Affected by the epidemic, global films have experienced the most difficult winter in history, and in such a harsh market environment, it is inevitable that there will be an exit mechanism of survival of the fittest.
Now more than a year has passed, in the Mid-Autumn Festival, eleven double festival long holiday golden file, there are many films released at home and abroad, but fans are also disappointed to find that there is only one Hong Kong film.
Not only that, looking at the overall box office record in 2021, only one Hong Kong film in the top ten is the just-released "Fury • Serious Case" reached 1.277 billion, which is also the only Hong Kong film with a box office of more than 1 billion so far this year, and if strictly speaking, this is still a co-production between Hong Kong and the mainland.
Another film released at the same time, "When Men Are in Love", was a Hong Kong-Taiwan co-production with a box office of 264 million, and none of the other films grossed more than 100 million.
At the same time, in the major variety shows and interview programs, they frequently miss paying tribute to classic Hong Kong films, and many pictures have become permanent aesthetic memories, so it seems that the current Hong Kong movies are really lonely.
Zhou Xun has a classic movie called "Hong Kong has a Hollywood", there is a billboard "Hollywood" throughout the film, which is the Cantonese pronunciation of Hollywood, once Hong Kong was called "Oriental Hollywood", and countless Hong Kong people are proud of this reputation.
In the 1960s, Hong Kong's economy rose rapidly, becoming one of the four Asian tigers soaring, just as the so-called economic foundation determines the superstructure, when the capital strength is strong enough, the frequency and quantity of cultural output will be significantly accelerated.
At that time, the entire Southeast Asian market was not completely open to Hollywood, the Korean and Japanese cultural industries had not yet formed a scale, Taiwan was even more barren, and the mainland was still on the road of reform and opening up.
And the unique Hong Kong film appeared at this time, and the extremely entertaining, ornamental and dramatic film style quickly swept the Southeast Asian market, and even advanced into Hollywood.
Before the return of Hong Kong, the two were relatively similar in culture, ecology and other aspects, and Hong Kong, which was still a colony at the time, made Taiwan very willing to be close to it in some ways.
In the early days, there were only five major theaters in Taiwan, and Hong Kong movies could be fully occupied, and someone had calculated that as long as a movie could return to the capital in Taiwan for three months, then the theaters in other regions were net profits, so driven by super high returns, it contributed to the high production of Hong Kong movies, which is a geographical advantage.
In 1961, the founder of Hong Kong cinema, Run Run Shaw, founded Shaw Pictures, and until it ceased to operate in 1987, it produced thousands of commercial films.
In the same period, Jiahe Pictures harvested global fans with a Bruce Lee, and a legendary independent producer Wu Siyuan single-handedly won the kung fu star Jackie Chan.
The more rapidly the film develops, the greater the demand for film actors, the major radio stations have opened artist training classes, led by TVB has cultivated a large number of heavenly kings and queens, and at the peak of each drama is a fight between gods and immortals.
Everything-ready Hong Kong film, riding on the east wind of economic take-off, swept the world and reached its peak around 1992, according to box office data, the local revenue of Hong Kong films in this year alone was as high as 1.24 billion Hong Kong dollars, and overseas revenue was as high as 1.86 billion Hong Kong dollars.
And Zhou Xingchi, who was enshrined in the gods at that time, single-handedly occupied the top five box office "Death Judge", "Happy Family Affair", "Deer DingJi", "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qi'er", "Lu Ding Ji 2 Shenlong Sect", these films are still preserved in the list of CCTV Six Princesses.
In the past few years, "Ghost of Qiannu" has made Zhang Guorong the dream of thousands of young girls, Huang Feihong's series has produced a traditional martial arts representative Jet Li, "Across the Sea" has made Zhou Runfa the standard of gunfight films, the police story series has made Jackie Chan's fancy martial arts out of the circle, "Oriental Undefeated" Lin Qingxia has reached a new height, "Ancient Puzzle Boy" is full of the youth of a generation, and Andy Lau has soared "Chariot of Fire" to a new speed...
At this time, the fifth generation of film talents in the mainland has just risen, Zhang Yimou filmed "Yellow Land", Chen Kaige filmed "Overlord Farewell", but the mainland cinema line has still not fully liberalized the market, the box office is mainly dependent on overseas, and the theme is still limited to the acura era and analysis of reality.
At the same time, pirated CDs occupy the overpass stalls in major cities, and people are more willing to accept this cheap way of entertainment when people have just solved the problem of food and clothing.
The pinnacle of Hong Kong cinema is a storm that has swept the world, the world film industry is all amazing, after a benchmark is set, there will be people to follow, and predecessors often face the risk of being filmed on the beach, hong Kong films are the same.
