From: Po Gwan, troop breaker (¯}­x) Subject: [TAKE OVER] HKSAR Film Top 10 Box Office (July 29, 1998) Date: 05 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <6qaeec$8dp$1@crab.rutgers.edu> Sender: dbhoj@crab.rutgers.edu Organization: Tin Ha Society Newsgroups: alt.asian-movies,soc.culture.hongkong.entertainment ... 21. From New York Times, August 1, 1998 Hong Kong Film: Exit the Dragon? By NEIL STRAUSS HONG KONG -- It's opening night for "Young and Dangerous: The Prequel," a follow-up to one of the most successful Hong Kong movies of 1997, but the South China Theater in the busy Mong Kok neighborhood of Kowloon is practically empty. As the lights dim, there are 35 people seated in a theater built for more than 1,000. "It's not too bad," says Ryan Law, a walking encyclopedia of Hong Kong film who runs an Internet site called the Hong Kong Movie Database, as he surveys the audience. "I've seen worse." Before the movie starts, a preview of Disney's "Mulan" flashes across the screen. "This is terrible," complains Tim Youngs, who runs his own World Wide Web site about Hong Kong film. "I've never known this theater to screen a Hollywood film before." "Young and Dangerous: The Prequel" is the sixth installment in a series of youth-gone-wild gangster films to be released in the last two years. This movie, like most of the others in the series, was made in about a month, and the audience at the opening can tell. They don't laugh; they don't gasp. The dominant noise in the theater is the ringing of cell phones and the beeping of pagers. Other than repeated stabs at the Communist Government -- "You're as rude as the Communists," says a police receptionist -- there's virtually no substance to this formulaic movie. After they leave the theater, Mr. Law and and Mr. Youngs walk across the street to a shopping center called Chic. Off the escalator is a tiny white storefront. Its walls are lined with illegal VCD's -- movies recorded onto compact disks -- in plastic wrappers. Inside the store and waiting outside to get in, there are more people than were at "Young and Dangerous: The Prequel." VCD's of "Young and Dangerous: The Prequel," along with dozens of other new as well as not-yet-released films, are on sale here for $2.50 in American dollars, less than half the price of a movie ticket. "If you don't like the quality," says the guy running the stall, "you can bring them back and exchange them for something else." Within this all-too-common anecdote -- and within the space of two hours spent watching just about any Hong Kong movie these days -- can be found nearly everything that's killing the film industry here. Until just a few years ago, Hong Kong films were among the most exciting things happening in cinema, and Hong Kong was second only to Hollywood in exporting movies. Talented directors were casting charismatic stars in movies that were by turns stylishly violent, breathtakingly magical, beautifully tender or balletically humorous. And those films were not just selling out theaters in Asia but were being featured in festivals in the United States and, in the case of Jackie Chan action-comedies, actually beating out Hollywood blockbusters at the American box office. Slowly, Hong Kong-style art direction, action choreography and even plot elements began to appear in American films, most blatantly in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992. Today, nearly every action film released by Hollywood is influenced by Hong Kong. In fact, they're often directed by a Hong Kong star gone to Hollywood, like John Woo ("Broken Arrow," "Face/Off"). But as Hollywood discovered Hong Kong film, events leading up to fiascos like the premiere of "Young and Dangerous: The Prequel" were being set in motion. Some blame it on Steven Spielberg. In 1993, "Jurassic Park" became the first foreign film to come in No. 1 at the box office in Hong Kong since before the days of Bruce Lee. After that, audiences here began to flock to Hollywood films, especially ones filled with special effects, and ignore ones made in Hong Kong, which were becoming schlocky imitation cops-and-gangsters flicks. Making matters worse was the incursion of real gangsters -- organized crime, or the so-called triads -- into the Hong Kong movie business. Film executives were murdered; stars were forced to accept roles in triad- backed productions. Then came the pirate-VCD market, which has robbed the Hong Kong industry of an estimated 40 percent of its business, forcing theater and video rental chains to close. As if things weren't bad enough, the Asian economic downturn hit, slashing movie budgets and destroying crucial ancillary markets and sources of investment in places like South Korea and Taiwan. Instead of sticking around to help clean up the mess, many of Hong Kong's biggest stars fled for a better shore. Actors like Chow Yun-Fat ("Replacement Killers") have pledged not to return until they see better scripts. At last count, there were at least 17 Hong Kong actors and directors working on projects in Hollywood -- from Jet Li in "Lethal