Hong Kong Cinema Through A Global Lens

Cheng Pei-pei, ‘queen of martial arts’ movies, dead at 78 | CNN Actress Cheng Pei-pei, best known for her martial arts roles in films such as “Come Drink with Me” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” has died. She was 78.

Oscar winner Ruby Yang on her career as M+ museum shows her early films Hong Kong-born filmmaker Ruby Yang, who teaches journalism at the University of Hong Kong, talks about the chilling effect of her Academy Award in China and today’s self-absorbed young documentary makers.

Hong Kong filmmaker Roger Garcia on helping budding directors get started Hong Kong director Roger Garcia talks about promoting Asian cinema, why ‘rejection is about 90 per cent of the job in filmmaking’, and how he is helping the next generation of filmmakers find their feet.

China was the answer: how Hong Kong directors turned to filming war epics Inspired casting, with Andy Lau facing off against Maggie Q and Sammo Hung narrating, helped Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon succeed. Martial arts scenes light up God of War, some involving Hung.

#IFM2024 | "The Entangled Career of Guo Xiaolu: Between China and the World" by Gina Marchetti This presentation is part of the #𝗜𝗙𝗠𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 Conference – 6th Interactive Film and Media Virtual Conference – 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟭𝟭-𝟭𝟰, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝘁?...

Hong Kong’s film industry is turning to AI. Where do the humans come in? With realistic virtual locations, there’s no need to fly actors, crew to different places for film shoots.

The best Hong Kong films you can stream online

【一口戲轉型時刻 Moments of Transition | 浮生 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦：羅卓瑤】

羅卓瑤是九十年代少數能進身歐洲影展的香港導演之一。1992年憑《秋月》首度入圍盧卡諾影展的主競賽單元，一舉奪下最高榮譽金豹獎，成為史上首部獲此殊榮的華語電影。楊德昌是當屆影展的評審之一，他接受《中國時報》採訪時盛讚「羅卓瑤在觸及現代人虛無的心態處理上很有一針見血的功力」。

其後羅卓瑤攜《秋月》到世界各地參展，在澳洲參展時受到當地片商青睞，獲邀合作，於1996年拍成《浮生》，並在盧卡諾影展再下一城，獲最佳導演銀豹獎。同年也在金馬獎大放異彩，獲九項提名，包括最佳劇情片及最佳導演；翌年更代表澳洲出戰奧斯卡最佳外語片。

Courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

《 #浮生》Floating Life
27/4 (Sat) | 14:00 | 百老匯電影中心
映後談講者：林瀚光及學員（於1/F大堂進行）
購票：https://bit.ly/4d0fbmm

Why Jackie Chan didn’t turn his back on Hong Kong after Rush Hour’s success In 1998, Rush Hour shot Jackie Chan to international fame. But after making the film with Chris Tucker, Chan ultimately decided not to abandon Hong Kong, and continued to make films in both places.

Cheung Cheun Nam (also known as Qiu Yuen) apprenticed Chinese martial arts and Beijing-opera skills with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung as well as Kam-Bo under the same master, Yu Jim-yuen, while at the Beijing Opera School (part of the Chinese Drama Academy). She worked briefly as a female stunt artist and as a night club performer during the late 60s 'til the early 70s, landing a small role in her (at the time) one and only international production, in the James Bond film, "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974). She portrayed a student who rescues Bond, played by Roger Moore.

Feeling the future for female stunt artists was not promising, she took a hiatus from her career, and got married. Having been away from Hong Kong's film business for more than 28 years, she again starred in the international smash hit, "Kung Fu Hustle" (2004), just by chance. She was only accompanying a junior woman fellow of the China Drama Academy to the audition, but Stephen Chow, the director and star, soon noticed her. Reports note Chow got her to agree to appear after much persuasion. For her role as the landlady (a master of the Lion's Roar technique who possesses a sonic scream that can pierce through anything), she took the Japanese sumo wrestler's diet in order to add 40 pounds to her frame by eating midnight snacks every day. (IMDb/Wikipedia)

Happy Birthday, Qiu Yuen!

