2024-01-29 20:45:00
Author: Zhang Yan (Professor of the School of Art and Media of Beijing Normal University, Executive Director of the Asian and Chinese Film Research Center)
Recently, the TV series “Flowers” directed by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai has become a hit. With its modern narrative, regional characteristics and cinematic images, it has gained good ratings and reputation. This is another outstanding achievement produced by Hong Kong filmmakers working together with the mainland.
Film cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland has a long history, especially the formal implementation of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (hereinafter referred to as “CEPA”) in January 2004, which has provided broader cooperation for the film industries of the two places. space and market opportunities. Over the past 20 years since the implementation of CEPA, Hong Kong and the mainland have complemented each other’s advantages and cooperated for win-win results. They have worked together to build a Chinese film brand and help Chinese films go global.
1.CEPA smoothes the channels for film cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland
As early as the 1950s and 1960s, Hong Kong served as the “observatory, meteorological observatory and bridgehead” of New China facing overseas. Hong Kong film companies such as Great Wall, Phoenix, and Xinlian were allowed to co-produce “Wild Boar Forest” and “Seventy-Two Films” with the mainland. Films such as “The Tenant” have become the forefront of New China’s foreign exchanges.
In the early 1980s, the film “Shaolin Temple” co-produced by a Hong Kong film company and the Mainland used Shaolin Kung Fu and Mainland scenic spots to satisfy the nostalgia of Hong Kong audiences and overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, achieving cultural resonance. Since then, co-productions between the two places have officially emerged, with a series of commercial films such as “New Dragon Gate Inn” and “Once Upon a Time in the Lion King” emerging, helping films such as “Raise the Red Lantern” to become internationally renowned.
At that time, co-productions between Hong Kong and the Mainland went through a tortuous process of market testing, artistic exploration, and cultural collision. Until the movie “Hero” came out in 2002, creating a box office miracle that year, and then “A World Without Thieves”, “Monster Hunt” and other excellent films successively gained good reputation, and then this year’s cross-media and cross-regional cooperation “Flowers”, the two places’ movies Television cooperation has shown a new trend of prosperity and development.
Behind the increasingly close film cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland, adjustments to national policies are a crucial driving force. On June 29, 2003, in order to boost Hong Kong’s economy, which was hit hard by the financial crisis, and smooth the path of economic and trade cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong, the mainland and the Hong Kong SAR signed CEPA, which was officially implemented on January 1, 2004.
At that time, Hong Kong films were at a low ebb due to the impact of the financial crisis. Relevant state departments included films in key support categories and formulated loose preferential policies for Hong Kong films that would be implemented in phases, fundamentally lowering the threshold for Hong Kong films to enter the mainland film market. , which will loosen all restrictions on film cooperation between the two places and effectively relieve the difficulties of Hong Kong films that are at a low ebb. Hong Kong films will thus enter the fast lane of the mainland market.
For a long time, Hong Kong films have relied heavily on overseas markets. From the first half of the 1990s to the beginning of the 21st century, due to the Asian financial crisis and strong competition from Hollywood, traditional markets such as Southeast Asia and Taiwan, China, on which Hong Kong films depended, shrank severely, and the once prosperous Hong Kong film industry fell to the bottom. , the only hope for Hong Kong movies at this time is the mainland. As directors such as Wu Siyuan and Peter Chan said, “Without opening up the mainland Chinese market, there will be no hope for Hong Kong films.” “Co-productions are the only way out for Hong Kong films.”
CEPA has opened up the mainland market to an unprecedented extent, solving the target market problem that is crucial to the survival of Hong Kong films. According to relevant regulations, Hong Kong films are exempt from import quota restrictions as long as they pass mainland censorship, and films co-produced by Hong Kong and the mainland can be promoted and screened as mainland films. The CEPA supplementary agreement signed in 2008 further stipulates that films co-produced by Hong Kong and the mainland enjoy the treatment of domestic films, and Hong Kong films will no longer be included in imported films. These policies have created unlimited space for investment and production cooperation in the film industries of the two places, and also opened up broad avenues for Hong Kong films.
