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[1]
In this paper, all names of directors are spelt based
on their Cantonese pronunciation, because those spellings
are already in use in English-language or bilingual
publications. Movie titles are provided in both pinyin, and
English translation. This paper
explores the final consolidation of Hong Kong's film
industry in the 1930s, over thirty years after cinema was
introduced to the colony, and twenty years after the first
local film was made. A widely held view about Hong Kong's
pre-war cinema is expressed in an essay by Hong Kong film
writer Stephen Teo, who claims: "from the sources available,
we know that a quite advanced film industry had developed by
the 1930s as it recovered from the crippling effects of a
general strike which began in June 1925 and lasted until
October 1926 (the film industry took until 1929 to resume
production of films)."[2] [2]
Stephen Teo, "Tracing the electric shadow: a brief history
of the early Hong Kong cinema," in Early images of Hong
Kong and China (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1995),
46. While literature
on these pioneering and conflict-ridden years remains
scarce, such a view, also shared by Yu
Mo-wan,[3]
the territory's most prolific anecdotist on the local
cinema, tends to look for continuity in the chain of events,
and is based on an evolutionary model of historical progress
- that is, once introduced, film should take root in the
local material context of Hong Kong and follow a path of
progress, whether by quantity of output or by degree of
sophistication in its industrial organization. But these
assumptions tend to isolate entrepreneurial attempts, thus
privileging production output, and ignore the broader
context of popular culture and the influence of colonial
administrators and cultural elites. The period 1925-1929, of
riots and their aftermath, may have provided a handy
explanation for the distinct break from 1927 to 1930 when
not one single film was made locally. But this discourse
fails to explain why, after the first local film Chuang
Tzu tests his wife (Zhuang Zi shi qi, Hong Kong
1913, immediately released in Los Angeles, USA), it took
eleven long years for the next film The calamity of money
(Jing qian nie, 1924) to be made and to appear in
the local market.[4]
The model of progress, too, is blind to the variations
within the viewing public, which was highly receptive to
foreign films until the 1930s, and yet did not seem to
provide a strong enough cultural desire or market incentive
for local production to mature despite a majority Chinese
population.[5] [3]
See Yu Mo-wan, Eighty years of Hong Kong cinema
[Xianggang dianying bashi nian] (Hong Kong:
Regional Council, 1994), section on the 1920s; also vol.1 of
Yu Mo-wan, Conversations on Hong Kong film
history[Xianggang dianying shi hua] (Hong
Kong: Sub-culture, 1996). [4]
Hong Kong Film Archive, Hong Kong filmography, vol.1,
1913-1941 (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1997),
3-4. [5]Hong
Kong administration report 1934 (Hong Kong Government),
Chapter III, 4. According to figures quoted, the local
population, totaling 944,492 persons, was composed of 20,908
non-Chinese (2.21%) and 923,584 Chinese (97.79%). The
proportion of Chinese had been rising slowly: from 96% in
1911 to 97.63% in 1921. See also: S.G. Davis, Hong Kong:
in its geographical setting (London: Collins, 1949),
96. This paper
examines in detail one portion of Hong Kong film history
(the 1930s), by tracing the changes in public discourse
related to the cinema. The city of Hong Kong, which had
initially been seen positively by Chinese activists as their
nation's outlet to the West and gateway into progress and
modernity, soon acquired the far more ominous reputation as
a cultural "desert" and a "slave" of colonial
powers.[6]
Embodied in this transition is a switch of emphasis among
China's progressive intellectuals from the pursuit of
cultural Enlightenment via Westernization to a fiercely
anti-colonial patriotic nationalism, largely after the May
Fourth protests. It is precisely Hong Kong's fall from
grace, I shall argue, that coincided with, and to some
extent shaped, the emergence of the colony's film
industry. [6]Choi
Po-king, "From 'slave education' and 'cultural desert' to
the rise of local culture: the development of Hong Kong
culture and the changes of the revolution in China"
[Cong 'nu hua jiaoyu' yu 'wen hua shamo' dao bentu
wenhua de taitou: Xianggang wenhua de fazhan yu Zhongguo
jindai geming de zhuanzhe]; Education
bulletin 18, no.2, 1990 (Hong Kong: School of Education,
Chinese University of Hong Kong): 153-64. The dozens of
films made in the early years of the decade (roughly between
1933 and 1935) can be examined as nodal points of a
changing, complex social, cultural and textual network that
moves in history.[7]
I share Toby Miller's view that cutting through individual
cultural texts are different diachronic and synchronic
discourses - that is, each film is a nexus of histories,
social, factual or fictional.[8]
This essay, therefore, challenges the pre-supposition that
everything of importance in the development of cinema
necessarily originates from the institutional center of film
production, giving priority to the filmmakers. My concern is
beyond mere aesthetic and institutional history, nor would I
confine myself to reception studies that perpetuate accounts
of cinema as an ideological apparatus or examine a specific
film's enunciative power. My essay raises questions about
the intricate relations between the cinema and other domains
of everyday life. And I would do so by invoking the notion
of the public sphere, sharing Miriam Hansen's definition of
this as a "critical concept that is itself a category of
historical transformation."[9]
Cinema then is far more than a mere agency or a collection
of representational practices: it constitutes a unique
public sphere of its own, "defined by particular relations
of representation and reception."[10]
It is the human subject, through various social practices,
which is the crucial component of this distinct sphere. But
that is not all. I would want to look at how, in 1930s Hong
Kong, the film arena constituted an unprecedented public
domain of leisure and entertainment - where the unstable
Chinese population of Hong Kong congregated to re-define who
they were, and to decide what kinds of loyalty they
endorsed. [7]
See Hong Kong filmography, volume I. [8]
Toby Miller, "39 steps to the ´borders of the
possible': Alfred Hitchcock, amateur observer and the new
cultural history," in Richard Allen and S. Ishii Gonzales
(eds), Alfred Hitchcock: centenary essays (London:
BFI, 1999), 318-320. [9]Miriam
Hansen, Babel and Babylon: spectatorship in American
silent film (Cambridge &London: Harvard University
Press, 1991), 7. [10]
Hansen, 7. The term "public
sphere" loosely refers to the multifarious social arenas
where people come together every day as a public to
purposefully, seriously or casually negotiate their
interests and identities. The unique circumstances in early
20th century Hong Kong included the interaction
between Chinese elites (both cultural and economic), British
authorities, and the rest of Hong Kong's population in the
public domain, and specifically the way these parties
participated in the consumption of entertainment/leisure
activities, including cinema, and the production of
discourses about the social utility of recreation. Unpacking
the myth of the 1930s as the "golden age" of leisure and
pleasure, two forces were displayed in tension: first, the
British colonial government's effort to achieve effective
government, and second, the local Chinese population's
effort to meet the obligation of being both legitimate
colonial subjects and at the same time loyal Chinese
patriots. The people of the colony were thus simultaneously
interpellated as docile subjects of Empire and "responsible"
citizens of the modern Chinese nation. British authorities,
Chinese capitalists, and local intellectuals developed a
complex, multi-layered, and tension-ridden network of ideal
models of "appropriate" conduct. For colonial rulers, the
ideal conduct of the population was defined as a
de-politicized compliance with the demands of social order.
