Toward a New Hong Kong Cinema: beyond Mainland–Hong Kong co-productions

Abstract

‘Either go north or wait for death,’ the subtitle of a round table panel on the future of Hong Kong cinema, says it all. It is almost a truism to say that Hong Kong cinema has died or has become Chinese cinema. However, the recent success of local Hong Kong productions, such as Alex Law's Echoes of the Rainbow and Ann Hui's A Simple Life, seems to be telling a story of life after death. Meanwhile, Derek Kwok and Clement Cheng's Gallants, Ho-cheung Pang's Love in a Puff, Clement Cheng and Yan Yan Mak's Merry-Go-Round and Heiward Mak's High Noon, among others, have managed to portray their own visions of Hong Kong without going north. Against this backdrop, Hong Kong film critics have begun to explore the possibilities of a new wave of Hong Kong cinema. This paper endeavors to focus on two movies, Pou-Soi Cheang's Motorway and Sunny Luk and Longman Leung's Cold War, in an attempt to sketch the trajectories of a new Hong Kong cinema. Moreover, this paper argues that the indiscriminate umbrella of ‘Chinese cinema’ cannot rule out the possibility of different Hong Kong filmic imaginaries.