 Hong Kong residents.2 From then until 1930 no film was produced
in Hong Kong, whereas about a dozen came out in Guangzhou (Fonoroff
1997: xiv).

The revival of filmmaking in Hong Kong began in 1930, but the real driving
force was the founding of Lianhua in Hong Kong and the opening of its Hong
Kong studio (headed by Li Beihai in 1931), which produced six features. Inter-
estingly, the first two full-sound Cantonese talkies were made outside Hong
Kong in 1933: White Gold Dragon came from Tianyi in Shanghai and Romance
of the Songsters (Gelü qingchao, dir. Chiu Shu-sen) from Grandview in San
Francisco (Fonoroff 1997: xiv–v).3 Hong Kong ceased silent film production in
1935 and the era of Cantonese sound cinema came into being.

The success of the two talkies in Hong Kong and the overseas Chinese
communities convinced Tianyi to set up a sound studio in Hong Kong, and

Figure 5.1 Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (1913): a Hong Kong short feature, with Li
Minwei

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Grandview to relocate its production to Hong Kong, both in 1934. Chiu
Shu-sen originally agreed with Luo Mingyou to operate under the name ‘Over-
seas Lianhua’, but he resumed the name ‘Grandview’ when Lianhua closed
its Hong Kong studio in 1934 due to financial problems. A significant player
in Hong Kong, Grandview was innovative and projected new images on the
Hong Kong screen. Life Line (Shengming xian, dir. Moon Kwan, 1935) was a
‘national defense’ picture produced ahead of its Shanghai counterparts, which
was temporarily banned by the Hong Kong censors (Law 2000: 53).4 After
leading patriotic film productions in the late 1930s, Grandview completed
the construction of its Hong Kong studio in Diamond Hill in 1940, which
was unfortunately destroyed in the 1941 Japanese bombing. During the war
Grandview relocated its production to San Francisco and produced twenty-one
films in black and white and four in 16mm, color.

Hong Kong filmmakers refused to cooperate with the Japanese invaders and
no Chinese-funded feature was produced inside Hong Kong from the end of
1941 to the beginning of 1946.5 Local movie theaters, estimated at twenty-
eight in 1938, had no access to Hollywood films and had to show Cantonese
features produced prior to the occupation as well as a limited number of
Japanese films and Shanghai Mandarin titles whenever available (Fonoroff
1997: xvi).

The postwar revival, 1946–9
Large-scale migration occurred during and after the war. The onset of the
resistance war brought an influx of refugees to Hong Kong, where the popula-
tion swelled from 0.98 million in 1936 to 1.64 million in 1941. A reverse
trend started in December 1941 when Japan occupied the city and Hong
Kong residents headed for China’s hinterland or overseas. By the time of
Japan’s surrender in 1945, Hong Kong had a population of 0.6 million. A
second wave of migration to Hong Kong followed and the city’s population
increased to 1.75 million by 1947. A third wave of refugees poured into the
territory in 1949, and by 1 May 1950 when the PRC officially closed its
border, Hong Kong’s population exceeded 2.23 million (Jarvie 1977: 58) (see
Table 5.1).

A film production boom matched the postwar population boom: 419 titles
were produced between June 1946 and December 1949, compared with 571
titles between March 1930 and December 1941.6 Unlike the 1930s, the postwar
period was characterized by a significant increase in both Cantonese and
Mandarin cinema. From five in 1946, the number of Cantonese features jumped
to 154 in 1949, while Mandarin features grew from four in 1946 to twenty-five
in 1949. Indeed, in 1948 Cantonese cinema already broke its 1939 record of
120 titles (see Table 5.2). Most postwar Cantonese films were Cantonese opera
movies; they accounted for 30 per cent of all Cantonese titles produced in
the 1940s, with fifty-eight released in 1949 alone. Obviously, such production

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capacity had surpassed the pre-occupation era when Cantonese opera movies
constituted 24 per cent of all Cantonese titles produced in the 1930s, with
thirty-three released in 1939 (HKIFF 1987: 18–19). As in the 1930s, leading
male stars Sit Kok-sin and Ma Sze-tsang (Ma Shizeng) returned to the screen,
accompanied by their protégés and younger colleagues from the opera world.
Significantly, several postwar Cantonese dramas resembled their Shanghai
counterparts in that both reenacted wartime traumas and re-staged family
separation and female suffering.