For local capitalists, appropriate behavior was defined as a
hedonistic interest in leisure and consumption. For local
cultural elites (especially writers whose voice was widely
heard through local Chinese-language newspapers), there was
the urgent need to articulate the problems of how to survive
and conduct oneself properly in the new urban space. In
these written debates, the negotiated paradigms often
demonstrated unresolved conflicts between the desire to be
modern (Western) and the anxiety about breaking traditional
(Chinese) moral norms. According to Chinese patriots, the
people ought to sacrifice their personal interests for the
sake of the (Chinese) nation. In this context, the cinema
functioned as a technology of power whereby different social
groups struggled to control the way ordinary viewers would
define their moral commitments, social identities, and
everyday practices. Audiences were expected to negotiate a
contradictory set of political and cultural imperatives,
(re-)producing in the process a complicated culture plagued
by inextricable tensions which it will be my task to
unravel. In brief, this
essay will discuss how the film arena - a relatively fluid
space in the beginning as well as a new conjuncture of group
interests, power politics, social imperatives and invented
tradition - was gradually turned into a space for
surveillance by the rulers/elites, and an exploitable market
for the Chinese capitalist. This discussion will
subsequently address the formation of collective values and
identities - which is not only a question of textual and
inter-textual practices, but also how the drama of everyday
public life induces a voluntary response to the call for
proper citizenship. The first sign of
the consolidation of the film industry in this decade was
the birth of the Hong Kong Film Company and Lianhua Film
Production and Printing Company in 1930, both of which were
founded by experienced film entrepreneurs such as Li Beihai,
Li Minwei and Luo Mingyou, who already had their share of
interest in Shanghai and other mainland cities, together
with top local business magnates and community notable such
as Sir Robert Ho Tung and Hysan Lee. The latter provided the
real estate (in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island) necessary
for Lianhua to establish its film studio, which it did in
1931. Many smaller film companies and minor studios sprouted
in the decade to come. In 1934, Overseas Lianhua published
detailed plans to develop a new studio on the Kowloon side
of Hong Kong to concentrate on sound film production. The
board members were all prominent figures within the local
Chinese community, such as: Ng Pak-to, owner of Central
Theatre; Chan Chu, owner of Astor Theatre; well-known
merchant Aw Boon-haw, manufacturer of the Tiger Balm
medicinal ointment; Fung Yiu-wing, Deputy Chief of the
famous Fung Keung Rubber Manufacturing Co.; Tam Wun-tong,
General Manager of Luen Tai Insurance Company; and Dr. R.H.
Kotewall, lawyer, non-official Justice of Peace, and Member
of the Legislative Council. The plan claimed a total area of
over 300,000 square feet, and a successful collection of
initial capital of $HK500,000 by July
1934.[11]
In the same year, Lianhua also founded the colony's second
film magazine, disseminating patriotic national sentiments
as much as promoting film literacy and Lianhua's ideals in
filmmaking. [11]
Industrial & commercial press, 25 July 1934,
III-3. Perhaps
conveniently for an historian of this decade, milestones and
stages of development that spanned over thirty years of
American and European cinema history were compressed into
one single decade in the colony's belated film culture boom:
the transition from silent to part-sound and sound film,
from black-and-white to part-colour, union organisation
within the industry, the boom in movie theatre building, the
development of film magazines and film pages in local
newspapers, censorship problems and the involvement of the
industry in politics and various forms of community or
social pressure. Up to 1929, there
had been only ten feature films ever produced in the
territory, six of which were released in
1925.[12]
Production then escalated, to an average of four films each
year before 1934, to fifteen in the year 1934 alone,
forty-four in 1936, and nearly double that in 1937. There
were a total of four hundred and thirty-eight films made
locally in the entire decade (1930-39), of which four
hundred and four were feature films and thirty-four were
documentaries.[13]
The 1930s had the highest yield of documentary films ever in
the history of local commercial filmmaking. They were mainly
filmic records of festivities, prominent commercial and
sports activities, major celebrations such as the
25th anniversary of King George V's coronation,
anti-Japanese propaganda featuring Chinese armies at war,
and public gatherings of grass-root associations and
community groups.[14] [12]
Hong Kong filmography, 3-12. [13]
These figures are based on newspaper research, and may
differ slightly from those presented in the Hong Kong
Filmography, vol. 1. [14]
Yu Mo-wan, "A historical note on the development of news
documentary films in Hong Kong " [Xianggang xinwen jilu
dianying fa zhang shi hua], Changes in Hong Kong
society through cinema (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1988),
96-7. While romance and
folklore were common subject matter or the source of
creative inspiration, a number of unique genres uncommon in
the West gradually settled as the norms of the 1930s:
didactic films full of explicit moral admonition, patriotic
films (especially, after 1933, addressing the local
audience's ethnic-national origins), and sword-play films
(with their predecessors in sword-play literature and
Chinese opera traditions). Of greater interest to
investigators of this moment of filmmaking was the almost
unnoticeable "growth" in the horror/fantasy genre - from one
in 1934 (out of fifteen films made that year) to sixteen in
1939 (out of one hundred and twenty-five films) - which
nonetheless drew the attention of the cultural elite who
lobbied against them in the name of anti-superstition.
Mainland writers, who claimed that Hong Kong's cinema was
backward, often based their claim on this 12.8% of films
from the year 1939.[15] [15]Cheng
Jihua, History of the development of Chinese cinema
[Zhongguo dianying fazhanshi], part II
(Beijing: China Film Publishing, 1981), 87. The one genre
that topped the list of the 1930s was undoubtedly the song
film. These were films made more for the display of
Cantonese songs than for dramatic plot, and their publicity
material often featured the titles of the individual songs
and the artists who performed them. Needless to say, many of
the actors of these films were not originally movie stars
but popular artists from the Cantonese song arena. With
individual songs and artists singled out, these song films
were turned into handy publicity vehicles for the records to
be made immediately afterwards. This phenomenon indicates
three important moves in the entertainment arena of the
time. The first is the local record-producing business,
flourishing since its consolidation in the 1920s, and the
commercial linkage between local filmmaking and the record
industry.[16]
Second is the final convergence of the multifarious modes
and diverse traditions of Cantonese folk music into a new
form, which coincided with the consolidation of a new group
of leisure facilities for their public display: these were
the daily broadcasting of Cantonese songs in the Chinese
radio segments, the rise of herbal tea-houses that featured
a radio delivering "free" Cantonese songs for customers, and
the evening Cantonese song forums in Chinese restaurants
which had started to flourish since the
1920s.[17]
The third strand is the "reformed Cantonese opera" movement
in the 1930s - often also described as the modernization of
Cantonese opera and billed as "new opera" [xin
ju] in publicity literature - by which some Western
instruments, especially the violin, were introduced to
modernize the sound, and contemporary subject matters
adapted to expand the repertoire.[18]
The connection between Cantonese opera and cinema was made
explicit by Chan Fei-nung, the late artist who started out
in Cantonese opera in the 1920s. He commented that "after
1925, in face of the novel, ever-changing motion pictures,
and the audience's outcry to see something new, many within
the Cantonese opera business rushed to do ´new
opera'."[19]
Cinema and the "new opera" cross-bred and it was not
uncommon to have both a movie and (new) opera version
bearing the same title: two instances are The idiot's
wedding night (Sha zai dongfang, movie made 1933, new
opera 1934) and The twin sisters (Zi mei hua,
both movie and new opera 1934). [16]
Lu Jin, The old stories of the Cantonese song forum
[Yue qu ge tan hua cang sang] (Hong Kong:
Joint Publishing, 1994), 7-23. [17]
Radio-Television Hong Kong, "RTHK history," in Sixty
years of radio broadcasting in Hong Kong (Hong Kong:
1988), 16. [18]
Chan Fei-nung [Chen Feinong], "The different kinds
of changes in Cantonese Opera in recent years" [Jin
nian yueju de ge zhong biandong]; in Sixty years
of Cantonese opera [Yueju liushi nian]
(Hong Kong: Chan Fei-nung, 1984), 57-62. [19]Chan
Fei-nung, 57. In the midst of
this development of new genres, however, were some less
noticeable attempts to appropriate the relatively fluid
space of filmmaking for more humanitarian concerns. 1934 was
one brief year of democratic space. The fifteen local films
released that year were shared roughly equally among a
number of companies, most of them quite young: two films
were produced by Guolian Film Company (Grand Motion Picture
Company), one by Quanqiu Film Company, one by Nanyue Film
Company, one by Asia Company [Yazhou Gongsi] and
three by Huayi Film Company, whose master-mind, Sek
Chung-shan, was the Chairman of the Catholic Youth
Association and an experienced school teacher who sought to
use this experience to advantage in
movies.[20]
The voice of cultural leadership, too, found its
representation in two almost brand new companies: Overseas
Lianhua, founded 1934, made three films in Hong Kong; and
Zhonghua Sound & Silent Movies Production Company,
founded in Hong Kong in 1932 by the key personnel of
Lianhua, contributed four films.[21]
Tianyi, founded in Shanghai in 1924 and with a Hong Kong
branch started in 1935, was run by the Shaw family,
ambitious Shanghai entrepreneurs and Lianhua's keen
competitors. [20]Industrial
& commercial press, 4 July 1934, III-3: see "cinema
news" in the "local news" section. [21]Chinese
Film Archive, Records of the Hong Kong cinema
1913-1997 (Zhejiang Photographic Publications:1998),
14. Judging from
content summaries, two out of the sixteen films made in 1934
drew upon folk legends, and thirteen were in contemporary
settings. The latter, with the exception of one with
patriotic appeal, mostly concerned themselves with issues of
survival - moral or material - in contemporary urban space.