Weapon 4" to Mr. Woo directing Tom Cruise in "Mission Impossible 2" to Michelle Yeoh landing a starring role in "Charlie's Angels." And where Hong Kong directors once remade Hollywood hits, now Hollywood is remaking Hong Kong films. Jim Carrey, for example, just agreed to remake the Hong Kong comedy "God of Cookery," with the Hong Kong star Stephen Chiau as director. "They are like paintings left in the sun," Bey Logan, a producer and screenwriter and the author of "Hong Kong Action Movies," says of Hong Kong films. "They keep getting paler and paler." It has been a year since the British handed control of Hong Kong over to China, and although this transition doesn't seem to have intimidated directors politically, it has led many of them to gear their films toward mainland China in the belief that the last hope for Hong Kong cinema is to find an audience in China. Currently, China lets in only 10 foreign films a year -- and it still considers Hong Kong a foreign country. "Except during World War II, when the film industry came to a total stop during the Japanese invasion, it's never been as bad as it is now," says Paul Fonoroff, a film critic for The South China Morning Post who has reviewed more than 700 Hong Kong films since 1988. "I think the film industry is over as we know it." The filmmakers left in Hong Kong are no less pessimistic. Sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel in the Wanchai neighborhood, Gordon Chan, a top Hong Kong director who has made movies with Jet Li ("Fist of Legend") and Jackie Chan ("Thunderbolt"), has all the time in the world, a fact that's very depressing to a director who once cranked out three films a year. Gordon Chan's most recent movie, the police action drama "Beast Cops," is generally acknowledged as one of the best Hong Kong films of 1998. But that apparently isn't going to do him any good. "I just talked to the company that released it, and they said they lost money on it," says Mr. Chan, a skinny man with a thin black goatee. "They told me it wasn't my fault, I did a good film. But still it lost money. So what's happening? It's really alarming." "We're already cutting staff salary at a very quick rate," he continues. "I cut almost 75 percent of my salary. Remember the scene with the car chase between the Hummer and the bus? We're so poor that we borrowed the Hummer and we borrowed the bus, and there was no budget for any car chase and especially no budget for any car crash. So we had to use special effects to do the scene. "We finished a film at a little more than 10 million Hong Kong dollars" -- $1.3 million in American dollars -- "and still it lost. It's very disappointing, especially when everybody came to me and said, 'Wow, that was great, I saw it on pirate VCD.' That really hurts." In 1992, Hong Kong movies took in about $153 million in American dollars at the box office. Though ticket prices have practically doubled here since, annual income has dropped by more than half, to just under $72 million in 1997. As a result, average film budgets have shrunk from several million American dollars to as little as $200,000 or $300,000. Once, the announcement of a feature production starring a popular actor brought in so much money from other Asian markets that the film was profitable before a single frame had been shot. As a result, directors got lazy and shot films without scripts, and all-purpose pop stars like Andy Lau appeared in as many as 12 movies a year. Even worse, the triads became heavily involved in the industry, pressuring stars to appear in films for which they were providing the money. Actors and other film professionals who refused to cooperate were reportedly kidnapped, raped and even, in the case of two producers, killed. Now, the triads are more interested in making money from VCD sales than in film production, and the industry is looking desperately for new sources of investment now that gangster, local film studio and foreign money has dried up. Virtually anyone with money to invest -- bankers, construction workers -- can finance a film by a major director. Gordon Chan, for example, says that his next film is being paid for by the management team of a factory. In an attempt to fight this state of affairs, Mr. Chan and four other directors have formed a group called Creative Alliance. The organization is trying to find new sources of revenue so that they can regain control of their films and focus on restoring the standards of Hong Kong film and bringing audiences back into the theaters. "What we're trying to do is give alternatives," says Mr. Chan. "But to be honest, we are not very optimistic. We still think the market is going to go lower because so much less money is being invested in it. "There's no way to sustain a film industry, and there's no point in rushing to the production line with more movies that are going to be pirated. We need to wait and see what's happening and then find the solutions. The Creative Alliance is to tell everybody that in the meantime we're still alive." Back across the harbor, in