Back for the Future: Hong Kong’s Film History on Show

Hong Kong’s cinematic output over the last decade or so can arguably be slotted into one of two categories. A challenging production environment has inspired many young filmmakers to make the most of those challenges and try to drag the industry into the 21st century. Directors like Veronica Bassetto and Sophie Yang (Gamer Girls), Riley Yip (Blossoms Under Somewhere) and Sasha Chuk (Fly Me to the Moon) are at the vanguard of scrappy filmmaking striking out in new thematic directions. But there may be even more contemporary throwbacks to the golden years of the 1980s and 1990s, with filmmakers from Soi Cheang and Jack Ng (Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In and Night King) to emerging directors Albert and Herbert Leung (Stuntman) and Nate Ki (Back Home) putting a fresh face on reliable, old-favourite action, kung fu, horror and comedy films.

Which raises the question of why Hong Kong films seem to be perpetually looking back instead of to the future. In a cautious global filmmaking climate, it’s easy to understand why investors and producers gravitate to safe bets, and nostalgia for what many consider better times is powerful. But Hong Kong is still searching for its next Wong Kar-wai or Ann Hui, and still leaning on the New Wave’s movie stars to get by. Is there something to be gleaned from all this reflection aside from a few popular hits? To that end, two new exhibitions are examining Hong Kong cinema’s heritage right now, aiming to put the artists and the art in a broader context that looks back while arguing that cinema heritage is a foundation meant to be built on.

Better Together – Partnering Up for Hong Kong Movies (at Tai Kwun) and Hong Kong Film Archive Stories: Treasure Hunting for 25 Years (at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum) both tell a story. The former chronicles paak3 zyu6 soeng5 (拍住上) — a slang phrase meaning “team spirit” — in the city back to the 1960s through a series of iconic film moments, recreated to immerse visitors in a singular time and place. In the latter, the HKFA celebrates 25 years dedicated to restoration, preservation, research and promotion of local cinema culture. Treasure Hunting brings together nearly a thousand artefacts from the HKFA’s collection, documenting that culture and reaching considerably farther back to its earliest days in the 1920s.

Useful nostalgia

To be fair, two exhibitions don’t necessarily mean anyone is wallowing in the “good ol’ days.” Beijing’s China National Film Museum spans 25 hectares, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles runs programmes all year, and La Cinémathèque française is almost as old as the movies themselves – and each has a rich cinema legacy to show for it. Hong Kong has a legacy just as long and just as rich, yet has no museum dedicated to it. Occasional exhibitions will have to suffice for now.

Production designer Irving Cheung Yee-man (Table for Six, Time Still Turns the Pages) designed the familiar scenes in Better Together’s showcase, and to her, looking back is essential for moving forward. “When we make movies we are creating the future,” she states. “If you want to create you have to go back to what’s been done. That’s how you create something different, something new.” She has a point. There is no John Woo without Sam Peckinpah, and there’s no Cheang without Woo.

Real objects

Nonetheless, the question of the need for reflection seems to linger, and the line between celebratory and stagnant is a blurry one. The HKFA’s mandate is clear: Treasure Hunting takes us on a “journey through the golden eras of Hong Kong cinema, celebrating the creative brilliance of filmmakers amid an ever-changing landscape,” as the HKFA itself states. But HKFA assistant curator May Ng notes, “We didn’t want to just show [artefacts] because it’s too easy to get information on the internet. We have all kinds of KOLs sharing everything, every day,” citing the intangible quality of mood and atmosphere. “Here we invite everyone to engage with real objects, to feel them up close, to ‘touch’ them and engage with the interactive installations.” And, just maybe, inspire the next generation.

Curated by the HKFA, visual effects specialist Victor Wong, art director and textile costume expert Edith Cheung and film culture researcher Janice Chow, Treasure Hunting’s pieces include photographs, original playbills, posters, diaries, manuscripts, costumes and awards hardware, among other items, from the HKFA’s collection — many being exhibited for the first time. 

