Required: Accurate list of 2008 Hong Kong movies

[Mike Thomason]

Hey folks,

I've decided to try and backtrack through last year's Hong Kong movies, just to see if there was anything I missed worth a second glance. However, my big problem so far has been finding an accurate list of bonafide Hong Kong movies from last year!

Every list I encounter has been riddled with films made in Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore (even Thailand and Japan!) -- and this just doesn't cut the mustard with me as faithful lists of genuine Hong Kong movies. I don't mind seeing co-productions in a list, but just the wholesale inclusion of films because they're "Chinese" (or Chinese language) in lists of Hong Kong movies seems a bit beyond silly to me.

Thus, anyone care to help compile a list of genuine Hong Kong movies from the 2008 calendar year? It'll help me catch up...

Cheers,
Michael

[Mike Thomason]

For the record, this is what I've chalked up myself (on DVD) so far:

Beseiged City
CJ7 (HK-Mainland co-production)
Connected
The Forbidden Legend: Sex & Chopsticks
Forgive & Forget
Happy Funeral
L for Love, L for Lies
La Lingerie
Linger
Love is Elsewhere
Missing
My Wife is a Gambling Maestro
Playboy Cops
Rule # 1
Run Papa Run
Scare 2 Die
See You in You Tube
Sparrow
Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (HK-Mainland-Korean co-production)
The Vampire Who Admires Me
Yes, I Can See Dead People

[Brian Thibodeau]

THE VAMPIRE WHO ADMIRES ME
FORGIVE AND FORGET

[Fan]

http://hongkongfilms.mysinablog.com/ind ... Id=1494817

[Mike Thomason]

Thanks kindly Fan (and Brian!): that list is going to prove a bit of a godsend -- once I've gone through it and filtered out all the non-Hong Kong movies in there (the list is really overstretched once you start factoring in Taiwanese flick Help Me Eros, or anything from the Mainland; ie: Feng Xiaogang films).

From what I can see though...2008 might actually prove to be one of the lowest cinematic output years in the history of the region!

[Brian Thibodeau]

Still a rather good cross-section of lively regional films this year, even some surprisingly quality material on the usual non-budgets, at least based on the ones I've spun through so far. As always, even the "lesser" titles from Hong Kong pique my interest more than a lot of the material being pumped out on my own continent, so in that regard, I'll always be a bit biased . . .

[Mike Thomason]

I'm not denying that there's probably a handful of gems from last year out of HK...I'm just happy that, after almost twelve months away from the region's cinematic output, there's so very few films that were actually produced there. Makes catching up pretty easy...

Here's some amendments to the above linked list...

Titles on the list from the PRC:-

Assembly; Two Stupid Eggs; Dangerous Games; Marriage Trap; Kung Fu Hip Hop; Red Cliff; The One Man Olympics; Lost, Indulgence; Desires of the Heart; If You Are the One; Ticket; Umbrella; Useless; Set Off

Titles on the list from Taiwan: -

Kung Fu Dunk; The Most Distant Course; Help Me Eros; Cape No. 7; Miao Miao; Only the Way

...which doesn't really leave a lot of genuine titles from Hong Kong, does it?

This really reaffirms my long harboured suspicion concerning the true figure(s) of HK films produced in the region over the years, in that other Chinese language territories have long been lumped in with Hong Kong cinematic output as they were simply "Chinese" of origin -- the hyperbolic claims of the region producing in excess of three hundred films per annum in its heyday looks more like exaggerated myth-making than bonafide, and backable, facts. Maybe one hundred titles tops during the heyday* at best...but with so many additional titles from other territories squeezed into the mix, creating an artificial historical record, who will ever really know until someone sits down and does the research?

* the heyday of the Shaws/Cathay/et al -- I doubt even during the eighties that HK was pumping out much above the hundred mark.

[ryan]

Dear Mike,

The boundary between Hong Kong and mainland film has been blurred for the past few years. Films like Red Cliff has become hard to identify. You may wish to note that Red Cliff fulfills the requirements for the coming Hong Kong Film Awards.

I am on the way compiling a list of Hong Kong films only but need your help for some input. Grateful if you could contact me direct by e-mail at ryan.kr at gmail dot com. Thank you.

I'm not denying that there's probably a handful of gems from last year out of HK...I'm just happy that, after almost twelve months away from the region's cinematic output, there's so very few films that were actually produced there. Makes catching up pretty easy...