Kowloon's Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood, Clarence Fok, the director of the cult-classic film "Naked Killer," sits and stares at his latest work on an Avid editing machine. On the monitor, two characters sit across from each other in a room bathed in lime green and deep purple. One fires a gun from underneath a glass table, and as shards of glass scatter in slow motion, a bullet hits the other man in the forehead. He stares at the camera for a moment, then topples over, with blood squirting thickly out of the wound. The flamboyant, denim-clad Mr. Fok watches the scene raptly and then announces proudly, "Cheap." Adam Chan, Mr. Fok's stunt choreographer, shakes his head. "I can create 10 good scenes like that," he says. "But all they have the money for now is two or three." In a time when annual film production here has been cut in half (from more than 200 films five years ago to fewer than 80), Mr. Fok is still busy. Producers like him because he comes in on budget, he gives the people what they want (sexy women and stylized gunplay), and he works fast. This year, Mr. Fok plans to crank out five films, spending two months on each and giving them titles like "A Better Tomorrow 98" and "Naked Killer 2" to capitalize on past Hong Kong successes. "I think of them like exercises," he says of the movies. "Out of these five experiments -- all are sensational with sex, seduction and violence -- I want to work toward something new. Then I want to spend some time in America and learn more about stunts, effects and camera movements so I can go into another stage of my filmmaking." His one-man plan to save the Hong Kong film business also involves searching China for a young male actor and molding him into a new martial-arts star. Mr. Fok is one of the lucky filmmakers remaining here. In this financial and artistic recession, he gets his scripts and money from one of the few people in Hong Kong film who still has access to money: Wong Jing. Mr. Jing is a populist director and producer who helped turn the work of innovative Hong Kong filmmakers like John Woo and Tsui Hark into likable and successful, albeit formulaic, movies. As his colleagues jumped ship for the cash and cachet of Hollywood, he stayed behind to become the king of Hong Kong film. Last month, "The Storm Riders," a special effects-filled film he produced, actually beat the record set by "Jurassic Park: The Lost World" for first-day ticket sales. With a budget of $10 million, it is a Hong Kong equivalent of "Titanic." The other hope for Hong Kong cinema this year is "Enter the Eagles," the debut of Shannon Lee, the daughter of Bruce. Where "The Storm Riders" is attempting to steal an audience back by imitating Hollywood special effects, "Enter the Eagles" is trying to emulate another Hollywood approach: a glitzy marketing campaign meant to turn a film into an event, the result of a new deal between Hong Kong's biggest studio, Golden Harvest, and the marketing company DBB. Though it might seem as if these companies have deep pockets, the truth is that Golden Harvest reported a $6 million dollar loss in the first half of this year and last month laid off 70 employees. Even Jackie Chan, Hong Kong's perennial action star, is suffering in Hong Kong. About to appear in the United States with Chris Tucker in "Rush Hour," he's hoping he can gain some new knowledge to help reinvigorate Hong Kong movies. At home, he is offering $130,000 to anyone who can write him a good script. Good scripts, an element lacking even in some of the best Hong Kong films, are what many feel will help restore audience faith in Hong Kong films -- especially because they cost a lot less than special effects, an arena in which Hong Kong will never really be able to compete with Hollywood. The bright side of this grim situation is that the defections to Hollywood and the shrinking budgets have created an atmosphere in which younger directors and actors have a chance to compete -- and to be creative with their art direction and camerawork. Wong Kar-Wai, the director of visually innovative, cerebral films like "Chungking Express" and the recent "Happy Together," has gained enough international prominence to keep working regularly. But beyond him, young, talented directors like Fruit Chan, Eric Kot and Wai Ka-Fai are coming into their own, making either experimental narratives or offbeat portraits of youth culture. But this burst of originality may be too late. Already, the period of Hong Kong film from the late 1980's to the early 90's has been categorized and filed away as "the golden age of Hong Kong film," as if it were the equivalent of the New Wave for France. Some say that Hong Kong films will flourish once again as soon as the economy in Asia improves and a handful of new stars and auteurs appear. But most industry insiders here are pessimistic, believing that Hong Kong will become like Taiwan or Mexico, just another third-world country from which a movie or director of note occasionally emerges. Times are hard," says Richard To, the head of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. "And