Although it is impossible to be conclusive about the exact
content (because no prints survive from that period), movie
ads, movie news and film reviews in newspapers almost
uniformly represented the films to their audience with a
social-ecological slant. Such a dialogue with contemporary
everyday life, no matter how immature in form or how generic
in locality and cultural specificity, indicated an attempt
to turn cinema into a unique forum for the "local" and the
"contemporary" - articulations that would be almost
impossible in other arenas of cultural production. The
Cantonese song and opera arena, for example, despite its
modernization of facilities and form, was very much obsessed
with Cantonese ethnic traditions (Hong Kong practically
being part of the Guangdong culture in Southern China) -
perhaps because it was the only possible way to preserve a
regional identity (of Cantonese-ness) that had been silenced
by other dominant "Chinese" as well as British-Hong Kong
discourses. Interestingly,
the fear of going too far with modern ways found echoes
every day in reports in local newspapers, where moral
problems were represented both in the publicity news of
movies and in reports of local news events. These two forms
- both reliant to a large extent on family melodrama and
romantic tragedy - were juxtaposed without clear
demarcation. This was particularly obvious in the the
newspaper Wah kiu yat po, in its "column pages",
published regularly on pages 2 & 3 of Section IV. Page
IV-2 included regular contributions of creative literary
work, mainly in old Chinese and occasionally in contemporary
Chinese. Page IV-3, carrying a daily editorial commentary on
events of a cultural nature, was shared by news of recent
creative work in Cantonese songs, theatre/film reviews,
fashionable topics, recent moves of songstresses and movie
stars, and free writing on daily life in general. These
"column pages" provided discussions on topics such as how to
handle romantic relations, what it meant for women to expose
their bodies, how to be a well-respected young person,
whether men and women should share the same swimming pool at
the same time and so on. It is important to note that movie
advertisements in Chinese-language newspapers in the 1930s
were not just visual representation of the movies via blurbs
and graphics: they were usually wordy and expository, and
often played the role of review. Inter-textual referencing
between the news reports and movie publicity deserves
further research. It must be added, though, that compared to
the more rhetorical nature of the newspaper reports, the
movie publicity often shrewdly embraced commercial selling
points while narrativising contemporary anxiety with a dose
of "healthy" messages. As already
mentioned, 1934 briefly afforded more room for humanitarian
concern and visualization of the contemporary setting, free
from domination by any single entrepreneur. But in 1935,
immediately after Tianyi's founding of its Hong Kong branch,
this space diminished. Huayi, the most enthusiastic group of
young filmmakers and most sensitive to the "contemporary",
disappeared altogether in 1935 after a three-film output in
its one-year life span. Sek Yau-yu, its key director and
actor, and student of Lianhua's training project, still
appeared in one film in each of 1936 and 1939, but did not
resume filmmaking until 1940 when he directed five films in
two years for Grandview and Shehui [Society] Film
Company. Overseas Lianhua's activities came to a halt in
1935.[22]
After the entrance of Tianyi-Hong Kong (from Shanghai) and
Grandview (from San Francisco), the local cinemas were
suddenly flooded with Cantonese songs and opera on screen.
Twenty-three out of thirty-two films made locally that year
were song films. Ten out of these twenty-three films were
made by Tianyi - which was also the total number of films
that the company made with their Hong Kong resources that
year. That year, Tianyi also beat its new competitor
Grandview who made a total of only seven films. These song
films used both contemporary and period settings, in the
first year of full-sound film production in Hong Kong. In
other words, the boom of Cantonese singing in the local
cinema, on the one hand, coincided with and was fueled by
the boom of Cantonese songs and opera that had gathered
force since the 1920s, and, on the other hand, was a result
of eager entrepreneurs, both from within the territory and
also from outside, who could not wait to capitalize on the
desires of a ready but unsaturated market. The take-off of
the two magnate-newcomers, Tianyi and Grandview, signified
the domination of commercial, market-driven interests.
"Cantonese-ness" was exploited, and the Cantonese sound
commodified. These companies tapped into the local people's
need to acquire a more distinct, defined and unified
"ethnic" identity. This identity is not only used to
differentiate the Hong Kong-Chinese from the non-Chinese
Hong Kong subjects, but also from the non-Hong Kong Chinese
subjects. As a matter of fact, Hong Kong cinema in the 1930s
was basically Cantonese: only thirteen films were made in
Mandarin, around 1938 to 1940. [22]According
to late director Kwan Man-ching (Guan Wenqing), the company
was still-born. See A history of the silver screen,
quoted in Early images of Hong Kong and China (Hong
Kong: Urban Council, 1995), 134. Cantonese films
that featured special song numbers continued to be popular
throughout the rest of the 1930s. There was only one film
with a concern for contemporary issues in 1935, and the
number went up again in 1936 to above ten (out of forty-nine
films made). Films with a patriotic theme promoting the idea
of national defence gradually increased towards the end of
the decade. It may be
tempting to assume that the people of Hong Kong were
overjoyed to witness the final blossoming of their local
filmmaking, or to hear their vernacular dialect finally
uttered in public spectacles. The critic might expect that
the local people would applaud the efforts of young
filmmakers like Sek Chung-shan or Sek Yau-yu's to articulate
everyday grievances on their behalf. The reality was rather
different. As the scanty film writings and movie ads of the
time indicate, the key differentiation at that time was not
whether a film was made locally or in China (mainly
Shanghai). In fact, only on rare occasions would one find
references to the "local" or "Hong Kong" in the movie ads of
Wah kiu yat po, but when a film was made in Shanghai,
it would be clearly specified as a "national film"
[guo pian].[23]
The Industrial & commercial daily press even went
so far as to lump both Hong Kong and Shanghai films together
into the same category of guo pian. In both
newspapers, productions from Hong Kong, the mainland or any
other place where they were produced and performed by
Chinese, would be included within the term guo
pian. [23]Wah
kiu was founded 5 June 1925, one of the two key
Chinese-language dailies in the first half of the 1930s. The
other was Industrial & commercial daily press
(Kung sheung yat po), founded 15 November 1930 by
business magnate and prominent Chinese entrepreneur Sir
Robert Ho Tung. Both newspapers targeted local business and
were anti-Communist. See Lee Siu-nam Lee, "The Chinese and
Western newspaper business in Hong Kong" [Xianggang de
zhong xi bao ye], in Wang Gengwu (ed.), Hong Kong
history: new perspectives, vol. 2 (Hong Kong: Joint
Publishing, 1997), 513-5. The key
distinction was not local versus mainland, but Cantonese
versus Mandarin. The first Cantonese sound and part-sound
films were indeed made locally: The idiot's wedding
night (Sha zai dongfang, 1933, Zhonghua Sound and
Silent Movies Production Company), and Conscience
(Liang xing, 1933, Zhonghua). But the first Cantonese
sound films that really touched a nerve with the Hong Kong
Cantonese audience were produced outside Hong Kong. The
first were The white golden dragon (Bai jin lon,
1933, Tianyi-Shanghai), and The romantic tides of the
singing couple (Ge lu qing chao, 1933, Grandview,
San Francisco), both featuring plentiful Cantonese songs
sung by popular stars in the Cantonese song arena. White
golden dragon was released in Hong Kong movie theatres
in 1933, and Romantic tides on 10 January 1934, both
repeated in different theatres until late in 1934. A third
crowd-pleaser, The romantic history of the song stage
(Ge tai yan shi, 1934, Tianyi-Shanghai) opened in May
1934 at Central Theatre and stayed for a few months in other
theatres. In the following year, another Shanghai
competitor, Star (Mingxing) Film Company, learning from
Tianyi, also sent in its first Cantonese song-film, The
unofficial history of the red boat [Hong chuan
wai shi] to test the Hong Kong
market.[24] [24]
OuYongxiang, "The so-called ´Hong Kong movies'," in
Film tribune (Dianying luntan, meaning "film
forum") 2, no.2, March 1948 (Guangzhou). The rise of the
local cinema was discussed in the Chinese-language dailies.
