F5 IES Product P a g e | 1 School: Liberal Studies (2013-2014) IES Title: Development of local film industry over past 40 years. Focus Questions: 1) What are the unique characteristics of local films that engage Hong Kong people in the over past 30 years? 2) Comparing between Hollywood and local movie, what is the acceptance level of local people towards them? 3) What reasons may lead to the declination of Hong Kong local film industry? 4) How can different stakeholders help to maintain the development of local film industry? Name: Class: Class No.: Supervising Teacher: Date of Submission: F5 IES Product P a g e | 2 Section I: Table of Contents Section I Table of contents Page 2 Section II Background Information Page 3 Section III Enquiry Method Page 4 Section IV Findings and Discussion Page 5-35 Section V Conclusion and Recommendation Page 36 Section VI: Reflection Page 37 Section VII: Bibliography Page 38 Section VIII: Appendix Page 39 F5 IES Product P a g e | 3 Section III: Background Information Film is an ingrained industry and one of the popular cultures in Hong Kong. Producing a movie is not similar to write a novel. Writing is a personal job but a movie production includes assortment of techniques and also about a group of team work. It gathers the painstaking effort of tones of people meanwhile conveys inspiration to the audience and gives them a whale of a time. In 80s, the thriving of film industry, the variety of the topic were very wide and there were electrifying and astonishing products invariably. Hong Kong Film Award Association is established in that time too. It does not only aim to herald the outstanding crews but also an opportunity to reflect for their further development. For the past 30 years, this annual award had long called the upmost grand occasion in Asia and also has witnessed the vicissitudes of the local film industry. Nevertheless, it starts decline and see no improvement in this time and age. Someone sighs and even finds this is the end of the history of Hong Kong film industry. What internality and externality cause this? Does the government policy provide ample resources to preserve local culture though film industry? F5 IES Product P a g e | 4 Section IV: Enquiry Method 1) Content analysis of movies: First the target types of movies are set. As it is impossible to watch all assortment of movies, countless movies are divided into different groups, with reference to experts’ opinion and only the classic works will be watched. Different characteristics and hint for impact and improvement are analyzed afterwards. 2) Second hand information (Books and Internet) Lots of passages related to Hong Kong film industry are collected. Then they will be put to different categories based on which focus question they are related. As a result, rich information is gotten for my study. The above methods are the easiest to achieve and the range of information is wide and objective. However, the quality may drops as there does not have relevant information concerning the forecast of the development of Hong Kong film industry. The second hand data collected also may not perfectly suit the question. It will mislead me to shift the focus on analyzing one or two particular movies. 3) Interview/Questionnaires Over ten questions related to my focus questions are set. Questionnaires will be distributed by the Internet and done by the adolescents around my age. A local movie expert and a super fan will be found and give their opinion for answering my focus questions as well as guiding my study. The data collected by the interview is deeper and can help more in analyzing the question and search for further discussion. Although interview is so effective to collect large amount of suitable first hand data, it costs lots of time and effort. Besides, interviewee may provide one-sided opinion owning to his personal or subjective stance which possibly leads to a biased discussion. Some limitations of my methods are glaringly obvious. The second hand data maybe too interpersonal while the analysis and interview or questionnaires part maybe too intrapersonal. I need to strike a balance. Besides making my own judgment opinions from others, such as the two professional interviewees would be as reference. Due to the time limit, source of data could be only found as much as possible. Nevertheless, the data source for my study will be still representative enough to support my study. Appropriate time required for different stages if the project is about: - Library, movies and internet searches 4 weeks - Questionnaires .2 weeks - Interviews 2 weeks - Data analysis and discussion 1 week - Writing-up the final report 3 weeks TOTAL . Around 12 weeks (3 months) F5 IES Product P a g e | 5 Section V: Findings