Category:New Hong Kong Cinema

From Zanecorpwiki

New Hong Kong Cinema vs. Category:Classic Hong Kong Cinema is characterized by:

• improved production quality vs. the earlier period
• highly choreographed, but believably surreal fighting vs. highly manifestly stylized choreography of the earlier period
• a playfulness in the action; both in reaching and actual comedy
• a more mature comedic sensibility; clever vs. slapstick

Hong Kong Cinema, both in the occupied and Chinese phases has always had political elements that may seem odd to consumers of western-style action which, in the modern period especially, is a political to the point were even politicians--when they appear--are studiously a-political. Perhaps some what strikes me as a divide between the "classic" and "new" periods can be understood in the context of the impending handover of HK to the Chinese. In the Classic period, the handover was distant and the films focused primarily on glorifying a romantic past when the empire and national sentiments were one. These films were meant to be safe from criticism by both the West and the regional Communist forces; the former because they sidestep the question of Communism and the latter because the Communists saw themselves as the true inheritors of Chinese tradition.

New Hong Kong Cinema plays more directly into this narrative and becomes more and more pro-Communist (though generally not anti-Wester till the post-handover Neo period). The transition is more natural than those of the West may believe because to the Communist Chinese, it was the royalty which betrayed their national heritage. Unlike the narrative Russian Revolution, which was cast as a true revolution, the Chinese Revolution was depicted as political reform for the purpose of return to traditional values.