On the other hand, the increased Mandarin-speaking population and new
film talents from Shanghai ushered in a new era in Hong Kong cinema. Not
surprisingly, when the first postwar Hong Kong film was released in December
1946, it was a Mandarin title because many producers believed that, with access
to mainland cities now, Mandarin cinema commanded a larger market than
Cantonese cinema (M. Yu 1998: 87–9). Like most postwar Mandarin companies,

Table 5.1 Theaters, attendance and population in Hong Kong, 1926–96

Year Theaters Attendance
(million)

Visits per
capita

Population
(million)

1926 — — — 0.6
1936 — — — 0.98
1938 28 — — —
late 1930s 31 — — —
1941 — — — 1.64
1945 — — — 0.6
1947 — — — 1.75
1948 33 — — —
1950 — — — 2.23
1955 64 — — 2.5
1959 — 66 22 3
1960 67 — — —
1961 72 — — 3.1
1965 — 90.54 — —
1967 — 100 27 3.7
1971 — — 21 4
1975 — 54 — —
1977 75 60 — —
1979 80 65 — —
1982 89 66 — —
1985 104 58 — —
1988 133 66 12 5.5
1993 — 44 — —
1995 — 28 — —
1996 — 22 — —

Sources: Bordwell 2000: 34, 66, 75; Chan 2000: 69; Cheuk 1999: 11–20; Fu 2000a: 205;
HKIFF 1982: 18; HKIFF 1991: 72; Jarvie 1977: 58; M. Yu 2001: 41.

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Table 5.2 Annual number of feature productions in Hong Kong, 1913–2002

Year Total
films
released

Cantonese
films

Mandarin
films

Amoy-
dialect
films

Other

1913 1 — — — 1 silent short
1914 2 — — — 2 silent shorts
— — — — — —
1925 6 — — — 6 silent
1926 1 — — — 1 silent
— — — — — —
1931 3 — — — 3 silent
1932 2 — — — 2 silent
1933 5 5 — — —
1934 15 15 — — —
1935 32 32 — — —
1936 49 49 — — —
1937 85 85 — — —
1938 87 83 4 — —
1939 125 120 5 — —
1940 89 84 5 — —
1941 80 74 6 — —
1942 3 3 — — —
1943 6 5 1 — —
1944 2 2 — — —
1945 1 1 — — —
1946 9 5 4 — —
1947 89 72 16 1 —
1948 141 123 18 — —
1949 179 154 25 — —
1950 187 169 17 1 —
1951 169 141 17 11 —
1952 217 163 44 10 —
1953 183 132 42 6 3 3-D films
1954 159 116 28 14 1 widescreen
1955 210 169 22 18 1 Chaozhou
1956 252 167 64 20 1 Chaozhou
1957 240 142 58 39 1 Chaozhou
1958 286 156 57 70 3 Chaozhou
1959 343 169 76 89 9 Chaozhou
1960 276 202 71 — 2 Chaozhou, 1 Shanghainese
1961 257 211 45 — 1 Chaozhou
1962 233 200 31 — 1 Chaozhou, 1 Shanghainese
1963 251 203 38 — 8 Chaozhou, 2 others
1964 224 175 43 — 5 Chaozhou, 1 Shanghainese
1965 205 169 32 — 4 Chaozhou
1966 166 125 40 — 1 Shanghainese
1967 172 105 67 — —
1968 149 87 61 — 1 Chaozhou
1969 135 71 64 — —
1970 118 35 83 — —

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Great China, established in 1946, appointed on its board such illustrious
Shanghai producers as Yan Youxiang, Zhang Shichuan and Zhou Jianyun. Its
production staff included leading Shanghai artists like Zhu Shilin and Dan Duyu.
Great China leased Nanyang’s facilities and produced thirty-four Mandarin titles

Table 5.2—Continued

Year Total
films
released

Cantonese
films

Mandarin
films

Amoy-
dialect
films

Other

1971 86 1 85 — —
1972 87 — 87 — —
1973 94 1 93 — —
1974 101 — — — —
1975 97 — — — —
1976 95 — — — —
1977 87 — — — —
1978 99 — — — —
1979 109 — — — —
1980 116 — — — —
1981 110 — — — —
1982 106 — — — —
1983 87 — — — —
1984 86 — — — —
1985 88 — — — —
1986 87 — — — —
1987 76 — — — —
1988 115 — — — —
1989 117 — — — —
1990 120 — — — —
1991 125 — — — —
1992 215 — — — —
1993 242 — — — —
1994 181 — — — —
1995 150 — — — —
1996 116 — — — —
1997 84 — — — —
1998 89 — — — —
1999 100 — — — —
2000 133 — — — —
2001 133 — — — —
2002 92 — — — —