Maggie Cheung required four hours of makeup and costuming each morning while working on "In the Mood for Love" (2000); she wears a different Chinese dress, or cheongsam, in each scene, with fabrics that purposely complement or clash with the décor around her. Art director and film editor William Chang Suk-Pin said that "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964) was a big influence in terms of design. "The colors I am using," he said, "are very vivid, to contrast with the characters' restrained emotions. These contradictions are also in the lines they speak. Everything that Maggie and Tony (Leung) say to each other can also mean its opposite. Are they rehearsing their love, or is it real? It's quite complex."

Sofia Coppola credited "In the Mood for Love" as her largest inspiration on her Academy Award-winning film "Lost in Translation" (2003), which ended with secrets being shared. Coppola thanked director Wong Kar-wai in her Oscar acceptance speech. Similarly, the directors of Academy Award-winning film "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (2022) cited "In the Mood for Love" and its director as inspirations for portions of their multiverse story.

Cheung was offered a role in "X2" (2003) but turned it down because "If I start making films like that, they won't be proud. I'd feel like I was cheating. And I don't want half the world, we have 1.3 billion people in China, to know I'm cheating. That matters to me. I have more pride than that."

Delighted to be in conversation with these amazing scholars at Yale University last Saturday. Many thanks to Chloe Yan for moderating.

300 acting credits, 45 as a director: Wu Ma’s amazing Hong Kong film career Hong Kong actor and director Wu Ma had a prolific career in front of and behind the camera. His best film, The Dead and the Deadly, showed the formula for success.

[𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡: 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐊𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐦𝐬]

📆𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 / 日期: April 24, 2024 (Wednesday) / 2024年4月24日（星期三）
🕰️𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 / 時間: 10:30 AM – 12: 00 NN (HKT) / 上午10時30分至中午12時正（香港時間）
🏠𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 / 地點: University Bookstore, CUHK (YIA, 1/F) / 大學書店, 香港中文大學康本國際學術園一樓
𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 / 語言: English / 英文

Conducted in English. All are welcome.

𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13685680

𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭:
What were Hong Kong crime films like before they became a local, regional, and eventually global success story? How did colonial film censors influence the development of Hong Kong genre cinema, and the crime film in particular? And how can we think through the relationship between crime films and their social context? In this talk, Dr. Kristof Van den Troost will discuss these and other topics covered in his new book, Hong Kong Crime Films: Criminal Realism, Censorship and Society, 1947-1986 (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).

🎤𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫:
𝐃𝐫. 𝐊𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐟 𝐕𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭 is Assistant Professor at the Centre for China Studies, CUHK. He has published widely on Chinese-language genre filmmaking, the history of Hong Kong film censorship, and Hong Kong crime films and independent cinema.

🎤𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐭:
𝐃𝐫. 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐡-𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐧 is Assistant Professor in Cultural Studies in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Hong Kong Metropolitan University. Dr. Chen has published in, amongst others, A Companion to Wong Kar-wai (Wiley Blackwell), the Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Frames Cinema Journal, and Sound Stage Screen.

𝐄𝐧𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐲: [email protected]

Wayne Wang’s early films and why Hong Kong frustrated the American director At the start of his career, Asian-American director Wayne Wang worked in his native Hong Kong and the United States, growing as a filmmaker, before shooting his first big hit, The Joy Luck Club.

How early Patrick Tam and Ann Hui films show Hong Kong New Wave’s diversity The differences between Hong Kong directors Patrick Tam and Ann Hui’s early films Nomad and The Story of Woo Viet exemplify the breadth of style and range of themes of Hong Kong New Wave cinema.

The King of Wuxia Part 2: film director King Hu’s poignant life story told Part 2 of Lin Jing-jie’s documentary on the life of wuxia film director King Hu focuses on the man himself and the frustrations of his later career, recalled through archival footage and tearful interviews.