The Industrial & commercial daily press, for
example, published an essay titled "Overseas Lianhua busy
with sound film preparation" in the local news section which
opened with this congratulatory statement: [25]
Industrial & commercial daily press, 25 July
1934, III-3. The essay
emphasises the mission of promoting local culture: however,
although it noted the blossoming of local filmmaking in Hong
Kong, the rhetoric in general included Hong Kong as one arm
of mainland Chinese filmmaking, making Hong Kong films one
kind of guo pian. Another contribution to the
discourse of the "rise of the local cinema" was a film
review (in the "drama talk" section) in the column pages of
Wah kiu yat po on the film Return from the
battleground (Zhandi guilai, Guolian Film
Company, 1934). Interestingly, the essay opened with similar
wording to that in Industrial and commercial press,
comparing recent Hong Kong filmmaking to "young bamboos
sprouting after the rain in spring." Reflecting on the few
worthy films that came out that year, the writer then
described Return as demonstrating "strong
consciousness," which was what people in times of turmoil
needed. In conclusion, the film was congratulated for "not
displaying a single line of romantic banality or the empty
shouts of an angry young person," thus affirming implicitly
the paradigm of a worthy local film.[26] [26]
Fu Meng, "Return from the battleground" [Zhandi
guilai], "Drama talk", Wah kiu, 6 February
1934, IV-3. One
characteristic I have noted during my research requires more
in-depth investigation, but may be of interest in the
context of this essay. A number of imported films from
Shanghai, such as Struggle (Zhengzha, 1933)
and One female star (Yige numingxing, 1934),
both produced by Tianyi-Shanghai, and The loss of
love (Shilian, 1933, Star Film Company), were all
billed as "full Cantonese dialogue."[27]
However, all of the main actors in these films were not
native speakers of Cantonese, nor did they have a record of
residence in the Cantonese-speaking region, with the
exception of Zhang Zhiyun, the female lead of The loss of
love. One may compare these films to those produced by
Tianyi-Hong Kong in which all main actors were local
Cantonese-speaking people. The white gold dragon and
Romantic history of the song stage, though produced
in Shanghai, actually featured Hong Kong's most prominent
Cantonese opera stars. A famous and well received
Tianyi-Shanghai production, The little actress
[Xiao nuling], was made in 1932 for the
mainland audience with the then 15-year-old Yuan Meiyun as
the lead. The film was not released in Hong Kong until 1934,
when it was billed as a "Cantonese sound film" in its
publicity statement.[28]
One possible explanation would be that these films were made
in Mandarin, then dubbed into Cantonese for Hong Kong
release. However, an essay released by Tianyi-Shanghai in
1934 (for public relations purpose judging from its writing
style) stated that the company once struggled with the
possibility of dubbing or, due to the shortage of capital,
separate sound recording during shooting, but resolved later
to do only the best or nothing, and therefore insisted on
using synchronized sound so as to guarantee high sound
quality. As a result, it took Tianyi one year to gather the
required capital for the purchase of the proper equipment
and technical personnel from the United
States.[29]
No matter what the truth of this, one may safely assume that
it was not uncommon to prepare a Cantonese version of a film
for the Cantonese audience in Hong Kong, and very likely in
Southeast Asia as well. [27]
For example, movie ads in Wah kiu, 2 April II-1
(Struggle); 8 June, I-2 (Loss of love); 22
June, I-2 (Struggle); 26 June, II-4 (A female
star). [28]
Industrial & commercial, 20 July 1934, III-3
(local news). [29]
Chinese Film Archive, Chinese silent films
[Zhongguo wusheng dianying] (Beijing:
China Film Publications, 1996), 54-55. For original essay,
see Tianyi, "Tianyi Company's ten-year experience"
[Tianyi gongsi shi nian jingli shi]; in
Chinese film yearbook 1934 [Zhongguo dianying
nianjian] (China Educational Film
Society). The role of
Chinese economic elites in shaping the Hong Kong cinema, and
their interaction with British authorities, can be
understood in terms of two interlocking discourses, which
were in tension with one another. The first may be termed
the discourse of social hygiene, which assumes a top-down
responsibility on the part of both colonial administrators
and local cultural elites to uphold the spiritual and moral
welfare of the ordinary person. The cinema was here defined
as integral to a broader apparatus of training in
citizenship, whether as loyal British subject or as Chinese
patriot. A second type of rhetoric, however, emphasized
pleasure and leisure rather than ethical cultivation,
interpellating the ordinary subject as a consumer with a
presumed interest in using market goods to enhance her/his
free time. The tension and interaction of these two
discourses determined the development of Hong Kong cinema as
a political technology of government. On the question
of moral welfare, as well as providing the impetus for
technical and organizational innovation, Chinese
intellectuals and some capitalists paternalistically took it
upon themselves to enhance the ethical and political
standards of the population. They saw the cinema as a
technology of the self that could encourage viewers to
reform their own subjectivities in line with the demands of
the paternalistic elites. In 1934, Lianhua founded the
colony's second film magazine, Lianhua monthly, its
mission being the dissemination of patriotic sentiments as
much as the promotion of film literacy and of Lianhua's
distinct identity as a company. Echoing similar political
trends in the mainland, the self-image of many film workers
and organizations in the colony also adopted a nationalist
rhetoric. Incited by the Overseas Chinese Educational
Association, the first of a series of "clean up cinema"
campaigns raged in 1935 - even though it was basically a
discursive affair with no concrete
action.[30]
The commercial sector, however, turned crisis into
opportunity. Under the headline "Response to the ´clean
up cinema' campaign", a short piece of "film news" used
censorship to attract an audience to a certain Hollywood
film: "... the outcry [in the States] did not manage
to remove all the films that address the needs of the
audience, so another film will come, dauntlessly
..."[31]
More disciplinary measures were established from within the
film industry in 1938 when the Film Association imposed
limits on the advertisement of films. In the same year, the
Overseas Chinese Film Association Branch held a contingency
meeting to suppress fantasy and ghost films as part of a
broader anti-superstition movement, immediately followed by
the second "clean up cinema" campaign initiated by Luo
Mingyou, Li Minwei and Bishop Hall of the local Anglican
Church.[32]
Chinese and British elites often collaborated in producing
this discourse of cleanliness, which praised the 1939
screening of the mainland-made film The Empress
dowager [Xi tai hou] as "scrubbing clean
the degenerating attitudes of the southern Chinese cinema."
That same year, the mainland-made ghost film The woman
ghost in her bridal chamber [Nu gui
dongfang] was charged by the Hong Kong Government
with including materials originally concealed from
censorship authorities. [33]
It should be pointed out that the bulk of these disciplinary
activities did not so much originate from the Hong
Kong-British government as from groups closely affiliated
with the mainland intellectual or artistic communities. Hong
Kong-British government censorship of the period was
basically directed towards Hollywood films with indecent
material or politically sensitive mainland films, especially
those portraying the civil war between the Communist and
Nationalist Parties.[34] [30]
Early images of Hong Kong cinema (Hong Kong: Urban
Council, 1995), 127. [31]
Industrial & commercial, 8 January
1935. [32]
Early images, 135. [33]New
world movie news 14, 13 January 1940. [34]
Eight imported films were banned and 505,227 feet of film
cut in 1933, and in 1934 an equal volume had been reached by
the middle of the year. See Industrial &
commercial, 24 July 1934, III-3. Whatever the
actual motives, these disciplinary activities were conducted
in the name of preserving the people's moral well-being,
which was translated into the mainlanders' critique of the
Hong Kong Chinese as gradually abdicating their nationalist
identity and Chinese cultural heritage and taking up the
self-destructive role of colonial "slaves" (see
introduction). The discursive switch from viewing Hong Kong
as a door to the West (and so to China's modernisation) to
seeing the people of Hong Kong as slaves to colonialism
found its way into the "clean-up cinema" campaigns: the
impetus behind these campaigns was the image of the
destructiveness of colonialism on the moral fibre of China.