Sources: Chan 2000: 547; HKFA 1997b; HKFA 1998; HKFA 2000; HKIFF 1984; HKIFF
1986; HKIFF 1987; HKIFF 1989; Z. Qi 2002: 84; Shackleton 2003; M. Yu 2000; M. Yu 2001.
Notes: The figures here exclude those features produced but not exhibited in the given year
or those exhibited for the second time. The 1926 film was produced before the labor strike in
1925–6 and films released between 1942 and 1944 were produced before the fall of Hong Kong
in December 1941.

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before it ceased operation in 1949 (HKIFF 1995: 92–104). An All-Consuming
Love (Chang xiangsi, dir. He Zhaozhang, 1947; Mandarin), set in wartime
Shanghai, articulates the postwar pathos of separation and lost love, and Zhou
Xuan’s famous song ‘Shanghai at Night’ (Ye Shanghai) intensified the emotional
ties between Hong Kong and Shanghai. Also set in Shanghai, two other Zhou
Xuan vehicles from Great China, Orioles Banished from the Flowers (Huawai
liuying, 1947) and Song of a Songstress (Genü zhi ge, 1948), both directed by
Fang Peilin in Mandarin, further underscored the obsession with Shanghai.
Most of Great China’s Mandarin productions were exhibited in Hong Kong with
separate Cantonese soundtracks and sold better than their Mandarin prints. As
a result, Great China also ventured into Cantonese cinema and produced nine
such titles.

A lesser-known company was Longma (Dragon-Horse), which Fei Mu
founded in 1949 with support from Wu Xingzai, another powerful Shanghai
producer. After Fei Mu died in 1951 at age 45, Zhu Shilin took charge of
production and directed seven Longma releases celebrated for their distinct
realist style. With his focus on ordinary urbanites in films like Spoiling the
Wedding Day (Wu jiaqi, 1951; Mandarin), an acclaimed comedy, Zhu gradually
directed the attention of postwar Mandarin cinema from its ‘mainland complex’
– especially its Shanghai obsession – to a humane examination of social realities in
contemporary Hong Kong. For film scholars like Lin Niantong, Zhu surpassed
Italian neo-realism and took the tradition of 1930s and 1940s Chinese film
comedy to new heights (ZDZ 1998: 54).

Another noteworthy postwar company was Grandview, which reopened its
business in Hong Kong in 1947 and released All That Glitters (Jinfen nishang,
dir. Huang Hesheng, 1942), a 16mm color feature produced in San Francisco.
Under Chiu Shu-sen, Grandview made remarkable technical advancement,
producing the first 35mm full-color Cantonese feature in 1948, the first 3-D
feature in 1953 and the first widescreen format film in 1954. Like most
Cantonese companies of the time, Grandview stayed out of postwar politics in
Hong Kong.

Of business and politics, 1949–55
The postwar battles between the KMT and the CCP were carried far beyond the
military fronts and lasted long after the division of China into the PRC and
Taiwan in 1949. For political reasons, numerous former leftist filmmakers, such
as Cai Chusheng, Ouyang Yuqian, Shi Dongshan, Yang Hansheng and Yu Ling,
had moved to Hong Kong and were active in film production and criticism there
in 1948. In 1949, while most of these leading leftists had returned to the PRC to
assume leadership positions, a group of remaining Shanghai artists organized the
Fifties Company (Wushi niandai) in Hong Kong and collectively produced two
films. Wang Weiyi had already directed an acclaimed Cantonese feature for
Nanguo, Tears Over the Pearl River (Zhujiang lei, 1949), which dramatizes class

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conflict and female oppression in the tradition of postwar Shanghai critical real-
ism. For Fifties Wang directed Fiery Phoenix (Huo fenghuang, 1950; Mandarin),
a title that might have inspired the name for Phoenix (Fenghuang), a company
founded in 1952, the year when Fifties was disbanded after most of its members
had departed for the PRC. Phoenix also recruited several Longma personnel
and appointed Zhu Shilin as head of production, a post he held for the next
fifteen years. Known in particular for its Mandarin comedies poking fun at the
petit-bourgeois mentality, Phoenix served as a left-wing base in Hong Kong in
the following decades.

