Film History & Movements Codexery

Cinema of Hong Kong

A commercial cinema hub with global influence and distinctive identity.

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Hong Kong became East Asia's leading film exporter in the 1960s and was the world's third-largest film industry during the 1980s and 1990s.[1] Despite a crisis starting in the mid-1990s and the 1997 handover, Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity.[1] The cultural and creative industries, including film, contribute 5% to Hong Kong's economic output.[2]

Making and release

The first Hong Kong feature film is usually credited as Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (1913), directed by Lai Man-Wai, who became known as the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema"[3] In 1934, the Shaw brothers established a branch of Tianyi Studio in Kowloon to make Cantonese films after their first Cantonese talkie proved successful.[4] In 1970, former Shaw executives Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho founded Golden Harvest, which landed contracts with Bruce Lee and the Hui Brothers.[5] For a major film featuring a top star, the typical budget is about US$5 million, while rare blockbuster projects can cost as much as US$20 million.[6][7]

In 2011, the number of films released in Hong Kong was 56 local productions and 220 from other countries.[8]

What the cited sources add

A 2018 Screen Daily article by Liz Shackleton reports that Hong Kong's box office shrank for the second consecutive year in 2017, with total receipts down 5% to $237.23 million.[9] The same article indicates that the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration reviews mostly subtitled films, even though no legal requirement for subtitles exists.[10][11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: : "By the early 1960s, Hong Kong had East Asia's most powerful export-based cinema. As competition for the offshore market intensified, smaller companies began ; Winslow, "JOHN WOO BRINGS HONG KONG TO FOX", Variety, 28 September 1996; Li, "HK-mainland collaboration in movie industry a win-win situation", China Daily, 9 April 2024 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Robust film industry is in our best interest", South China Morning Post (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Leyda 1972; Odham Stokes Hoover 1999 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Morris, "Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema", Duke University Press Books, 2006, p. 193; Odham Stokes, "Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema", Scarecrow Press, 2007, p. 427 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Berton, "Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview", The Pierre Berton Show, 9 December 1971 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fu, Poshek; Desser, David (editors), The Cinema of Hong Kong : history, arts, identity , Cambridge, UK; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2000. . Cf. p; Yang Gan Hong Staff of A. magazine 1997 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fu, Poshek; Desser, David (editors), The Cinema of Hong Kong : history, arts, identity , Cambridge, UK; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2000. . Cf. p (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Chu, "'Transformers' Tops Hong Kong Box Office for 2011", The Hollywood Reporter, 2 January 2012 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Shackleton, "Hong Kong box office shrinks for second year in a row", Screen Daily, 3 January 2018. facts only, no text reused. screendaily.com
  10. Yu, "Translators battle bad subtitles that lead to poor perception of Hong Kong films", South China Morning Post, 21 October 2014. facts only, no text reused. scmp.com
  11. Wikipedia, "Cinema of Hong Kong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Yu, "Translators battle bad subtitles that lead to poor perception of Hong Kong films", South China Morning Post, 21 October 2014 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Cinema of Hong Kong (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Named in this entry

Cinema of the United States

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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