Evolved and declined genres

[DiP]

Alot has happened since the Golden Age of Hong Kong Cinema. Trends has and still rises and goes away back-to-back and filmmakers try to keep fresh through creativity which has succeeded with some genres while other genres have been less fortunate and have suffered from drawbacks such as repetition and lack of originality. Which genres do you feel have evolved alot and been at the lowest respectively?

[ShaOW!linDude]

Hmmm. I'd say that with the exception of Donnie Yen's SPL and FLASHPOINT that HK's MA/modern actioners are on the decline. The emphasis seems to be more on drama and plot.

However, ever since CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, wuxia films seems to be breeding faster than rabbits. They're better produced than the earlier epics of that vein but I still find them to be pretty campy.

But that's me.

[DiP]

Contemporary action films may be coming back soon. You have a point though with the amount of action done in these films but I don't really consider that a reason the action genre in the whole is declining. There have been other action films with more action in them. Action-wise, I think it's been going in circles whereas story and acting has gone up a bit since filmmakers are starting to give better treatment and more respect to the content in action films compared to back in the day when people mostly cared about the action.

I would say crime films have evolved the most thanks to contribution from people like Johnnie To, Alan Mak/Felix Chong, Wai Ka-Fai, Derek Yee, and Pang brothers. The least expansed genres seems to be comedy and horror. Stephen Chow was the last guy that gave people something new and it has since been the same, along with recycled stuff from Lunar New Year films and modern teen films. Horror is doing a little bit better but not much going on in the genre either.

[jmungus]

The least expansed genres seems to be comedy and horror. Stephen Chow was the last guy that gave people something new and it has since been the same, along with recycled stuff from Lunar New Year films and modern teen films. Horror is doing a little bit better but not much going on in the genre either.

i 2nd that. only to me the decline both in quantity and quality feels rather dramatic.

spontaneously, i`d gather that hk horror has NOT happened AT ALL in the past 2, 3 years; at least from my perspective.

i can only recall a handful atm and none of those were anything worth talking about.

as for anything action oriented- theres a sufficient amount of stuff going on and its not too shabby. i see it as a work in progress and dont bother about the current trends regarding war epics, fantastical, traditional period or modern day setting outputs.

so as to ie more dominance of modern day crime actioners or how they treat the gung action in period pieces etc, we`ll see in the longrun.

my guess is that period settings will dominante another few years and that modern day MA actioners will have taken over in the 2nd half of the decade.

sloppy way over the top wire work will not go away tho, im rather sure of that

[Sheng]

Apart from KILL ZONE and FLASHPOINT (which wasn’t exactly a great film (but a great Donnie show!), there were still a number of highly competent, balls-to-the-wall actioneers made in the last few years, primarily by the likes of Dante Lam and Benny Chan (as well as some forgettable ones; usually Wu Jing had the misfortune of starring in ‘em…).

Still there’s no doubt that full-on action blowouts that used to be a HK cinema staple in the 80s and 90s have become increasingly rare and the action quotient in recent crime dramas like LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE, OVERHEARD (1), ACCIDENT and others has been remarkably low.

Let’s see if there’ll be an increase in output on that front, Wong Ching-Po’s just opened LET’S GO promises mucho in the (Nicky Li choreographed) action & stunts department, but I still have my doubts that the prediction that “contemporary action films will come back soon” is an accurate one…

[DiP]

Let’s see if there’ll be an increase in output on that front, Wong Ching-Po’s just opened LET’S GO promises mucho in the (Nicky Li choreographed) action & stunts department, but I still have my doubts that the prediction that “contemporary action films will come back soon” is an accurate one…

Not really what I was indicating although you make a great point. I think at this point MA action films have been consisted of period type of action films so naturally someone - mostly likely Donnie since he's valuable enough to decide what will be made whenever he makes films - will make a successful contemporary MA action film which will spark an interest in other filmmakers that in turn might lead production of more modern action films. A return of modern action films as top-notch quality? That remains to be seen like you said.

