HK Cinema - 1949
The Chinese civil war comes to an end with the
Communists as the victors and the Nationalists driven to Taiwan. This clearly
had a huge impact on what was left of the film industry in Shanghai. Fearing
for their lives and their freedom, there was a large exodus of artists
to HK. This was the final blow to the Shanghai film industry and allowed
HK to become the main center for Chinese films.
In HK it was almost as if two film industries
existed side by side. The Shanghai contingent was producing more lavish
films in Mandarin while the Cantonese group was making smaller more social
type films. Between both camps though they were producing over 200 films
a year through the 1950’s. And there were all kinds of films – from historical
dramas to costumed fantasies to comedy to kung-fu to musicals to socially
relevant films.
In some of Teo’s descriptions of the films, they
sound absolutely fascinating. For example I would love to see a film like
Mambo Girl that combines the musical strains of Chinese opera and Hollywood
to produce a gloriously ornate Mandarin musical that Teo calls “the first
HK musical masterpiece”.