Similar rhetoric also informed the prevalent discourse of
Hong Kong cinema of the 1930s from a Sino-centric point of
view: that it was merely an "appendix" of China - something
you must have but that is of no practical use. The reasoning
behind this discourse runs something like this: "Hong Kong
cinema" was the synonym for "extremely bad movies," infested
with trivial concerns that bowed to Western ways; but
progressive minds in the Shanghai film industry, especially
the Lianhua Company, re-injected a conscience into Hong Kong
films.[35] [35]
Ou Yongxiang. The local cinema
also became a forum for further patriotic discourses around
1936, in response to the Japanese invasion. Films were seen
by intellectuals as vehicles to cultivate an attitude of
nationalistic responsibility among audiences: they were
meant to interpellate viewers as subjects of the Chinese
nation. In 1936, local film stars appeared in two major
Cantonese opera theatres to help raise funds for combat
planes, while others volunteered to perform as dance
hostesses at a fund-raising ball.[36]
In 1938, the film industry organized voluntary charity
events to aid the war effort, and theatre owners announced
their readiness to earmark profits from some shows for war
expenses.[37]
By 1939, numerous mainland filmmakers and producers were
already passing through Hong Kong or taking refuge there in
order to carry on their patriotic activities away from
Japanese or Kuomingtang (Guomindang, Nationalist
Party) repression.[38]
Thus the cinema became part of a larger cultural and
political campaign to produce patriotic viewers presumably
interested in the fate of China. [36]
Early images, 134. [37]
Chinese mail, 27 February 1938. [38]
Cheng Jihua, 75-94. The exodus of Shanghai film personnel
began roughly in 1937 with Cai Chusheng (director) and Situ
Weimin (script-writer) and Xia Yan. In fact, Hong
Kong cinema of the 1930s often became a site for political
battles which had originated in the mainland. Paramount
among them was the struggle over the linguistic unification
of Chinese culture around the "national language" (the
Mandarin dialect). The use of Cantonese, a major impetus for
the boom of the local film industry and a key selling point
against Hollywood or mainland films, was also a frequent
source of tension. As mentioned earlier on, thirteen films
were released in Mandarin from 1938 to 1940, which meant the
local cinema of the 1930s was basically Cantonese. In 1936,
however, four first-run movie theatres in Guangzhou, where
Cantonese was the vernacular language, refused to show
Cantonese films for ambiguous business reasons. The
following year, the Chinese government announced a
nation-wide ban on Cantonese films, but the measure was
successfully repealed at Beijing before its actual
implementation.[39]
Within Hong Kong itself, Mandarin films were shown at cut
prices to snatch Cantonese film customers: although the
motivations for this particular move may have been partly
commercial, the promotion of Mandarin was often also
motivated by a patriotic concern with educating the
audience.[40] [39]
Early images, 134-5. [40]
Early images, 134. Patriotism was
also a motive for publicity campaigns against Hollywood
films. In July 1934, for example, the Astor Theatre called
for the support of guo pian and guo huo
(national merchandise - that is, made in mainland China or
Hong Kong) to visiting viewers in the name of a "guo
huo movement", packaging itself as "the main center of
guo pian on the Kowloon Peninsula" with
first-run screening rights from Lianhua and Tianyi. The
theatre, mainly a venue for Cantonese "new opera"
performances before that month, announced that they had
"recently renewed their contact with major local
manufacturers," and would offer guo huo items free to
thank those who supported guo pian. Participating
sponsors included a cosmetic company (On Wah), a food
company (Po Shan), and the Elephant Tower brand of hair
spray and fixer.[41] [41]
See movie ads in Wah kiu, 17 July 1934, II-1, and
local/community news items in Industrial &
commercial, 17 July 1934, III-3. This vision of
the cinema as a pedagogic medium was echoed, albeit with a
different agenda, by the British authorities, who were
largely interested in preventing the colony's predominantly
Chinese population from engaging in any political activities
of a patriotic or anti-capitalist nature. Although colonial
rulers were mainly concerned with de-politicizing the people
rather than encouraging any patriotic feeling, they often
employed a moral rhetoric strangely similar to that of
Chinese patriots. Both groups struggled to define and impose
a standard of morality on the population at large. The
Chinese activists' nationalistic emphasis on social hygiene
and moral education therefore found its counterpart in the
official policy discourses of the Hong Kong-British
government. The latter's activities arose particularly in
response to the massive outburst of popular protest during
the anti-British General Strike of 1925-6, but its practice
of crisis management in the name of reconciliatory politics
continued into the 1930s.[42]
One move in 1929 was to increase the number of Chinese
economic notables appointed Unofficial Members of the
Legislative and Executive Council from two to three. This
was meant to defuse anti-colonial sentiment by incorporating
economic elites into the colonial government, albeit in
posts that lacked effective decision-making
power. [42]
Yuen Bong-kin (Yuan Bangjian), A brief history of Hong
Kong [Xianggang shi lue], (Hong Kong,
1993), 157. The British
authorities' reform of education began with the
establishment of the Chinese Language Department at the
University of Hong Kong, and was continued under the 1929
committee appointed to check Kuomingtang influences and
textbooks in vernacular schools.[43]In
1930, a committee was appointed to recommend "more practical
knowledge of the Chinese written language, more up-to-date
books" and "less teaching of the Classics and Chinese
History" for Anglo-Chinese schools. In 1931, the Overseas
Chinese Education Committee (formed in 1929) set up new
regulations including measures to encourage the teaching of
Mandarin and efforts to exclude Communist influence from
schools. In 1933, Mandarin was added to the curriculum of
the Government Vernacular Middle School and the Vernacular
Normal School for Women.[44]Many
other major educational reforms resulted from the famous
Barney Report (1935) by the Queen's specially appointed
commissioner of education. This report recommended more
effective teaching of English, and also gave serious
consideration as to how to further instruction in the
Chinese language, how much teaching of Chinese Classics was
actually needed, and whether the medium of instruction for
Chinese classes should be Cantonese or
Mandarin.[45]
The concern in education reform was far deeper than
pacification via the sanction of the Chinese language: the
British colonial rulers were very much aware of how the
Confucian paradigm of social relations and code of conduct
was a much more powerful way to effective government than
was coercion. [43]
Anthony Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong pre-1841 to
1941: fact & opinion (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 1990), 350-7, 401-3. [44]
Sweeting, 352-4. [45]
Sweeting, 355-6. The rhetoric of
"health," "cleanliness" and "moral rectitude" was also
explicit in the movement to outlaw prostitution, a movement
which began in 1932 and reached its final phase by the
mid-1930s. The emphasis on personal hygiene and physical
education also materialized into two increasingly important
core subjects in the primary and secondary school curricula
as well as in teachers' training regulations. Further
measures included the enforcement of health codes and
sanitary regulations for schools, the introduction of a
system of medical examination for all school children, and a
territory-wide Health Campaign in 1934 that involved
representatives of the medical, educational, charity and
religious organizations. The British government was clearly
penetrating and controlling more and more aspects of the
population's daily life and behavior, illustrating
Foucault's statement that "the care of individual life is
becoming at this moment a duty for the [modern]
state."[46] For the purposes
of this paper, it is the colonial government's intervention
in the area of film and entertainment that is the most
significant aspect of this campaign for "social insurance"
through physical and moral education. Film censorship was
introduced in 1934, although the guiding principles and
rationale were not publicly announced.[47] Less obviously,
film was connected to newspapers. Some writers in the column
pages of newspapers, who often hid their identity behind
pseudonyms, were particularly interested in a-political
issues concerning the domain of everyday life and conduct.