The ideological battle between the KMT and the CCP was best illustrated in
the postwar career of Zhang Shankun, a controversial industry leader in occu-
pied Shanghai. In 1947 Zhang cooperated with Li Zuyong, a Shanghai–Hong
Kong industrialist who had a master’s degree in literature from the US, and
together they set up Yonghua (Yung Hwa Motion Picture Industries – ‘Yong’
from Li’s given name and ‘hua’ from Zhang’s former Xinhua). Li poured in
US$3 million, built two studios in Kowloon Chai and purchased up-to-date
equipment. He was ambitious and, with Zhang’s help, enlisted first-rank artists
from Shanghai. Produced on a budget of over HK$1 million, Soul of China
(Guohun, dir. Bu Wancang, 1948; Mandarin) was an acclaimed patriotic histor-
ical film. Its success was followed by Sorrows of the Forbidden City (Qinggong
mishi, dir. Zhu Shilin, 1948), a drama of imperial court intrigues that was shown
in China and exported to Japan, Europe and the Middle East (M. Yu 2000:
66). Remarkably, Yonghua also released films by noted leftist or progressive
artists that dramatize class conflict in a more radical way than its contemporary
mainland counterparts. Evidently, postwar Hong Kong was a place where
clearly demarcated political camps had yet to emerge and where filmmaking was
primarily a business.

A market-savvy businessman, Zhang withdrew from Yonghua in 1948
because he was worried that, with extravagant production standards and the
uncertainty of the mainland market, the company would soon encounter finan-
cial problems. Zhang accepted the invitation of Yuan Yang’an, a former presi-
dent of the Shanghai Attorneys Association, who raised money and established
Great Wall Pictures (Changcheng) in 1949. With Zhang serving as production
manager, Great Wall released two Mandarin features directed by Yue Feng in
1949. Even with Great Wall’s early box-office success, Zhang was immediately
plagued by financial problems and was forced to quit Great Wall on account
that he owed the company HK$3 million. According to his wife Tong Yuejuan,
the real reason was Zhang’s refusal to accept the CCP’s invitation – conveyed
by his Shanghai acquaintances like Xia Yan – to return to the PRC, but
nonetheless Zhang borrowed cash and settled his debts (G. Zuo and Yao 2001:
90–5).7

After Zhang’s departure, the company was restructured as Great Wall Movie
Enterprises in 1950. In spite of its alleged PRC affiliation, Great Wall ran a suc-
cessful business in the 1950s, promoting directors like Tao Qin and cultivating

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new stars like Xia Meng. In fact, Lin Dai (Linda Lin), four-time winner of the best
actress award at the Asian Film Festival, first signed with Great Wall in 1950.
Great Wall’s releases were consistently popular and topped the annual Mandarin
box-office in 1951–2. A Night Time Wife (Jinhun ji, dir. Li Pingqian, 1951;
Mandarin), a light urban comedy, brought in HK$133,000 in first-run revenues
and sold briskly overseas, although it was banned in the PRC for its alleged
bourgeois ideology. Modern ‘Red Chamber Dream’ (Xin honglou meng, dir. Yue
Feng, 1952; Mandarin), a reinvention of the classic novel set in a present-day
city, featured Yan Jun and Li Lihua and grossed HK$214,000. Nonetheless, it is
not certain whether this film made a profit since the production lasted almost a
year and cost HK$1 million (M. Yu 2000: 44–7, 90–3) (see Table 3.2, p. 90).

By 1951, Yonghua was short on cash and owed its employees salaries for as
much as three and a half months, which resulted in a strike organized by
Shanghai artists. In December 1951 Yonghua fired fourteen employees. In a
radical move in January 1952, the Hong Kong government expelled more
than twenty left-wing film people to the PRC, including Bai Chen, Liu Qiong,
Shen Ji, Shu Shi and Sima Wensen, without giving them an adequate reason or
advance notice (M. Yu 2000: 66–7, 98–9).

Figure 5.2 Sorrows of the Forbidden City (1948): postwar Mandarin cinema in Hong
Kong

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The expulsion was radical because the colonial government had not imposed
film censorship as strictly as the KMT had in postwar China. Due to relative
freedom, postwar Hong Kong had become a perfect site for the former leftists
to create their idealistic works of art with financial support from capitalists. A
significant number of postwar Mandarin titles exposed official corruption (set in
the early Republican era or during the resistance war), class oppression (disguised
as sexual exploitation or forbidden love) and the collapse of the feudal family. In
spirit, these postwar Hong Kong productions continued the leftist film move-
ment of the 1930s and resembled their postwar Shanghai counterparts. A May
1950 Hong Kong news report claimed that, ‘almost without exception, all Hong
Kong film producers were manipulated by the Communists’. Since then, the
Hong Kong government had formally instituted its censorship operations and
stepped up pressure on ‘Communist’ films. In any case, the 1952 expulsions were
meant as a warning signal to Hong Kong producers and artists alike. Ironically,
exactly around this time, even ‘left-wing’ companies had begun to lose their
mainland market as their releases, such as Fiery Phoenix, were criticized by
the new socialist regime as spreading petit-bourgeois ideology and containing
poisonous ingredients (M. Yu 2000: 24–5, 63).

