THE figures are out, and they make unpleasant reading. The number of Hong Kong movie-goers nosedived to record lows in 1994, continuing a trend which began in 1993 and doesn't look like ending soon.
As recently as 1989, Hong Kong had a movie-mad population. A total of 44.8 million tickets were sold in that year, making local audiences the most frequent cinema-goers in the world outside China. Last year, that was down to 29.1 million. Even between 1993 and 1994, there was a drop of 20 per cent in cinema admissions.
And the local film industry has been hit the worst. Audiences gave the big thumbs down to Cantonese features last year, with ticket sales dropping from 26.6 million in 1993 to 20.1 million last year. That means the market has shrunk by more than 20 per cent in 12 months - and 33 per cent in two years.
Oddly enough, sales for foreign films held pretty firm - down from 9.5 million admissions in 1993 to 8.9 million last year, and part of that can be explained away by the phenomenal success of Jurassic Park in 1993, which is still the territory's top-grossing film at $61.89 million in box-office receipts.
For the second year in a row, a Western film was the most popular at the box-office - Speed took $46.43 million last year, which also ensured it fourth place in Hong Kong's list of all-time top grossing films. But the amazing rate of production for Cantonese films continued - 190 Hong Kong films were released here last year, and 31 Mandarin-language features. But Western films crept up too - 163 films in English were screened, with 108 non-English or Chinese titles also going on release.
And while the local industry expected the results for 1994 to be bad, the extent of the decline was still shocking to many.