1898-1910 Time to get moving
Representatives of the Edison Company of the United States visit Hong Kong in 1898 to record moving pictures of street scenes. Their primitive films provide the earliest motion-picture record of life in the colony against a backdrop of merchant houses, Victoria Harbour and Government House.
By the turn of the 20th century, Exotic Western Picture Shows, as they are marketed, are popping up all over town and being shown in public areas and teahouses. The first film-business investors are foreigners. As the popularity of film grows, opera houses begin showing silent, minute-long clips of moving trains and running horses after stage performances. Known as 'actualities', these shorts attract curious mobs, each person paying five cents for a third-class seat and 20 cents for first. Most come back for more, but a few are terrified of the new and seemingly magical technology.
The first cinema opens in Hong Kong in 1907. Located on Wyndham Street, Central, the 600-seat Bijou Theatre shows films every evening. It immediately becomes the talk of the town and people rush to get tickets whenever a new film is released. Films - usually comedies from the United States - are accompanied by live music and narrators who explain the plots in Cantonese.
Two years later Hong Kong's first fictional film, Stealing The Roast Duck, is shot. Commissioned by the Shanghai-based Asia Film Company, it is produced by the firm's American boss, Benjamin Brodsky. Although the story is basic - a man makes off with a roast duck from a shop and is arrested - it turns up Hong Kong's first homegrown director, Liang Shaobo, as well as its first actors, Li Beihai and Huang Zhongwen.
1910-1919 Ghost stories
Brodsky makes another film in Hong Kong before returning to the US. Having quit the Asia Film Company, he teams up with local film buff Li Minwei (Li Beihai's brother) to form one-hit-wonder company Huamei (meaning 'Chinese-American') and produce the first Hong Kong-backed fictional film, the 15-minute Zhuang Zhi Tests His Wife. It has a slightly more complicated story than Stealing The Roast Duck and is groundbreaking in a second way: the leading character, played by Li Beihai, who also directs the piece, puts his wife's love to the test by pretending he is dead and appearing as a ghost. Not only is this the first in a long line of Hong Kong ghost stories, it is also the first local film to incorporate special effects. In keeping with the ancient tradition of men playing female roles on stage, the wife is played by Li Minwei, who also wrote the script.