This group of "minor" cultural practitioners were not
official vehicles for the colonial government although they
often endorsed notions of "proper conduct". And though they
tended to put Hong Kong matters in the larger "Chinese"
context, they also sought to focus on existential issues of
modern Hong Kong in its day-to-day experience of
Westernization, to which the Chinese elite was rather
indifferent. They were the in-between class, the voice of
the local people, populist at times, and yet opinion
leaders. The inconsistencies in subject matter and
contradictions in views in their writings demonstrated their
constant negotiation among different loyalties and
standpoints, as can be detected in at least two
areas. [46]
Luther Martin, Huck Gutman & Patrick H. Hutton (eds),
Technologies of the self: a seminar with Michel
Foucault (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,
1988), 147. [47]
"Censorship of cinematograph films and posters, and use of
cinematograph theatres," Part VII, Revision of "Places of
Public Entertainment Regulation" (Ordinance no. 22 of 1919),
no. 587 (3 August 1934), Hong Kong Government Gazette, v.
80 (Hong Kong Government Printer, 1934),
608-9. The first area
was in film reviews, especially on Cantonese and local
films. Their engagement with films showed they were highly
conscious of Hong Kong's inferior position and its
contemptible cultural aroma in the eyes of the mainlanders
(seen as the "proper" Chinese culture). Their writing often
called for, or at least implied, an ideal of a worthwhile
local cinema that engaged manifestly with contemporary life
- what I would call "reflectionist realism," and with
questions of human existence - what I would call "humanist
realism." This in a way was in congruence with the views of
those critics of Hong Kong cinema "from the
center."[48] [48]
See three different reviews of The romantic tide of the
singing couple in Wah kiu, January
1934. The other area,
which contrasted with the first, was the bulk of writings in
the column pages that dealt with everyday life. To open up
this under-explored subject, let us consider "Waves of the
fragrant sea" [Xianghai tao sheng], the title for
one of the two column pages of Wah kiu yat po.
Towards the middle of 1934, this page, full of recent
Cantonese songs and lyrics with commentaries, gradually
opened up to include short essays commenting on aspects of
everyday life. Judging from the content and rhetoric, many
of these essays were not written as authoritative
statements, but either as humor, or as personal reflections
on experience, in an effort to understand what "modern"
meant. The most fascinating example was a serial discussion
on "swimming" that spread across the entire summer. This
group of essays, all by the same author and intended to be
humorous, commented on everything about swimming: types of
artificial swimming facilities in Hong Kong, swimming in the
pool versus bathing in the sea, China-made swimming-suits
and the shakiness of patriotism, the progressive nature of
women's swim-suits, how men should take opportunities of
beach-going, the material, colors and styles of women's
swimming-suits and so on. The page was not lacking in
serious discussions, under titles such as "My view on
separating men and women in swimming" (27 July) and "On the
proposal to divide up the swimming zone according to the
genders"(11 July). An essay in old Chinese, titled "An
eclectic discussion on nudity," expressed an apparently
neutral but actually sympathetic view on nudity in relation
to the government prohibition of a German film because of
its explicit images of nudity (3 July).[49]
Other genres of writing, such as dialogue, personal witness,
prose and expository writing, were adopted wherever
appropriate to expound on the topics of day-to-day
relations: "Dialogue: husband and wife" (22 June), "Thoughts
on romantic relationships" (22 June), "About women" (20
June), "A modern dialogue" (on a woman's being someone's
mistress, June 8), "Scenes in the office" (8 June), "To stop
early marriage" (4 August), "A scene in the classroom" (1
August), "Marriage and money" (2 July), "Theatre" (on urban
life as a stage for drama, 8 June), "The socialising flower"
(8 June), "Modern movement: will it prevent worldwide
depression?" (6 February), "The entrapment of modern youth"
(2 February), "Exploring ´marriage as a tomb'" (4
August) and so on. These titles recall both the themes of
the best known movies (guo pian) of the time, and
also local news items. The latter were treated in such a way
as to highlight narrative intricacies and "dramatic"
twist-and-turns; and these items often sat side by side
with, and without clear demarcation from, movie
advertisements written in the form of news reports. One
representative example was a piece on Sek Yau-yu's Bitter
sea [Ku hai], which started off with the
plot line of the film presented in a news report style: only
if the reader read carefully until the very end of the brief
item would he or she find the one line that said, "Visit the
Central Theatre: opens soon." Surrounding this piece were
other local news items concerning family tragedies, killings
and so on.[50] [49]
The description of the German film in Chinese matches
closely Natur und Liebe (Nature and love,
Chinese translation Back to nature), made in the late
1920s, Ufa Kulturfilm, which "combines with its scenes of
sex life monumental visions of mankind's birth and rise."
See Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947), 151-2. In
1934, the first "Back to nature" group, advocating nudity,
was formed in Hong Kong as a response to a larger movement
in Europe. [50]
See advertisement for Bitter sea, Wah kiu, 1
May 1934, II-2. As a matter of
fact, the "local news" page in the first half of the decade
was no more than real-life melodrama, community news and
announcements on movies, theatre, and entertainment. There
were short pieces on amendments to government regulations
and ordinances and so on, but no in-depth coverage of local
events, or serious engagement with local issues. This
contrasts with government annual reports and colonial
papers, where one finds much going on in the areas of urban
construction and the attempt to "enlighten" the entire
population. The obsession with personal life drama/trauma
echoes the care for self-management in everyday life
articulated in the column pages and in movies, a world of
either modernized Chinese/Cantonese traditions or didactic
melodrama. Local news in this sense equaled moral guidance
or was itself a moral discourse. In this way, the
intermediate cultural elite, through their unique literary
public sphere, provided a forum mediating the dominant
instrumental rationality for the reading public. Film texts
(especially those with a contemporary setting), popular
writing and the discursive construction of real-life
melodrama in local news formed a complex paradigm that
suggested not only models for conduct, but a relatively
fluid space of internal dialogue within the grass-root
sector, and of social-moral engagement that allowed
ambiguities and negotiations. The early 1930s
was a brief period of peace when the anti-colonial riots
which had been occurring since the mid-20s finally calmed
down. The relative decline of nationalistic zeal during the
early 1930s and the flourishing of popular culture led to an
obsession with "Cantonese traditions" in the climate of
pleasure in this "golden age" of leisure facilities (the
movie theatres, evening Cantonese song forums,
entertainment/recreation centers in department stores,
herbal tea-houses, and the dawn of Chinese radio programs
already described). The women freed from prostitution soon
became a crucial additional source of labor for the
broadening Cantonese song forum arena in need of their
talents. The new public spaces formed the major sites of
pleasure-seeking for weekend leisure, socialization among
businessmen, night life, and a brief break from work during
the day. While the colonial government emphasized moral
education and civic training as effective methods of
internal pacification, it also sanctioned a hedonistic
attitude that would divert attention from political
activism. Sporting activities, day trips to the countryside
and holiday tours boomed, and cinema grew alongside all of
these. One of the numerous legislative decisions in
1933-1934, for example, endorsed the amendment of the
ordinances on places of public entertainment, which detailed
the measures to ensure safety in theatres and
cinemas.[51] [51]
"Special fire precautions relating to cinematograph
operation and cinematograph films throughout the colony,"
Part II, Revision of "Places of Public Entertainment
Regulation" (Ordinance no. 22 of 1919), no. 599 (3 August
1934), Hong Kong government gazette, v. 80 (Hong Kong
Government Printer, 1934), 599-604. The number of
theatres grew from eight in 1920 to twelve in 1930 and
thirty-five by 1935.[52]
There was no real movie circuit system yet, but there were
occasional simultaneous screenings in two theatres. Of all
the theatres in operation, only a few were regular shared
venues with Cantonese "new opera." According to a local
writer in the 1940s, the first proper movie theatre with
both basic facilities and luxurious decor was Queen's
Theatre, run by British merchants, opened in
1924.[53]
On 31 March 1931, the gigantic King's Theatre opened across
the street from Queen's, introducing the fashion in
luxurious movie palaces. King's, located in Central,
re-constructed in 1963 and finally demolished in the
mid-1980s, was the first local theatre to have
air-conditioning in summer and winter. According to a 1931
report, the theatre was run by China Entertainment and
Realty Company Limited. It was seven-storeys high, and was
complimented for its soft flooring, luxurious lighting
fixtures, fine sound facilities and the latest "anti-fire"
projector. The theatre was devoted to first-run movies from
Paramount and Fox.[54]
Next in luxury came Central Theatre (founded by Chinese
money on the same road as King's), a Gothic design with a
dome, a restaurant and the territory's first escalator
inside a theatre.[55]
The next "palace" was Ping On Theatre on the Kowloon
Peninsula. This theatre advertised continuously for over a
month in the movie advertisements pages before its grand
opening, highlighting particularly its modern interior and
superior facilities. The ad carried a frontal sketch of the
theatre, with a lengthy text that read: "construction has
been going on for two years, spending a million dollars.