Meanwhile, Zhang Shankun had resumed filmmaking with his Hong Kong
Xinhua (Hsin Hwa) in 1951. Little Phoenix (Xiao Fengxian, dir. Tu Guangqi,
1953; Mandarin), a romance set in the early Republican revolution, was one
of ten Xinhua films in which Zhang cast Li Lihua, who was paid HK$75,000
per film or half of the film’s budget (see Table 3.1, pp. 64–5). Li’s high fee was
considered the beginning of the expensive star system in Hong Kong and its
effect was debated in the media (Du 1988: 535–6).

To strengthen their political ties, Zhang and his wife twice joined the Hong
Kong film delegation to visit Taiwan and met with Chiang Kai-shek in 1953 and
1954. Zhang also cooperated with his wartime friend Kawakita Nagamasa in
producing an Eastmancolor film. Traveling between Taiwan and Japan while
making several films at the same time, Zhang was exhausted and died in Tokyo in
January 1957 at age 52.

After Zhang’s death, his wife Tong Yuejuan continued Xinhua’s productions
until 1962. She had managed an anti-PRC association in Hong Kong following
her 1953 visit to Taiwan and in 1957 renamed it ‘Hong Kong and Kowloon
Cinema and Theatrical Enterprise Free General Association’ (Ziyou zonghui,
‘Free Association’ hereafter). At the height of the cold war, Free Association had
demarcated artists and film companies into ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ groups.
Since the pro-KMT businessmen controlled the overseas markets, Free Associ-
ation had considerable influence on Hong Kong film productions, and many
artists were forced to declare their political allegiance publicly. The size of the
Hong Kong film and theater delegations to Taiwan grew from eighteen in 1953,
to sixty-four in 1954 and 110 in 1956, and their members included Chen Hou,
Hu Die and Li Lihua. An ideologically opposite case, however, was the decision
of Hung-hsin Nui (Hongxian Nü), a leading actress of Cantonese opera and a

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rising film star, to return to Guangzhou with her husband Ma Sze-tsang in 1955,
preceded by Sit Kok-sin’s similar move to the PRC a year before.

Film historian Law Kar (Luo Ka) questions the validity of political labeling.
He cites the fact that Li Zuyong turned to the KMT regime in 1955 only
after Yonghua was financially insolvent. Unfortunately for Li, Taiwan’s loan of
HK$500,000 through CMPC accelerated Yonghua’s demise because an ensuing
anti-Communist film made in 1957 could not sell in Hong Kong and major
Southeast Asian cities for political reasons. Li died in 1959 at age 56, far from
realizing his initial dream of building a Chinese movie empire. The inadequacy of
political labeling is further evident in the releases from Asia Pictures (Yazhou),
founded in 1953 with the support of the US-based Free Asia Association.
Reputedly an ‘anti-Communist’ operation, Asia Pictures produced Half Way
Down (Ban xialiu shehui, dir. Tu Guangqi, 1955; Mandarin), which promotes
solidarity among a group of poverty-stricken mainland intellectuals stranded
in a Hong Kong slum and criticizes the corrupting forces of money and the
bourgeois lifestyle. Ironically, by portraying individual dignity, traditional
ethics and alienation in Hong Kong society, Half Way Down resembles many
contemporary ‘left-wing’ releases from Great Wall (HKIFF 1990: 10–20).

Between Cantonese and Mandarin cinemas, 1950–5
In 1950 Cantonese film production reached an all-time high of 169 titles, out of
which 109 films were produced by the same number of one-picture companies –
an indicator of a speculative trend in filmmaking at the time. One reason for such
a surge in production was the addition of a new theater chain dedicated to
Cantonese cinema, which translated into an increase of five to six theaters and a
new demand for fifty more films per year in order to feed the theaters. In com-
parison, Mandarin-spoken productions dropped to seventeen titles in 1950, in
part …