Hong Kong New Wave

The Hong Kong New Wave was a blanket term applied to a number of young, groundbreaking Hong Kong filmmakers of the late 1970s and 1980s, many trained in overseas film programs and with experience in the territory's thriving television drama scene. Among the most notable members are Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Patrick Tam, Yim Ho and Allen Fong.

The New Wave was a major factor in the creation of a cinema with a contemporary Hong Kong identity and in the Cantonese dialect of most residents - between World War II and the '70s, the industry had been led by transplanted mainland Chinese filmmakers who continued the traditions they brought with them, largely in Mandarin dialect films.

New Wavers were technically audacious compared with the mainstream Hong Kong cinema of the time. They furthered the use of location shooting and sync sound recording and explored a grittier, rougher look and feel. The vivid use, in Hong Kong film since then, of authentic locations in the bustling, cramped urban space is one of their legacies.

The New Wave filmmakers were particularly given to revisionist explorations of popular genres, like the thriller (Hui's 1979 "The Secret", Tam's 1981 "Love Massacre"), martial arts (Tsui's 1979 "The Butterfly Murders", Tam's 1980 "The Sword") and crime (Alex Cheung's 1979 "Cops and Robbers", Yim's 1980 "The Happenings"). The latter category was particularly friendly to their experiments with realism, and their tactic of wrapping social commentary in genre trappings.

But the New Wave also produced personal dramas about relationships, domesticity and family (Fong's 1981 "Father and Son", Yim's 1984 "Homecoming") and hard-hitting political comment - Hui's 1982 "Boat People" presented a brutal portrait of communist Vietnam, but was widely viewed as an allegory of Hong Kong's anxieties regarding communist China (Teo, 1997).

The New Wave helped carve out a small niche for art films in Hong Kong's populist cinema, although most were absorbed into the mainstream to one extent or another (Bordwell, 2000).

Major Figures

* Tsui Hark (徐克)
* Ann Hui (許鞍華)
* Yim Ho (嚴浩)
* Patrick Tam (譚家明)
* Allen Fong (方育平)
* Dennis Yu (余允抗)
* Kirk Wong (黃志強)
* Terry Tong (唐基明)
* Lau Shing Hon (劉成漢)
* Alex Cheung (章國明)
* Peter Yung (翁維全)
* Clifford Choi (蔡繼光)
* John Woo
* Wong Kar-wai

References

* Bordwell, David. "Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment". Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-674-00214-8

* Teo, Stephen. "Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions". London: British Film Institute, 1997. ISBN 0-85170-514-6

* Cheuk, Pak Tong. "Hong Kong New Wave Cinema (1978–2000)". Bristol: Intellect, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84150-148-2