Though Hong Kong has long seen itself as the gateway to China, its filmmakers tended to look everywhere but the mainland, until recently. By the late 1990s the industry’s world ranking had dropped from No. 3 early in the decade, when it turned out 200 films a year, to No. 26. Customers in its core overseas markets of Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore were defecting in droves from Hong Kong films, some famously shot in one week without a script, to higher-budget Hollywood blockbusters or local productions. But China was not yet the answer. Not only was it difficult for foreign films to make money there owing to the power of the parsimonious state-run distribution company, but Hong Kong was treated as just another outsider in competition to fill China’s yearly quota of just 20 foreign films.
The door began to open in 2002, when Media Asia Group, one of the biggest Hong Kong film companies, coproduced a period drama called “Cat and Mouse” with a mainland partner. As a coproduction, the movie was exempted from the quota on foreign films, and free to keep some of its mainland box-office sales of $2.5 million. At the same time, “The Touch,” an action movie starring former Bond girl Michelle Yeoh (who also coproduced with a Chinese partner), was flopping in Hong Kong, but became a mild success because of mainland sales. Media Asia executive director John Chong says, “We all realized then that China could be our new business model.”
Early this year came the big break. Beijing agreed to exempt Hong Kong films from the foreign quota as of January 2004, giving them a huge advantage in the world’s biggest market. Now a Hong Kong film-industry revival is underway, driven by mainland movie fans. By the end of 2004, Hong Kong is expected to produce 140 films, up from only 77 in 2003. Investments in Hong Kong-Chinese coproductions more than doubled in the past year. Profits, which had fallen dramatically, have steadied at a decent 30 percent to 40 percent, says Joseph Lai, an independent filmmaker and vice chairman of the Movie Producers and Distributors Association of Hong Kong. “Nowadays, without mainland China, Hong Kong would hardly make any films,” says Lai, who estimates that eight of 10 filmmakers in Hong Kong now tailor their movies specifically for China.
The price for access is that producers must make movies by Beijing rules. It’s increasingly easy for Hong Kong coproductions to qualify as domestic films in China, but still complicated. One third of the cast must be from the mainland (down from half). The story no longer has to take place in China, but the plot and story still have to be related to Chinese culture.
Other rules, including those of the censors, tend to be unwritten. Hong Kong filmmakers have begun to anticipate Beijing’s known distastes, which include anything that might appear to glorify infidelity, homosexuality, crime or superstition. Witches, warlocks and other horror-movie staples are out of style. For a recent coproduction in China, Hong Kong’s Emperor Motion Pictures produced a sequel to a vampire movie by dropping the vampires.
Self-censorship is not controversial–it’s now “a basic economic need,” says the chief executive of the Hong Kong film-industry association, Woody Tsung. For the Hong Kong cop thriller “Breaking News,” Beijing officials asked Chong to cut references to “the mainland” in favor of “our motherland,” and he complied. “In China, if we have to take out scenes, then we take it out,” says Chong. “We do what has to be done.”
Hong Kong film still faces many challenges on the mainland, including rampant piracy and a shortage of decent theaters. But its exclusive China connection looks safe. In bargaining to join the World Trade Organization in 2001, Beijing agreed to ease its foreign-film quota within three years, but to only 50 films at most. Sensitive to “corrupting” Western influences, China is not likely to remove the quota entirely. Nor is it likely to find partners more desperately willing to follow its rules.