Construction fully follows sound theories, with most modern
interior and exterior decors, glamorous and noble. ...
Equipped with the most famous RCA new sound system, clear
and accurate deliverance of sound. ... Seating capacity
1,800. Fully air conditioned."[56]
On 1 February 1934, Ping On opened with Warner Brothers'
Gold diggers of 1933 (USA 1933). Many other theatres
opened in the first half of the 1930s, and all were very
conscious of their comfort and facilities in comparison with
the giant picture palaces. For example, next to a short news
item that proclaimed the air-conditioned comfort at the
King's, the Astor presented a more defensive announcement:
"[our screening] was very well attended despite the
hot weather. We would therefore reward our audience with
cosmetic items. But most importantly, our theatre is well
ventilated on four sides, therefore viewers do not feel the
heat sitting inside. ..."[57] [52]
Cheng Po-hung (ed.), A century of Hong Kong roads and
streets (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2000), 92-3; and
Cheung Po-hung & Dung Bo-ming (eds.), A century of
Kowloon roads and streets (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing,
2000), 92. [53]
Chan Sai-fung (Chen Shifeng), "The development of movie
theatres in the past forty years" [Sishinian lai
dianyingyuan yange], in Lai Chun-wai (Li Jinwei) (ed.),
Centenary history of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Nam Chung,
1948), 119-20. [54]
Theatre life [Yingxi shenghuo] 1,
no.33, 1931; anthologized in Chinese Film Archive's
Chinese silent cinema, 212-3. See also Chan Sai-fung,
120. [55]
Cheng Po-hung, 93. [56]
See movie ad in Wah kiu, 1 January 1934,
I-2. [57]
Industrial
& commercial, 20 July 1934 III-3. The discussion of
the cinema as a public site of leisure time should not be
confined to purpose-built movie theatres. Although the
previous practice of exhibition in open spaces and tents
often temporarily erected in the evening had disappeared
altogether by the 1930s, movies still shared the same
facilities with Cantonese opera performance, a situation
that had prevailed since the early years of film exhibition.
And though there is not sufficient information on how much
film viewing took place in facilities sponsored by the
Christian church in the earlier part of the century, the
limited evidence available from the 1930s shows that the
YMCA, for example, publicly screened documentary
films.[58]
A more popular site of film exhibition were the recreation
complexes that occupied the top floors of the colony's major
department stores. Here movie screenings stood side by side
with other compound facilities such as artificial gardens,
dance-halls and cafes. Within a few steps, pleasure-seekers
could move from Cantonese opera to Cantonese song forums,
the visual contemplation of famous scenic spots, or stories
of great loves and battles from around the world on the
movie screen; or from the aesthetic appreciation of
calligraphy and paintings in the exhibition hall to
vaudeville and magic shows, or exhibitions of "exotic" human
beings and animals ranging from dwarfs, giants, twins,
persons with deformed features or tigers, peacocks,
crocodiles and so on.[59] [58]
Industrial & Commercial, 4 July 1934, III-3
("community news"). [59]
Chan Sai-fung (Chen Shifeng), "History of the rise and
fall of the entertainment grounds" [You le chang xing ti
shi], in Centenary history of Hong Kong,
122. The so-called
"full-time" movie theatres were not absolutely confined to
commercial screening purposes. It was not uncommon to find
in the "local and community news" pages instances of
secondary school graduation ceremonies, or other kinds of
private occasions held in movie palaces.[60]
Movie theatres, with their luxurious architecture and
ornamentation, became a fashionable site of communal
activities, a new popular version of city or community hall.
Evidently, the practice of screening films had also entered
the general repertoire of leisure activities and communal
celebrations. Thus, the pleasure experience propagated in
these circumstances was not domestic private pleasure, but
pleasure played out, shared and appropriated in public
spaces. [60]
Non-cinema usage of theatres is documented in Industrial
& commercial, 29 July 1934, III-3; 5 January 1935,
III-4; 5 January 1935, III-3; 18 July 1934,
III-3. The discourse of
pleasure and leisure often emphasized pathos and sensational
gratification, often to excess. Sexual material and the
display of women's bodies were highlighted in writings in
daily newspapers and publicity materials. On other
occasions, foreign films were promoted as a pleasurable
window to the West, often emphasizing the grandeur of
landscape and famous landmarks in the West. For
example, a publicity pamphlet describes a film shot in the
North Pole as providing a detailed description of life and
vegetation there, with intense exotic
interest.[61]
The discourse of pleasure did not, however, proceed in
complete isolation from patriotic and moralistic discourses.
Writings on mainland films emphasised the intensity of
romantic tragedy and/or patriotic sentiment. It will be
relevant at this point to discuss The twin sisters
(Zimei hua, 1933, directed by Zheng Zhengqiu),
described in Hong Kong film writing as one of the most
popular films from Shanghai in 1934. [61]
Central theatre weekly, June 1930. The film, made by
Star Film Company in Shanghai, was reported to have screened
in six major movie theatres in three
months,[62]
though this may have been just publicity tactics. Movie ads
suggest it was not uncommon for a movie - whether from
Hollywood, UK or mainland China - to screen in different
theatres at different times: the movie circuit system was
not yet developed, but, as the average duration of a film's
stay in one theatre was around three to four days, it would
not have been economical to have a film coming a long way to
be shown in just one theatre. Such advertising rhetoric also
contributed to the construction of a film's popularity
discursively around its success on the mainland: produced at
Shanghai's Star Film Company by progressive and leftist
artists associated with the Communist Party, the film was
known for its critique of the capitalist erosion of the
human conscience. [62]
Industrial & commercial, 20 June 1934, III-3 and
15 July 1934, III-3. However, in
publicity materials, the story of the film, which follows
the hardships of twin sisters - one a modern, Westernized
city type, and the other a more traditional village girl -
was emphasized more for its star Butterfly Wu (aka. Hu Die,
who played both sisters in the film), the quality of its
full soundtrack (Mandarin dialogue), its achievement as a
guo pian, and its popularity in China. A number of
advertisements for the film went to great lengths to
document its screening itinerary on the mainland: "60 days
continuously at Xinguang Theatre in Shanghai," then 28 days
at Central Theatre, Shanghai, "meeting a total of over
250,000 viewers"; and "screened in two theatres
simultaneously in Guangzhou, meeting over 100,000 viewers,"
and that "these were true evidences and valid
guarantee."[63]
As well as this, there were always vague descriptions such
as "very moving story" and "best of guo pian" without
further qualification. In common with popular writings,
local news stories, and story films appealing to the crowd,
The twin sisters had a convoluted and sentimental
story line, focusing on the sad lives of young suffering
women. This type of critically-denigrated, but popular,
fiction was known as the "mandarin duck and butterfly"
genre. On the local news pages in the Chinese-language
newspapers of any day in the first half of the 1930s, one
can find a handful of reports of family drama, suicide,
marriage dispute and romance tragedies, all written in
dramatic style, and sometimes even more convoluted than the
plot-lines of The twin sisters. In more than a few
instances, these real life incidents were treated like case
studies, perhaps with sub-headings to clarify the convoluted
events, and in other cases, were built around documentation
of a couple's dialogue in court.[64] [63]
See movie ad covering top half of the front page of Wah
kiu yat po, 20 May 1934, I-1. [64]
An example is the long report of a court case that involved
Leung Choi-chun and her two sisters, a dispute that grew
from their occupation in the dance-halls. See Wah
kiu, 17 July, IV-1. See also report of a court case
about a husband hurting his wife with an axe, Wah
kiu, 3 February, II-4. As implied
earlier, Star Film Company was eager to take a share in the
booming market of Hong Kong, but successes like The twin
sisters were only intermittent. It was Tianyi, later on
under the name of a local company Nanyang, which had the
biggest market share in Hong Kong. Indeed Tianyi set out to
respond to public taste, and so to embrace any cause that
would stretch their audience profile, including patriotic
sentimentalism as well as social conscience. Lianhua
remained the progressive voice, defending not only social
conscience and anti-imperial sentiment, but also so-called
Judeo-Christian and other "healthy" values in the guise of
"traditional" Chinese virtues. The crisscrossing of these
different strands of texts requires a separate
study. People
congregating in the public sphere of the cinema were
constantly confronted with the choice between Western or
Chinese. The emerging public sphere of the cinema in the
1930s contained many strands of tension: between civility
and disobedience; between the Hong Kong-British
administration's need to cultivate docility in the aftermath
of the strike and the intellectuals' on-going efforts to
cultivate nationalism among local Chinese; between the
imperatives of hedonistic consumerism and self-less civic
responsibility; and between the colonial state and local
society. These tensions were not usually played out in any
form of coercion or external violence (as had often been the
case in previous decades), but were expressed in the swings
of mood and alternating moments of the local people's civic
participation and British government demands, of patriotic
activism, of social reforms and of hedonistic pursuits in
leisure activities such as cinema. In brief, the
"care of the self" and "pleasure/leisure" were not isolated
discourses: they often went hand in hand, thus camouflaging
the explicit political implications of each. Most discussions
of the public sphere emphasise its concrete locations:
regarding Hong Kong in the 1930s, I would argue for the
necessity to look at the composition of the actual
population. The transient quality of this in the 1930s is
best illustrated by the 1931 census, which reported that in
the urban district, only 6% of the population had been in
the colony for more than thirty years, about 45% for twenty
years, and roughly a third claimed to have been born in the
colony, while nearly half recorded that they had been born
in the Delta region of the Si Kiang
River.[65]
In general, immigration to Hong Kong had exceeded emigration
for most of the time since 1900, with an exception in 1930,
the time of "worldwide depression in trade" and the
instability of the Hong Kong dollar.[66]
It is not surprising, then, that the transient nature of the
residence of many "Hong Kong persons" and the fluctuations
of emigration and immigration intermittently disrupted the
consolidation of any sense of a "local people": it was
difficult to conceive of the people as a collective, which
would participate in the different phases of acculturation
and socialisation through a history of shared experience.