In 1996, Jackie Chan entered Hollywood with "Red Fan District", but before Hong Kong filmmakers could celebrate, he was killed by Hollywood blockbusters and killed in one shot.
In the mid-1990s, Hollywood began to explore CG blockbusters, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create an audiovisual feast, when "Jurassic Park" and "Terminator 2" were released, people found that this was the original meal that needed to be tasted by sitting in danger, while Hong Kong movies became fast food such as soybean milk fritters.
As a result, Hong Kong films lost the largest Taiwan market, and in 1996, the overseas revenue of Hong Kong films was only 430 million, down 63% from 1.16 billion in 1995.
Immediately after the 1997 Hollywood god work "Titanic" turned out to be unparalleled, whether it is the story rhythm, emotional level, visual effects, music production is unparalleled, it is still preserved in the world's major film and television bases and teaching venues, Hong Kong films bow to Hollywood.
In addition to Hollywood's strong attack, mainland films have also begun to rise rapidly, also in 1997, Feng Xiaogang's "Party A and Party B" created a precedent for the "New Year file", and also split the road to the development of commercial films.
At the same time, a large number of excellent Hong Kong directors and actors have been rapidly lost, and Wu Yusen, Tang Jili, Yuan Heping, Xu Ke, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, Donnie Yen and other characters have fled Hollywood.
With the return of Hong Kong, the door of the mainland film market is slowly opening, in the face of a market of more than one billion people, no one is willing to guard the Hong Kong Island with a population of only a few million, Hong Kong filmmakers have gone north in large numbers, while newcomers cannot get on the table, and in the scene of green and yellow, the only ones who may hold their positions are Chow Sing Chi and Gu Tianle.
Without high income, there is no huge investment, small productions have no market competitiveness at all, the limitations of story themes are too strong, science fiction films are not big enough, feature films cannot resonate with the audience, the box office continues to fall, and the income is not enough, and eventually a vicious circle is formed.
By the time of SARS in 2003, Hong Kong films had fallen to the bottom, and there was even no capital to invest, and no one was willing to invest.
A group of Hong Kong filmmakers spontaneously set up a committee to seek help from the SAR government, and later the Hong Kong Film Development Bureau was derived, and a new group of Hong Kong filmmakers were ready to fight a beautiful turnaround battle.
Although Stephen Chow's "King of Comedy" created a classic of the times, it could not offset the audience's complaints about "King of a Thousand Kings", in the face of few investments, Xingye also had to turn to the mainland and enter the market of co-productions, and then "Shaolin Football", "Kung Fu", "Yangtze River Seven" and "Mermaid" were all double harvests at the box office.
The final struggle of Hong Kong cinema fell on Gu Tianle, Andy Lau, Leung Chao-wai and others, so in the early two thousand years, Hong Kong realistic movies were all the rage, "Tokyo Raiders" series, "Integrity" series, and the classic "Infernal Affairs" series, these works once showed the scorching brilliance of the re-emergence of Hong Kong films, but with the end of "Infernal Affairs 3", it was complained by fans as "returning to the light".
It can be said that there are no More Hong Kong films after "Infernal Affairs", and the era of Hong Kong films has passed.
At the same time, the mainland film market has risen rapidly, and in 2001, with the Official Promulgation of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Reform of the Film Distribution and Screening Mechanism (Trial) by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, marking the official entry of China's film reform into the era of cinema. In 2002, Zhang Yimou's "Hero" won 250 million yuan at the box office, officially opening a new chapter in China's commercial blockbusters, and since then, film companies led by Huaxia, Wanda, LeTV, and Guangguang have also taken off.
Before 2014, Hollywood blockbusters dominated the top of the box office for a long time, but in 2015, a number of domestic films led by "To Catch a Demon" squeezed "Avengers 2" to the sixth place at the box office; in 2017, Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior" led the box office with a cliff of 5.695 billion; in 2018, "Red Sea Action" and "I Am Not a Medicine God" and other high-quality films once again confirmed that the purpose of the film is still content king.
In 2019, the two films "Nezha's Devil Boy Descending" and "The Wandering Earth" represented the rise of domestic animation and domestic science fiction respectively, with box office results of 5.036 billion and 4.688 billion respectively, squeezing the global attention of "Avengers 4: Endgame" to the third place.
In 2020, the global film market encountered the harshest winter ever, and the only Hong Kong film on the box office list was "Bomb Disposal Expert 2", but the only one was a co-production.
Today's Hong Kong film industry still has not waited for the spring breeze to warm up, a large number of actors and directors still choose to develop outside, and the original Hong Kong films are really lonely.