With a new Hong Kong film festival planned for Guangzhou, John Robertson asks how increasing collaboration with the mainland is changing the local film industry.

This November will see the first Hong Kong film festival hosted on the mainland. At least ten films will be screened at the event in Guangzhou, and for the first time in front of mainland audiences, they will be screened in their original Cantonese. According to Wellington Fung, general secretary of the organizing Hong Kong Film Development Council, the aim is to promote the original Hong Kong flavor of the films across the border. “It will hopefully create a better understanding among audiences there of the distinct style and character of our films,” he says.

It’s an interesting undertaking, considering that many purist fans of Hong Kong cinema worry that its local flavor is disappearing as local filmmakers increasingly target mainland audiences. Due to tight censorship across the border, films with triad elements, nudity or political incorrectness cannot be shown there. Film studios also often have to change the endings of films before they’re screened on the mainland, particularly if they depict villains winning. The most notorious example of this is found in “Infernal Affairs,” the mainland version of which saw Andy Lau’s villain paying for his crimes instead of walking away scot free in the end. More recently, this year’s “Murderer,” a cop thriller starring Aaron Kwok, featured a high-ranking local police officer who for some reason speaks in Mandarin.

Of course, you can’t blame local filmmakers for targeting the mainland market. While the demand for them at home has been in decline since 1997, Hong Kong films have enjoyed more than their fair share of success in China in recent years. Just this summer, three local films together took HK$256 million at the box office there. And in the first week of this month, three of the five highest-grossing films were by local directors.

Collaborating with people from the mainland industry has also helped local filmmakers immensely. According to Fung, the local film industry was one of the first industries to benefit from the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement in 2004. Now almost any Hong Kong director looking to make a big budget film needs to seek funding from mainland investors.

Director Patrick Kong (“Marriage with a Fool,” “Love is Not All Around”) welcomes the increase in cross-border collaboration on films. “The future of Hong Kong movies lies in the China market,” he says, “it’s crucial for anyone here who wants to make big budget films.” He adds that mainland film stars such as Zhang Ziyang have growing reputations around the world, which could also lend Hong Kong films a critical boost.

But what about the traditional character of local films? Cultural critic Bono Lee says that it’s definitely disappearing. He believes that this reflects the changing character of Hong Kong itself as it gets closer to the mainland. “Hong Kong identity is an ever changing process,” he says. “The new Hong Kong films right now more or less reflect the identity crisis at the moment.”

Director Barbara Wong (“Wonder Women,” “Happy Funeral”), who has worked on a number of cross-border collaborations, agrees. “We’ve lost some of the very local films, but I think looking back is useless,” she says. “The world is changing. Closer collaboration with China is inevitable, and anyone looking to make a big budget film now will have to comply with things like censorship on the mainland.”
At the same time, there are others who think Hong Kong films are in fact changing mainland audience’s tastes and the mainland industry, rather than vice versa. Fung points to the recent Hong Kong-China collaboration “Overheard” as an example. “Before this film, I don’t think you could have found a movie on the mainland in which the police were shown to be doing something wrong,” he says, “the script would not have been approved by SARF [the State of Administration of Radio, Film and Television].” He adds that many of today’s mainland films are much more like Hong Kong films than the mainland films of the 80s.

Another way in which the Hong Kong industry might change the mainland’s is in terms of production. Kong believes that Hong Kong filmmakers can impart their faster working style and greater flexibility of imagination to their counterparts in China. They can also introduce much in the way of special effects and martial arts choreography. “While many of us are adapting our styles to suit mainland tastes, there is also a lot that people in the Hong Kong industry can teach those in China,” he says.