Here's some amendments to the above linked list...

Titles on the list from the PRC:-

Assembly; Two Stupid Eggs; Dangerous Games; Marriage Trap; Kung Fu Hip Hop; Red Cliff; The One Man Olympics; Lost, Indulgence; Desires of the Heart; If You Are the One; Ticket; Umbrella; Useless; Set Off

Titles on the list from Taiwan: -

Kung Fu Dunk; The Most Distant Course; Help Me Eros; Cape No. 7; Miao Miao; Only the Way

...which doesn't really leave a lot of genuine titles from Hong Kong, does it?

This really reaffirms my long harboured suspicion concerning the true figure(s) of HK films produced in the region over the years, in that other Chinese language territories have long been lumped in with Hong Kong cinematic output as they were simply "Chinese" of origin -- the hyperbolic claims of the region producing in excess of three hundred films per annum in its heyday looks more like exaggerated myth-making than bonafide, and backable, facts. Maybe one hundred titles tops during the heyday* at best...but with so many additional titles from other territories squeezed into the mix, creating an artificial historical record, who will ever really know until someone sits down and does the research?

* the heyday of the Shaws/Cathay/et al -- I doubt even during the eighties that HK was pumping out much above the hundred mark.

[ryan]

Dear Mike,

The boundary between Hong Kong and mainland film has been blurred for the past few years. Films like Red Cliff has become hard to identify. You may wish to note that Red Cliff fulfills the requirements for the coming Hong Kong Film Awards.

I am on the way compiling a list of Hong Kong films only but need your help for some input. Grateful if you could contact me direct by e-mail at ryan.kr at gmail dot com. Thank you.

[Brian Thibodeau]

This really reaffirms my long harboured suspicion concerning the true figure(s) of HK films produced in the region over the years, in that other Chinese language territories have long been lumped in with Hong Kong cinematic output as they were simply "Chinese" of origin -- the hyperbolic claims of the region producing in excess of three hundred films per annum in its heyday looks more like exaggerated myth-making than bonafide, and backable, facts. Maybe one hundred titles tops during the heyday* at best...but with so many additional titles from other territories squeezed into the mix, creating an artificial historical record, who will ever really know until someone sits down and does the research?

The boundary between Hong Kong and mainland film has been blurred for the past few years.

Did anyone really buy the "300+ movies a year" routine? Actually, on second thought . . . I guess I didn't realize it was even still an issue.

An old clue: Paul Fonoroff's book AT THE HONG KONG MOVIES (which I first read in late 1999) provides individually-dated reviews from his SCMP column of 600 theatrically-released Hong Kong movies from a 9.5 year period (1989-1997), approximately 63 movies a year on average, and I don't recall any Taiwan or Mainland titles being included in it. I can say with absolute certainly that he did miss a lot of actual Hong Kong movies on a year by year basis, many of them theatrically released, but even then I doubt the total number could have exceeded the suspected hundred that Mike mentions, and if it did, it would likely have included a lot of shot-on-video titles (which I think should count, especially considering many of them did play in theatres--of one kind or another). While I've never actually seen this artificial historical record in physical form, I have read many authors/journalists (both Chinese and Western) who've parroted that magical "300+ movies a year!" statistic down through the ages without providing a source, which kinda gets the eyes rolling.

I've got another article somewhere from waaaay back (early 90's, no less) wherein the author mentions the same thing: that the numbers were probably inflated, in no small part due to Hong Kong talent working outside the city (though not so much the oft-repeated suggestion that any Chinese-language film was being included).

I'd be curious to see a list of true "Hong Kong-only" productions by year from the very start, particularly as someone who hasn't bought into the hyperbole since nearly day one, and because like it or love it, HK cinema does have long-standing ties to, and plenty of artistic cross-pollination with, the Chinese cinemas that surround it. Such a list would likely be a curio to someone who prefers to put careers and artistic development into a larger context (which is why this site is a godsend), though no less valuable for simply showing what the city has produced on its own.

As an aside, I still don't really dig certain contemporary metropolitan mainland movies that try to cop a "Hong Kong" vibe (THE PRETTY WOMEN being a perfect example). They still feel like pretenders to me. But I watch 'em anyways because they feature performers/filmmakers who've long been part of the Hong Kong industry, and not because I consider them Hong Kong movies, or because they're simply in the Chinese language. In reviews, I take pains to indicate where such films are actually from, as I hope others do, and I'm glad this site identifies them as such (though there's still work to be done on that front, as noted in the editor's forum).

