Yesterday once more: Hong Kong-China coproductions and the myth of mainlandization

Abstract

Since Ackbar Abbas theorized Hong Kong as a space of cultural 'disappearance' in the mid-1990s, critics have debated the extent to which local cultural forms have continued to recede, particularly as a corollary of Hong Kong's increasing subjection to mainlandization. For several critics, the region's cinema has already vanished from view, only to re-emerge in a brand new, distinctly Sinicized guise -that of 'post-Hong Kong cinema,' a mode of predominantly coproduced filmmaking that effaces traditional Hong Kong aesthetics and routines of film practice. So thoroughly has Hong Kong cinema been subsumed to China that its once 'unique' and 'singular' identity is no longer discernible. The shackles of PRC censorship now stifle free expression; Hong Kong's classic genres have become obsolete; and the PRC's vogue for 'main melody' films and the dapian ('big film') has straitened Hong Kong cinema's range of storytelling options. Today, critics contend, Hong Kong filmmakers are severely constrained by Mainland bureaucracy and the exigencies of the China market. This article seeks to challenge these assumptions, contesting a set of apparent truisms concerning Mainland censorship, Hong Kong-China coproductions, and the dissipation or disappearance of Hong Kong's local cinema and identity. The theory of mainlandization, I submit, denies the durability of Hong Kong's standardized craft practices; its aesthetic traditions; and the facile ingenuity of its filmmakers.

‘They don’t need us’: Affective precarity and critique in transnational media work from the margins of ‘Cultural China’

“…Media globalization, however, raises questions about how the increasing transnationalization of production impacts on creative labour. With particular reference to the rise of the PRC as producer of popular culture, the implications of the influx of media labour into the Mainland Chinese media industry for Taiwan and Hong Kong are well-documented, whether in terms of producers' navigation of geopolitics ideologically (Lai 2020;Yang 2018;Zhao 2016;Liew 2012;Chan 2020); stylistic negotiations in media aesthetics (Chu 2015;Bettinson 2020); or mobilities of labour and cultural know-how in collaborative media work with China (Keane et al 2018;Keane 2016). While being a shared witness -alongside Taiwan and Hong Kong -to the rapid rise of China in recent years, Singaporean producers' experiences also add to the literature in two ways.…”

Materializing the digital landscape: the cinema–ecology complex and Chinese fantasy media

“…Many notable coproduced films contain fantasy elements, such as Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and CJ7 (2008) as well as Jackie Chan's The Myth (2005). In this process, Hong Kong filmmakers tend to secularize the supernatural in order to pass censorship restrictions (Bettinson 2020). Besides feature film productions, online video platforms such as Tencent Video, Youku and iQiyi have started to generate original content such as online films, television serials and reality shows due to the rapid growth of online video-streaming platforms (Wang and Lobato 2019; Zhao 2018).…”

Propagandist or objective observer? Independent documentaries in/on Hong Kong's recent social movements

“…In 2003, the signing of the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with mainland China provided an economic lifeline to Hong Kong filmmakers by facilitating Hong Kong-mainland co-productions, granting easier access to the mainland market in return for accommodating the Beijing censors and other requirements. The wave of Hong Kong-mainland blockbusters that followed and the persistently low output of "local" films led to a widespread perception of the "mainlandization" and even "death" of Hong Kong cinema (Bettinson, 2020). Despite this, Hong Kong independent cinema developed steadily, marked by the establishment of organizations such as YEC (in 1997) and Visible Record (in 2004), with the latter focusing on the promotion and production of documentary filmmaking in particular.…”