I chose the Hong Kong cinema because it is among the main motion picture industry that has shaped the film industry of the world as we know it today. The Hong Kong cinema was vibrant between the 1920s to the early 1990s where for decades, it was the third largest firm maker in the world after the Indian cinema and the Hollywood, and the second largest exporter (Cheung, Marchetti, & Yau, 2015). This cinema has had a prominent part to play in the world cinema stage especially through its action cinemas that have not only had a strong cult of followers but has also influenced how other cinema industries make their action movies. The Hong Kong cinema has also contributed a lot in expressing the Chinese culture to the world. Most of the films produced by this industry are based on the Chinese culture and has helped the world to understand the ways of the Chinese through these films.
Historical Changes in Early Hong Kong Cinema
The Hong Kong Cinema origin can be traced back to 1913 when the first film was made, but the industry picked itself up in the 1930s with the rise of Cantonese-language talkies (Huang, 2018). The industry was affected by the Second Sino-Japanese war, but it boomed back after the war and took a portion of the world’s film market which it maintained for decades. The early Hong Kong cinema was affected by the following characteristics in its early age.
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Photography
The Hong Kong cinema photography is well known around the world for these film elements that were easily identifiable. It framing it combined close-up, medium shot and long shot styles (Zhou, 2018). Long shorts were more common in action movies than in other types in order to capture the act properly. Camera angles, camera movement within a shot and editing were used to create the film as the producer desired.
Films
The early films were largely action, comedy and romance movies. Some of the best-remembered films include Flames of Passion (1946) and Behind the Shanghai Front (1938). These two movies were action films that were influenced by the Second Sino-Japanese war. Another film that was famous during this era was The Purple Hairpin (1959) which was a romantic film (Cheung, Marchetti, & Yau, 2015).
Form
Almost all films produced by Hong Kong cinemas during the early age were narrative films (Huang, 2018). Across all genres, the producers created stories of which the films were based on. Just like other film industries around the world, filmmaking around this era was mostly based on a narrative form which was mostly influenced by the consumers’ demands.
Style
Hong Kong cinema is well known for using the Chinese culture as its style. The style includes their way of living, their dressing code, use of Chinese artifacts, and also most of their films are made in the Chinese language (Huang, 2018).
Special Effects
The special effects in this industry’s films include; sound effects, lighting, and editing that transform the movie from into something almost completely different from the act to achieve what the producer had in mind, for example, the presence of dragons in their action films (Zhou, 2018).
Fiction Narratives
Most of Hong Kong cinema films are based on the Chinese culture. For example, actions movies create a fiction of how one person who is either brave or supernatural helps to solve a problem affecting the society (Huang, 2018). These films use the classical narrative format.
How Hong Kong Cinema affected the Industry
The Hong Kong cinema began to take off in the 1940s, and its films were distributed all over the world. For several decades, it was the second largest exporter and maintained the third position in film production in the world (Lee, 2015).
Difference between the Hong Kong Cinema and The American Cinema
The Hong Kong cinema differs from the American cinema mostly on culture. The Hong Kong cinema is based on the Chinese culture which they are reluctant in changing while the American cinema is heterogeneous when it comes to culture (Lee, 2015). The later is not limited by culture guidelines in their filmmaking as is the case with most Hong Kong producers.
References
Cheung, E. M., Marchetti, G., & Yau, E. C. (Eds.). (2015). A companion to Hong Kong cinema . John Wiley & Sons.
Huang, S. H. (2018). The Lost Cantonese Identity: An Organizational Society Approach to Hong Kong Cinema. GSTF Journal on Media and Communications (JMC) , 2 (1).
Lee, V. P. (2015). The Lightness of History: Screening the Past in Hong Kong Cinema. A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema , 499-522.
Zhou, X. (2018). Gender and Genre: Female Film in Hong Kong Cinema of the 1960s. In Film-Philosophy Conference 2018 .