The question is not just that of discontinuity in the growth
rate or the composition of the population, but also the
effects of transience on life-style, degree of social
commitment and general mentality. The first half of the
1930s, as already described, was a unique period of relative
peace and stability, where the local residents were not only
free from the threats of social and political turmoil, but
also able to internalise its multifarious human resources.
It was not so much about who was born native, or how long
one had settled in the colony, but a question of who could
prove oneself Hong Kong in face of the wide-ranging choices
within the paradigm of "local-ness". Film, and particularly
film in the Cantonese language, played an important role in
this. [65]
S.G. Davis, Hong Kong: in its geographical setting
(London: Collins, 1949), 97. [66]
Davis, 99. The public sphere
that evolved in Hong Kong in the early 1930s was a sphere of
leisure bringing recreation, and of popular entertainment
bringing pleasure - via theatre, cinema, song forums, herbal
tea-houses, dancing halls, entertainment parks (gardens and
roof-top entertainment quarters of department stores) and so
on. To the colonial administration, it was a special sphere
where people's restlessness and fear of instability could be
co-opted: they could rest their mind from the emotionally
charged concerns of politics, feel assured that their
Chinese patriotic obligation would be articulated and
fulfilled, be consoled through the re-connection with their
"indigenous" (Cantonese) culture via the modernized vehicles
for Cantonese songs and operas, and be affirmed of the power
of their regional dialect, Cantonese. Within the world of
Cantonese folk music, the Hong Kong Chinese felt sheltered
from their rulers - for the songs they consumed often
implicitly criticised bad rulers, or unrestrainedly
expressed lamentation and sorrow. This new public sphere was
enabled by a number of factors: the dawn of Cantonese
broadcasting, the boom of record companies, the
modernization of Cantonese opera, the birth of sound films,
the business sector's conscious effort to support and
participate in the domain of leisure and pleasure, and
urbanization projects. The integration of film into this
paradigm was a significant contribution to this sinification
process. In brief, this
newly emerged public sphere saw its members organizing their
beliefs and experiences around clusters of concerns that
addressed both their ethnicity and their physical existence
as a Hong Kong-British subject. The docility required of
these colonial subjects depended largely upon their ability
to be comfortable with a collective identity drawn from
their ethnic origin. In the history of the transient
population of Hong Kong, this was the first moment where the
public sphere emerged and was fully sinicised/Cantonised for
the good of both the ruler and the ruled. It was the first
success of the British colonial administration in embracing
the naturalization of a local Chinese public sphere after
almost a century of anti-colonial unrest and
uprisings. From another
angle, throughout this essay, I have sought to contest four
widely circulated and often contradictory historiographic
discourses about the 1920s and 1930s. The first describes
the 1930s as the "golden age of leisure," a view held by
local cultural anecdotists who by and large remain the few
spokespersons of Hong Kong's cultural history: I
re-contextualise this "golden age" within the
commodification of the Cantonese folk traditions (including
film), as a will to survival and a yearning for momentary
peace and stability. The second is the discourse that
characterises Hong Kong people's "fall of grace" in both
decades, to become the mainland's intellectual "slaves": I
suggest that this is a part of the movement for social
hygiene, sustained by both local elites and the colonial
government, indirectly informing the reception of local
cinema, particularly among the opinion-forming
intermediate-level cultural workers who wrote for the
newspapers. The third discourse reads the blossoming of
local filmmaking in the 1930s as an unfortunate delay, due
to the famous anti-British General Strike in 1925-6,
suggesting a vacuum period, 1926-29, of futile waiting: I
have presented a more complex view that stresses, among
other things, the importance of a growing awareness of
Cantonese-ness from within as one key factor for the
consolidation of a film industry that was basically
Cantonese. The fourth discourse, an echo of the second, is a
Shanghai-centric perspective that asserts Hong Kong cinema
as peripheral, trivial and in need of constant nourishment
from its Sino-centre: this view simply ignores the
development I have described of the local film arena and the
reality of Hong Kong as a growing urban domain. In the
course
of capturing
these discourses and their impact on 1930s, I have attempted
to uncover the possible positions of the "local" persons,
and especially what kind of space was available for them to
deal with the often contradictory ways they were addressed
in the public domain. All of this has
opened up further issues, which are clearly in need of
future research. First is the consumption of Hollywood and
British films - the really dominant cinema in Hong Kong - in
the first 30 years of the 20th century in Hong
Kong; and particularly what happened to this in the 1930s
with the sinification of the public domain of leisure and
pleasure. Second is Cantonese opera's struggle to survive,
especially in the 1930s in the face of rising competition
from film. Thirdly, there is the rise and development of
modern drama (often translated as "civilized drama," or in
Chinese literally meaning "spoken drama"): here, my research
suggests that its dramatic quality resonated with that of
contemporary-setting motion pictures, and its social and
moral concerns with much popular writing. Fourthly, a
thorough discussion on the discourse surrounding "women" is
needed. Lastly, one key event in the 1930s that asserted a
long-term impact on the everyday life of the citizen was the
dawn of Cantonese-language broadcasting and the gradual
popularization of radio sets as prices reduced. What is clear
from the present research is how thoroughly film became
integrated into the sinification process, and how important
was its place in the public sphere in Hong Kong in the
1930s.
10,369 words
Abstract
| Printer
version
The film arena
in the 1930s
The Cantonese
arena
In
the past one year, the national film enterprise in
Hong Kong has been like young bamboos sprouting after
the rain in spring. Zhonghua, Huayi and so on were
founded one after another. Even Tianyi came to set up
its studio, and Lianhua, too, resumed the activities
of its Hong Kong studio, actively engaged in film
production. [25]
Cinema and the
care of the self
The discourse of
pleasure
Conclusion:
sinicisation/Cantonisation of the public sphere
