Hong Kong cinema is not dead, as recent Chinese box office successes show

Mainland China has, in recent years, been playing down Hong Kong’s distinct qualities as an international financial and cultural hub. Officials have long sought to integrate the city into what they proclaim to be a bigger and better national whole. The State Council’s extolling of Shenzhen’s potential to become a “top cosmopolis” and a “global pacesetter” by the mid-21st century is one more example of this long-running campaign.

The same mantra seemed to have worked in mainland cinema, as ever more extravagant domestic blockbusters soared to success. Hong Kong film­makers, once seen as supporters, if not saviours, of a fledgling movie industry, were becoming marginalised, and considered a spent force in a market flush with human and financial resources.

The success of Wu Jing’s Rambo-aping Wolf Warrior 2 (2017; with box-office takings of 5.7 billion yuan/HK$6.26 billion) and Frant Gwo’s sci-fi epic The Wandering Earth (2019; 4.4 billion yuan) seemed to show how mainland film­makers had turned the tables on their haughty southern counterparts. In the face of this massive cinematic rise, Hong Kong directors seemed destined to become a historical footnote.

That narrative has been blown to smither­eens. The Chinese box office charts for the past two months are dominated by Hong Kong produc­tions, or films featuring a predominantly Hong Kong crew.

With box-office takings of 1.4 billion yuan, the most successful Chinese-language action film in the mainland this summer was The White Storm 2: Drug Lords , a Hong Kong-set thriller with a Hong Kong cast (led by Louis Koo Tin-lok and Andy Lau Tak-wah) and directed by Herman Yau Lai-to (The Untold Story [1993], The Leakers [2018]).

Koo is also at the forefront of Line Walker 2 , a crime thriller marketed as the sequel to the 2016 film that itself was an adaptation of a TVB series. Released on August 5, the film has already raked in 640 million yuan for its producers (among them Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studio, Koo’s One Cool Film and the main­land outfit Er Dong Pictures Group). Also starring Nick Cheung Ka-fai and Francis Ng Chun-yu, Line Walker 2 is directed by veteran television screenwriter Jazz Boon and produced by Andrew Lau Wai-keung (the Infernal Affairs trilogy).

Lau is also the producer of Tony Chan Kwok-fai’s The Bravest, a film based on a deadly inferno in a Dalian petroleum plant in 2010. An unambiguous piece celebrating the sacrifices made by firefighters during that disaster, The Bravest boasts all the suspense, pyrotechnics and action choreo­graphy Lau has showcased in films such as Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010), The Guillotines (2012) and Founding of an Army (2017). It has brought in 1.5 billion yuan so far – and counting.

There’s more of Lau to come next month, when he lets fly The Chinese Pilot. The real-life story of the heroics of Liu Chuanjian, who steered a malfunctioning passenger jet to a safe landing in Chengdu last year, the film features a largely main­land cast (with Zhang Hanyu in the lead) and is aimed squarely at capitalising on the patriotic sentiments permeating the National Day holidays.

There are many reasons for Hong Kong filmmakers’ return. The dearth of mainland prod­uctions, thanks to a more stringent censorship regime in the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic, on October 1, has given Hong Kong films a clear run in cine­plexes. There have been only two signi­ficant mainland releases this summer, the animation Nezha (with takings of 4.2 billion yuan) and Deng Chao’s mawkish family drama Looking Up (868 million yuan).

There’s also support for Hong Kong cinema among a new generation of main­land film-goers who crave old-school dynamism on screen.

Perhaps Hong Kong’s movie industry is destined to be more than just a footnote.