Why was Mandarin the main language of Hong Kong movies for a while?

[Omni Dragon]

It makes sense for exporting to the Chinese diaspora outside of HK, and some showings in HK. But I still don't quite get how a secondary language in HK became its primary and often only language for movies for a while? Am I right in assuming Cantonese has always been the main language of TV in HK?

I know there's an extra cost involved, but still I'm kind of surprised they didn't just do a Mandarin and Cantonese dub for theatrical releases.

[DiP]

The shift to Mandarin in Hong Kong movies in the 1960s was because of communism taking over the Mainland, and the film industry shifted from Shanghai to Hong Kong. However, Cantonese made a comeback in the mid 1970s thanks to Michael Hui's Games Gamblers Play.

https://books.google.se/books?id=sELZJ5vihJUC&pg=PA72&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Edited August 21, 2023 by DiP

[starschwar]

I wonder - was there some optimism on the part of native Mandarin speaking film makers and producers especially, that their movies would eventually be marketable in the mainland?  Or was it just a preference to make the movies for themselves, in their native tongues, entrusting the HK audiences to get by on subtitles?

[Omni Dragon]

7 hours ago, starschwar said:

I wonder - was there some optimism on the part of native Mandarin speaking film makers and producers especially, that their movies would eventually be marketable in the mainland?  Or was it just a preference to make the movies for themselves, in their native tongues, entrusting the HK audiences to get by on subtitles?

My understanding is that in those days the prominent Mandarin speaking markets where in places with a significant Chinese diaspora like Singapore and Malaysia. As far as I know Runme Shaw was mainly based in Singapore?

 

I can't help but wonder what HK audiences thought of this?

As an outsider I'm struggling to get my head around it. It almost feels like they were saying to the audience;  I know things use to be done in Cantonese, well we're going to do it all in Mandarin now.

On a side note to me it feels ironic that The Big Boss had two English dubs 10 years before a Cantonese one.