"Hong Kong films" enter the mainland
Moderator: During the mid-60s Hong Kong movies entered the era of Shaw Brothers dominance, from King Hu's "Come Drink With Me" to Chang Cheh's "One-Armed Swordsman."
Luo Gang: Shaw at that time was walking on two legs, one was the martial arts genre, the other was movie musicals and romances.
Lie Fu: Chang Cheh's "One-Armed Swordsman" was made earlier than the romances of the 60s and 70s. Li Han-hsiang (李翰祥) left Shaw in the early 60s for Taiwan's developing industry, and Loke Wan Tho was the force behind that. But when Loke was killed in a plane crash, Li lost that support, and his only recourse was to go back to Shaw Brothers. Run Run Shaw's reply to his request was, OK, but this time you'll be making money for me, so you can't go back to just making whatever you want to make. So romances were the only choice for Li. It was not until his films became profitable that Shaw gave him the money to make movies Li himself liked, "The Empress Dowager"《倾国倾城》and "The Last Tempest"《瀛台泣血》.
Moderator: But we had no way of seeing these films from that time. A great many Shaw films from even later were available to mainland audiences only on videotapes and DVDs. There was a period of time when the mainland had no access to Hong Kong films, and it was not until the 70s and 80s that we could see them again.
Sun Ganlu: After the "Cultural Revolution" was over on the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan movies were again available, and for mainland people they brought a sort of exotic air with them. Another lure was that these films had been inaccessible for so long.
Lie Fu: Another very important factor in the attraction of Hong Kong films was their urbanism, their city sensibility. Mainland movies had urban themes, but no city feeling. That urban sensibility and feeling of the city in Hong Kong films was a very important factor in their popularity.
Mao Jian: When we watched Hong Kong films on the mainland in the 80s, we felt they were exotic.
Luo Gang: The most important thing was they way they incorporated the feeling of the city into the form of movies, such as "Chungking Express"《重庆森林》. Hong Kong movies could draw you a map of the city.
Lie Fu: They all had very specific locations, like Wan Chai, Central, Tsim Sha Tsui... They filmed each location's special characteristics in such detail.
Luo Gang: At the end of the 70s, the early 80s, the first Hong Kong movies shown in mainland theaters were "Qu Yuan"《屈原》and "Three Charming Smiles"《三笑》. Chen Sisi (陈思思), Xia Meng (夏梦) and Zhu Hong (朱虹) became the most popular Hong Kong actresses on the mainland at that time.
Mao Jian: Mainland audiences were less familiar with the previous generation of Hong Kong stars, like Josephine Siao (萧芳芳) and Connie Chan (陈宝珠), because they hadn't seen their movies.
Lie Fu: The Hong Kong movies and stars that entered the mainland at that time all came from "Great-Phoenix-New" (长凤新). Hong Kong movies were divided into left and right factions. On the left were the Great Wall, Phoenix and New Alliance studios, and they had a very close relationship with the mainland. We called them "Great-Phoenix-New," and they merged in 1981. The other Hong Kong studios, including Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest, did not have such a close relationship with the mainland. They needed the Taiwan market, and the Taiwan authorities demanded that they join the "Hong Kong-Kowloon Film and Drama Free Trade Union" before the authorities would give them the credentials to exhibit their films in Taiwan. In order to market their films there, they had to agree, so objectively they were more pro-Taiwan.
Moderator: What was the local Hong Kong situation regarding these two studio factions?
Lie Fu: Leftist films were still very popular before the "Cultural Revolution." The Phoenix studio's "Golden Eagle"《金鹰》was the first Hong Kong film to do more than a million at the box office, it was a story about ethnic minorities in Inner Mongolia and was filmed in a mainland location. Great Wall's "The Jade Bow"《云海玉弓缘》was the first Hong Kong film to use wire technology. With films like this, the leftist movies made great contributions to Hong Kong films. But when the "Cultural Revolution" came along, the situation steadily worsened, and the more the leftist studios busied themselves with backing that campaign, the less influence they had with Hong Kong people.
