Either go north or wait for death
Moderator: There are very few purely Hong Kong films right now, but there are quite a few Hong Kong-directed co-productions with the "north," but they're also not acclimatized.
Luo Gang: Many Hong Kong directors are making movies of inferior quality in order to accomodate the current mainland market. Take Wang Jing for example. He's really a very interesting director, but if he wanted to make money on the mainland he would have to make what they wanted there, and his original style would be lost completely. His work has a delightful and comic sort of ribaldry, but how do you play this sort of comedy on the mainland? You can't.
Lie Fu: With compromise, there is no creativity.
Moderator: I was at a film forum in Hong Kong not long ago, where everyone was saying "it's either go north or wait for death." But looking back on these past two years, as far as the work of Hong Kong directors goes, it doesn't look like the two are that far apart.
Mao Jian: Go north, or you're road kill.
Moderator: Peter Chan's two co-productions, "Perhaps Love" and "The Warlords," were fairly successful.
Lie Fu: Chan was very clever: "Perhaps Love" was unrealistic, and "The Warlords" a costumer.
Sun Ganlu: This is very important. Some stories must be placed in the context of a specific time, in order to have sufficient dramatic tension. Those earlier films which were adaptations of martial arts classics needed the pretext of a dynasty; if you placed the story in an empty environment, that kind of conflict would certainly not stimulate a strong reaction in the hearts of the audience, it just wouldn't be dramatic enough.
Luo Gang: When Tsui Hark was first making "A Chinese Ghost Story," that turbulence was the most important factor in the movie, and when it was integrated into that fantasy movie with various other factors it maximized its effect. There was also "The East is Red," in which a woman played something other than the customary female role, creating a new identity problem. These films all had great projections behind them, for without these projections stirring ideas in people's heads, how can you make a good movie? So all we're seeing is a bunch of lousy movies like "All About Women." Tsui Hark has become a synonym for lousy movies.
Sun Ganlu: For a film to have impact, there has to be some sort of projection. The creators themselves may not even be aware of it, but in a specific time context, some things will certainly be taken from it. But if you say these channels have not been established, then no one will have a reaction to it.
Lie Fu: Speaking of joint productions, there was a film in the 90s called "A Moment of Romance 3," which co-starred Andy Lau and Wu Chien-lien. I've seen it occasionally on TV, and it is totally different from "A Moment of Romance I." That was also a Hong Kong co-production, with the Changchun Film Studio, and it had absolutely no Hong Kong identity, just a China of the imagination. In those years no one had any criticisms or comments about these "joint productions," nor that they "lacked any Hong Kong flavor." I feel this should be looked into further.
Mao Jian: The stars had a particularly prominent Hong Kong identity, so the picture didn't have a co-production image.
Moderator: This issue wasn't very sensitive at that time because there were few co-productions. And their directors might not have taken mainland tastes into account, just followed their own concerns. Now, while Hong Kong directors may have their own concerns, they always take mainland tastes into consideration. In fact, when they were filming "Ip Man," mainland audiences' tastes were taken into account. Outside of 2009 Hong Kong movies made as joint productions, were there any self-invested movies?
Lie Fu: Yes, Wong Jing made two Category III films. After the CEPA [Closer Economic Partnership Agreement] was signed in 2003, permitting co-productions to be treated as domestically-produced Chinese films, many Hong Kong directors went north. but there were also Hong Kong directors who opposed CEPA, such as Herman Yau, Johnnie To and Pang Ho-cheung. Herman Yau may be the most home-grown Hong Kong director.
Moderator: His work has never been released on the mainland.
Sun Ganlu: The impact of joint production movies was just mentioned, and in that light I think we should review the issues around Peter Chan's co-operation with the mainland, which can actually be packaged as one identifical issue. He chose a costume theme last time [The Warlords], but his new drama "Bodyguards and Assassins" is a story about Sun Yat-sen, set in Hong Kong. Actually, the characters could be completely changed, to Chiang Kai-shek or Zhang Xue-liang, but they're both off limits. So the choices he made here were not accidental, but were choices fitting to this day and age. Of course, by making these choices, he contributes to the development of commercial films, technically proficient, a star-studded cast, and ever higher quality films. But for those native Hong Kong directors who are relatively creative, who aim their films at smaller, artistically-oriented audiences, could this sort of filmmaking environment be destructive, or even deadly?
[In Part 5: Finances will determine the future] Part I Part II Part III