Broken down into eight thematic zones, the historic stroll begins with star portraits of actors and filmmakers in a digital display, complete with red carpet, before moving on to a gallery of the oldest items in the Archive, including film stills from the 1920s and 30s, the city’s first film magazine (Silver Light, from 1926) and a spotlight on pioneering director Lee Sun-fung. There is a screening room dedicated to more than 60 trailers, a display of costumes — the highlight being Fung Bo-bo’s new-wave dress from 1967’s Four Sisters — awards from the Hong Kong Film Awards, Locarno Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival, and a reading nook for diving into the Archive’s publications. All of it is complemented by oral histories and filmmaker interviews on video (Tsui Hark, Chor Yuen, Sammo Hung, Connie Chan), Instagram-ready photo spots and a series of free seminars and screenings, with Ann Hui’s The Secret (1979), Father and Son (Allen Fong, 1981), Feast of a Rich Family (Lee Sun-fung, Lee Tit, Ng Wui, Law Chi-hung, 1959) and Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (Lee Tit, 1959) still to come.

“We did have a discussion on the theme of this exhibition at the very beginning, on whether we should detail the development of Hong Kong films or focus on our Archive,” Ng adds. “We gradually integrated them into one, and we’re glad to cultivate an appreciation for all the artists and donors who had the goodwill to share these items with us, which demonstrate our film heritage.”

Partner spirit

Better Together is also broken into eight segments and curated by director Sunny Chan Wing-san, who was co-curator and creative director of last summer’s Undercover Underworld at Tai Kwun. “Last year I was thinking about how these were themes and films I wanted to explore, but this year it’s more about the energy I wanted to send out,” explains Chan of his timely subject. “So it’s a Hong Kong spirit, a very laudable one I might add, of supporting each other, helping each other, being there for each other. That’s why partners are perfect.”

To demonstrate how films reflected the shifting dynamics within the city and how those impacted micro and macro partnerships, Chan had several conditions for a title’s inclusion: first that it be a popular film, and second that it be representative. “I chose one from each era so that through the sequence of films you can see the social evolution of Hong Kong over the years. They are all contemporaneous productions.” Chan and Cheung recreated an iconic scene or space from each of the eight, some of which are traditional exhibits, others immersive.

The story begins with Chor Yuen’s The Black Rose series (1965–2004), the early films of which pivot on the city’s rapid development, the resulting wealth gap and the bonds of friendship that arose from people helping each other when systems failed. It finishes with 2024’s Rob N Roll (Albert Mak), a film about two friends on divergent paths to the same destination, a testament to Hong Kong’s increasingly complex interrelationships that continue to underpin social connections.

For Chan, Better Together “is very much forward looking. We laid a foundation in the early parts of the exhibit, in classic movies that people have fond memories of, and then we move on,” he says, arguing the second half of the exhibition is energised, pointing towards “a better tomorrow, a better future. And in the final bit, there’s a video featuring a lot of working stunt people, and tells you their names. We want people to remember them and recognise their achievements. They are the future.” 

The other recreations include the Aces Go Places series (1982–89), set during Hong Kong’s emergence as a global metropolis; John Woo’s Once a Thief (1991), reflecting the carefree boomtown of the 1990s; cultural integration from later in the decade as shown in Police Story III: Super Cop (Stanley Tong, 1992); generational friction as the city changed yet again in Benny Chan’s Gen-X Cops and Gen-Y Cops (1999–2000); and finally how new tech, new social norms and a new strain of individualist strategy left a mark in Rob-B-Hood (Chan, 2006) and Blind Detective (Johnnie To, 2013).

Colourful Youth, (Digitally Restored Version) – Courtesy of Chi Leun Film Company Limited

The next reel

Treasure Hunting for 25 Years and Better Together are an ideal complement in that they are inextricably intertwined. There are thematic and stylistic lines that can be drawn between Blossoms Under Somewhere and Four Sisters, and between The Black Rose and 1993’s The Heroic Trio. Cinema, as a self-perpetuating form, mines its legacy by design in order to progress. “After watching a film I thought, ‘If I’m art director I’d do this or that, the lighting should be like so.’ So on [Better Together] we had to decide what to keep and what to recreate to make it more engaging,” admits Cheung. “But it’s how you find the new.” Ultimately, Ng hopes to educate visitors to the HKFA exhibition and Chan wants anyone venturing into Tai Kwun to come away empowered by the concept of mutual trust and support as the key to a brighter future. Ideally, it will make some of them want to make a film.

Better Together – Partnering Up for Hong Kong Movies runs through 4 October 2026 at Tai Kwun. More info here.

Hong Kong Film Archive Stories: Treasure Hunting for 25 years runs through 29 March 2027 at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. More info here.