And Ryan, from what I could translate, that list at your blog doesn't seem to be a list of Hong Kong pictures only, so I'm not sure I understand the problem with it. Aren't they just the Chinese-language pictures that are eligible for awards this year, or am I using a bad online translator?

[Mike Thomason]

Did anyone really buy the "300+ movies a year" routine? Actually, on second thought . . . I guess I didn't realize it was even still an issue.

Sorry for the late reply -- married with children now. Anyway, it's not so much an issue these days to anyone worth their salt, but even now the myth continues to be perpetuated. I am about 40 or 50pp into Jasper Sharp's "Behind the Pink Curtain" book and, whilst mapping out film history and various differences between countries and cultures, as historical background it too throws up the "200+ per year" film productions from Hong Kong in its "heyday" myth. And I read it somewhere else, online, recently from the pen of someone who should have known better; it's the myth that keeps on keeping on.

More anon.

[dleedlee]

as historical background it too throws up the "200+ per year" film productions from Hong Kong in its "heyday" myth. And I read it somewhere else, online, recently from the pen of someone who should have known better; it's the myth that keeps on keeping on.

More grist for the mill, I'll repost an annual summary of Cantonese films, 1950's-1970's I gen'd up some time ago.

And we all know the first golden age of HK cinema was the 1960's, don't we?


Year - #Cantonese Films Released
1950 149
1951 133
1952 133
1953 105
1954 109
1955 151
1956 151
1957 132
1958 139
1959 141
1960 202
1961 211
1962 200
1963 203
1964 175
1965 169
1966 125
1967 105
1968 87
1969 71
1970 35
1971 1 (Super Boxer)
1972 0
1973 1 (House of 72 Tenants)
1974 21
1975 28
1976 35
1977 45
1978 74
1979 85

I recently posted these numbers here (and on another forum a few years ago):
http://hkmdb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=49525 (scroll down)

[Brian Thibodeau]

More grist for the mill, I'll repost an annual summary of Cantonese films, 1950's-1970's I gen'd up some time ago.

This is the kind of info this site needs to make more accessible in some form or another, in part to combat these inflated numbers. Did there not used to be a way to display all the movies from a particular year here? If it ever comes back, I think it would be critical that the "region" tag in any given DB entry could be made clickable, so you could then click through to a complete list of all the other films made in that particular region in that particular year. That way, a quick once-over would allow most of us to spot any titles that are in the wrong list and reassign them. Simple and fast.

As mentioned in my previous post, there's a HUGE list of much-desired upgrades growing in the Editors forum, but as long as Bob continues to be MIA, we're hamstrung.

Incidentally, I think many of us here are aware that this site misrepresents plenty of films as "Hong Kong" in origin when they are not. We find them and correct them on a regular basis, but we've only got so much volunteer time to rectify the situation. It does sadden me (a bit!) that the HKMDB helps to perpetuate the myth in a roundabout way, but it frustrates me more when inferences are made (often elsewhere, by people who offer us no assistance) that the current crew is somehow responsible for the errors input by previous generations who labeled things willy-nilly in their zeal to grow the site--a generation from whence many of today's "experts" seem to have sprung as far as I can tell (kinda glad I missed it, frankly)--or that we somehow condone the mislabeling because the boo-boos remain in place for the time being. Such is internet life, I guess.

As Mike notes, the "200+" ignorance is still being perpetuated (drat!), and by respected scholars no less. While I unfortunately don't have the time or inclination to research detailed production materials for hundreds of films, I consider myself well-versed enough to recognize certain cultural/architectural/casting/crew markers when I watch a film to know roughly where it might have originated. It doesn't require much research to follow up from there, but getting it in here will remain an ongoing process unless more people can chip in!

Finally, as someone who deliberately includes feature-length video productions in my own mental/physical lists of Hong Kong movies from any given year (since many of them did play theatrically, however poorly), I suspect the years 1999 to 2003-ish probably top just about any previous year post-1964 (based on Dennis' list) for actual MOVIES produced in the city. Most of them may not have been any good, but they were legitimate productions in one way or another. In my book, they'll always count, but that's just me.