[ShaOW!linDude]

Agreed. But you'd think that would've already happened to some extent due to SPL and FLASHPOINT. I did think Chan's NEW POLICE STORY was a great attempt and I enjoy it but I could've done with a couple more fight scenes in it.

Seems like the only MA modern actioners coming out nowadays are US based and they're doing the tournament theme to death. (Pardon the pun.)

Either that or you have HK MA stars doing Hollywood action films with just don't hold a candle to the HK 80's MA actioners from China. Jackie Chan's attempts have mostly been misfires (though I did enjoy the RUSH HOUR franchise personally....well, the first 2, anyway). Jet Li had a couple of good ones (KISS OF THE DRAGON, THE ONE, UNLEASHED) but then many of his were also awful due to terrible wire-assisted fight sequences.

[Sheng]

Originaly Posted by DiP

I think at this point MA action films have been consisted of period type of action films so naturally someone - mostly likely Donnie since he's valuable enough to decide what will be made whenever he makes films - will make a successful contemporary MA action film which will spark an interest in other filmmakers that in turn might lead production of more modern action films.

With or without Donnie, the tide could turn with just one box office buster, its probable. But for the time being I don’t really see it happening and since it seems comparatively easier to secure funding for period films than for contemporary action fare the slew of modern day Wuxias will continue unabated (more than any other I guess you can call that a “still evolving genre”).

To penetrate the matter on a deeper level, let’s remind ourselves over & over again that for the Hong Kong film industry there is a totally inevitable and irreversible shift of focus to the rapidly expanding Mainland market, a shift not just confined to Wuxia type period films. Matter of fact, the vast majority of better budgeted HK films are under pressure to succeed there first. Now, as opposed to HK cinema critic Perry Lam I do not fear that the City will loose its entire cinematic identity in this scramble. (Put in a nutshell, Lam states in his defeatist but highly thought-provoking new book ONCE A HERO – THE VANISHING HONG KONG CINEMA that “HK cinema is pulling a disappearing act’ since the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty on July 1st 1997”. He goes on bemoaning that ”… the real story of Hong Kong after the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty isn’t the dramatic decline in their creativity, or in their power to draw people to the theater. It is the surgical removal of their distinctiveness as movies of Hong Kong. In their eagerness to grab and please the (much larger) audience on the mainland, Hong Kong filmmakers now churn out movies with ready-made plots, many of them powered by simple demographics...”)

A debatable thesis and if applied to the work of certain directors or particular strands of production certainly also one that many of us would find quite plausible. But to use the Big China embrace from the handover date on as a general explanation for everything that’s currently frustrating about the HK movie industry (or even the perceived eradication of its uniqueness) is disregarding a lotta other important points that need to be factored into the equation and simply goes waaaay over the top. Besides I happen to believe that even under the obvious restrictions of the China / HK co-op model clearly discernible HK characteristics still manage to assert themselves.

And by the way, ShaOW!linDude, better recent examples of the of modern-day Wuxia genre like LOST BLADESMAN, WU XIA or BATTLE OF WITS are certainly anything but campy!

[ShaOW!linDude]

And by the way, ShaOW!linDude, better recent examples of the of modern-day Wuxia genre like LOST BLADESMAN, WU XIA or BATTLE OF WITS are certainly anything but campy!

I am interested in seeing THE LOST BLADESMAN and WUXIA. I've read and heard both good and bad things about them. Don't get me wrong.....while I'm really not a fan of "wuxia" films, I do have a few I enjoy, though I still find the majority of them to be campy. But that's me.

[DiP]

Different films appeals to different tastes. To me, Wu Xia/Swordsmen is a refreshing take on the wu xia genre in that it tried to explain parts of the mythology behind its' nature as logic as possible. That's what makes it such a success.

The Lost Bladesman wasn't a perfect tale on Guan Yu though. Not because of the unfaithfulness of portraying Guan Yu the same way as in the novel but because it was missing alot of integral parts of his involvement in the warring period. On the other hand, it's the action that I attribute its' greatness to. It's not the stuff you see from Ching Siu-Tung or other action directors with reliance of either heavy wirework, exaggerated and flashy movements or too much mass crowd fighting on battle fields. It's a newly created style for the genre.