and Discussion 1) What are the unique characteristics of local films that engage Hong Kong people in the over past 30 years? “The places where have ethnic Chinese will find the footprint of Hong Kong Film” It was the pioneer or representative of Chinese films and had been exposing under the spotlight for a long time. No matter on the quantity, quality, box-office income and the artistic value, our local film has done an astonishing job. A large-scale of industry was formed and it now still ranks in the second place of the global film industry, just lag behind America. What are the unique fascinations of local films that attract general public in the over past 30 years? F5 IES Product P a g e | 6 F5 IES Product P a g e | 7 Figure 1.1 From figure 1.1, local films do have a function of resonance on the screenplay. The interviewees may not think the characteristics above are in line with the local films nowadays in a large extent. However, there are some outstanding blockbusters before or even in this time and age invariably. The fact of the thriving of local film industry is undeniable. What are the unique characteristics of local films that keep engaging general public? Athena Chu (朱茵), a renowned actress, expressed her own viewpoints on local films in a RTHK programme – HKFILM100 (香港電影 100 年), “The most unique characteristics of local film is that I can watch a story in a familiar environment, culture, memories and the living style of different people. All of them are very amiable.” Indeed, in line with the survey result shown in figure 1.1, collective memories/local culture is the most significant characteristic that resonating people. Starting from 70s, local film industry is thriving in an astonishing speed and tones of remarkable pieces are published every decade. In the following, different films’ essential characteristics from different decades will be analyzed. 70s 70s is the starting point of native local film industry. “There is no Cantonese in Hong Kong movies when I was in childhood. All I can listen to is Putonghua,” said by Peter Chan (陳厼辛), a renowned local film director in a RTHK programme – HKFILM100, “The very first film that I could hear my mother language in cinema is House of 72 Tenants (七十亇家房客 ). It acted as a cornerstone of native local film industry. It was really electrifying that everything in your daily life could actually appear on the big screen.” This film frankly played a role model and be a reference for the following development of local film industry. It opened a new market of situation comedy as well as sarcasm of current malpractice. Lots of complaints towards the corruptive air of government were presented ironically. There was a dialogue complaining that government always had a low working efficiency on policy making but they collected tax payment in a flash. This is even the root of the deterioration in Hong Kong nowadays. Script writer used a relaxing tone to make fun of the serious unjust social affairs. It succeeded to attract a large market of audience. The unique characteristics of local film in 70s are defined. Movies, Games Gamblers Play (鬼馬雙星) and The Private Eyes (半斤八兩) were following the trend. A pair of bother, Michael Hui(許 冠文) and Samuel Hui (許冠傑) had started the market of reasonless humour (無厘頭文化) in local film F5 IES Product P a g e | 8 industry. At the same time, Bruce Lee (李小龍), a legend of international martial arts actor, was invited to be the main character of a Kung-Fu movie, The Big Boss (唐山Օ兄) by Hong Kong Golden Harvest Entertainment Limited. The success of his movies, Fist of Fury (精武門), Way of the Dragon (猛龍過江 ), Enter the Dragon (龍爭虎鬥 ), The Game of Death (死亡遊戲) had sprung up an atmosphere of Chinese Kung-Fu, traditional martial arts. Hong Kong people, even the whole globe, were engaged by this household custom through the gripping visual action on the big screen. It was also the first step that leading local films out of Asia, towards the whole world. Everyone enjoyed learning Kung-Fu, watching Kung-Fu movies as their entertainment. The hybrid of the above characteristics, reasonless humour and Kung-Fu, appeared later on. Jackie Chan (成龍)’s Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (蛇形刁手 ) and Drunken Master (醉拳) were the representatives. 80s In 80s, China was undergoing “Reform & Opening up” and on the other hand, the whole Hong Kong society was feeling panic and powerless about the future of transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong between British and China. A series of native films were appearing in order to express general public’s mutual emotion and ideology. Taking Long Arm of The Law (省港旗兵) as an example, it emphasized the disparity between Hong Kong and mainland on economic and social aspect.