2. Co-productions allow Hong Kong films to leverage their strengths and achieve greater success
Over the past two decades, under the full protection of CEPA, Hong Kong and the mainland film industry have worked closely together to launch many well-received and well-received co-productions through multiple cooperation models such as joint financing, co-production, and coordinated distribution.
CEPA has lifted the original restrictions on the proportion of main creatives, post-production, and shooting locations for co-productions between the two places, and co-productions have rapidly heated up and continued to advance. Tsui Hark, Peter Chan and many other filmmakers have moved north in a big way, and the output of co-productions has been rising, from an average of less than 10 films per year from 1997 to 2001, gradually rising to an average of 30 to 45 films per year. Today, 50% of Hong Kong’s film production is produced annually. ~80% are co-productions.
The co-productions continue to develop the advantages of diverse Hong Kong genres and integrate mainland characteristics, such as police films “Anti-Drug”, “Drug War”, “Bomb Disposal Expert”, action films “The Grandmaster”, “Assassin Nie Yinniang”, “Detective Dee: The Great Empire”, comedies The film “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons”, “Let the Bullets Fly”, “Kung Fu” and many other great films. The emergence of movie brands such as Tsui Hark’s “Detective Dee” series, Wong Jing’s “Macau” series, and Stephen Chow’s “Journey to the West” series not only maximize the creative potential of Hong Kong movies in genres, but also effectively achieve market goals such as commercialization and branding. .
Through the nostalgic expressions of films such as “The Ring”, “Thieves of Time” and “The Fight”, the “Hong Kong-style” aesthetics and humanistic spirit of Hong Kong films can be passed on. At the same time, represented by films such as “Taking Tiger Mountain by Wisdom”, “Operation Red Sea” and “Extraordinary Mission”, co-productions between the two places have innovatively developed mainland theme themes, integrating heroic narratives and audio-visual spectacles into the stories of small people in the big era. It has created a new mainstream film paradigm that integrates Hong Kong aesthetics and mainland cultural values.
Judging from market performance, the single-film competitiveness and overall commercial revenue of co-productions have significantly improved, and they have developed into the main market force of mainland and Hong Kong films. Films such as “Changjin Lake”, “Operation Red Sea”, “Mermaid” and “Monster Hunt” have strong box office in the mainland. Films such as “The Big Brother”, “Tomorrow”, “Chills 2” and “Anita Mui” are among the top-grossing Chinese-language films in the history of Hong Kong films. Forefront.
Recently, Hong Kong and Mainland film industry representatives and scholars discussed the cooperation results and development opportunities between Hong Kong and the Mainland film industry.Photo courtesy of the Hong Kong Office in Beijing
3. From creative co-prosperity to market co-prosperity
The mainland film market is huge, fully funded, rich in resources, numerous talents, and profound in culture, while Hong Kong films have significant advantages in genre creation, creative capabilities, production technology, and marketing concepts. Over the past 20 years since the implementation of CEPA, by maximizing the relaxation of Hong Kong film institutions and filmmakers to participate in mainland film investment and financing, production and creation, promotion and distribution, market development, etc., the cooperation methods between the two places have become more and more diversified, creating opportunities for the development of Chinese-language films. More possibilities.
Co-productions between the two places have become one of the most important forms of domestic films. While this will help Hong Kong films achieve greater glory, it will also help improve the quality of domestic films, cultivate film talents, and expand the film market. The exchanges and cooperation between the film industries of the two places have further promoted the integration of the lives and emotions of the people in the two places.
At present, the film cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland is unprecedentedly prosperous, achieving creative integration and market prosperity to a certain extent. In the future, we can further improve film quality, seek a balance between business and art, strengthen creativity and culture, promote the innovation and upgrading of Chinese films, and help achieve the development goal of building a powerful film nation in 2035.
“Guangming Daily” (January 30, 2024, page 12)
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责编：孙宗鹤 ]
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