the future is still very unclear. A lot depends on whether the mainland Chinese market will be more open than now to Hong Kong films. And a lot matters on whether pirate VCD's can be stopped. Otherwise, there's simply no hope." Perhaps the best evidence of this comes during an elevator conversation with the assistant of a Hong Kong director. Asked if he wants to become a director, he replies quickly, "No way." After a few seconds of silence, he shyly adds, "Are you interested in buying a digital camera while you're here? I can sell you one for very cheap." The Hong Kong film industry may be sinking, but in the last couple of years, a few movies have managed to rise above the general level of mediocrity. In New York, most of the following films -- complete with subtitles in English -- can be rented at independent video stores like Kim's or at video stores in Chinatown. Too Many Ways to Be No. 1, directed by Wai Ka-Fai. This smart black comedy explores how seemingly inconsequential decisions can have life-altering consequences. The director, using wide-angle shots and filming entire action scenes with a camera held upside-down, turns a low-budget gangster flick into a creative manifesto that has been interpreted, despite his protest, as a thinly veiled statement about Hong Kong's handover to China. Full Alert, directed by Ringo Lam. After making the Hollywood dud "Maximum Risk" with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mr. Lam at least benefited from the experience in making this movie one of the best new Hong Kong cop stories (rivaled only by Benny Chan's "Big Bullet"). In a genre in which gunning down men, women and babies is as commonplace as ordering a drink, this rare psychological thriller deals with the human conscience. The plot and characters are well-drawn, the camerawork is Mr. Lam's best and the dangerous car chase scenes were filmed without permission amid normal traffic. Fallen Angels, directed by Wong Kar-Wai. A sequel of sorts to the wonderful "Chungking Express," "Fallen Angels" revisits the themes of unrequited love, chance encounters and expired cans of pineapple. More humorous than his recent "Happy Together," this movie has a beauty that's in the details, from Christopher Doyle's mesmerizing cinematography to the scene in which the actor Takeshi Kaneshiro massages a dead pig. God of Cookery, directed by Stephen Chiau and Lik-chi Lee. A humorous, heartwarming tale about a fallen chef out to clear his name, this beautifully made film is equal parts John Woo and Benihana: all the stunts involve the preparation of food. Made in Hong Kong, directed by Fruit Chan. This may be the most representative film of a new wave of directors who are making low-budget, more realistic youth-oriented movies. Starring the eminently cool, likable and scrawny Sam Lee, "Made in Hong Kong" is a tragic love rectangle chronicling the relationships between an aspiring gangster who would be better off in school, his mentally retarded sidekick, the dying 16-year-old girl he's in love with and a high-school girl he never met who has committed suicide. Black Mask, directed by Lee Yan Gong. One of the most recent high-budget, ultra-stylized Hong Kong thrillers features Jet Li as an invincible comic-book hero. Full of explosions, electrocutions, gravity-defying kung fu, lethal compact disks and a plot with more holes than Li's bullet-riddled body, it qualifies as a classic action movie. First Love (Litter on the Breeze), directed by Eric Kot. A Wong Kar-Wai spinoff, this clever low-budget art film blurs the barrier between creator and creation as the director runs through different love-story scenarios with the viewer. Some are boring, some are beguiling, and any time the movie threatens to become too engrossing, the main character interrupts the moment by telling the crew: "I'm done talking. You can take the camera off of me." The Storm Riders, directed by Andrew Lau. In future years, this magic and swordplay epic will be seen either as the last gasp of Hong Kong film or the fresh breath that helped rekindle interest. Set in ancient China, "The Storm Riders" is pure eye candy -- full of elaborate costumes, fire-breathing dragons, colorful cinematography, creative special effects, fast-paced editing and, to top it off, a fight scene on a Buddha statue hundreds of feet tall. Comrades, Almost a Love Story, directed by Peter Chan. Boasting one of the best scripts of recent years, this simple, moving film examines the timeworn tale of country boy meets big-city woman. The twist is that the city woman refuses to accept the fact that beneath all her cosmopolitan veneer beats the heart of a country girl. A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation, directed by Andrew Chan. The producer Tsui Hark revisits his famous "Chinese Ghost Story" series in the first full-length animated Hong Kong production in over a decade. This reincarnation myth -- with beautiful ghosts, malevolent demons and a debt collector -- is over-the-top fantastic, just like many of the drawings.