Hong Kong: The misunderstanding

Since a few years, the increase of video releases of hong kong movies, with sometimes a release on the screens, or the success of hong kong artists in Hollywood have made a new public discover the cinema of Hong Kong. The reactions are often mitigated. If the new prestige of this cinema moderates the judgements, the reserves remain numerous, one can easily see it with the reading of the reviews that appear in general practitioner or specialized press. In addtion to the usual criticisms on the difficulty of the neophyte who can't recognize the chinese actor or on the modesty of means (opposed to US movies), the people which discover the cinema of Hong Kong don't take it seriously, their attitude being quickly amused or scornful, even with its more successful movies. Beyond qualities or defects of films, there is a strangeness in this cinema which causes the rejection, the neophyte being disorientated by a cinematographic step which differs from the usual west step .

Cinematographic practices

In Titanic, James Cameron used a true shipwreck to direct the love story of two fiction characters. Told by an old woman, the history was initially taken with a certain scepticism. During a part of the film, it was even possible for the spectator to doubt, until the moment where the old woman threw to sea the famous diamond searched by the explorers. Thus, the director authenticated his history. What could be seen by the spectator was "True" , because the diamond was an irrefutable proof. This appropriation of the historical reality is the symbol of the step still used in the west cinema. Whereas the two lovers never existed, all were made to make them true. And for more effectiveness, the director used big budget to reconstitute the boat and the age. Decorations, clothing, special effects, all were made to obtain a perfect illusion.

Even if a few directors think that it's very difficult to represent accurately the reality, in a simple way in Hollywood or in a more elaborate way in what the critics call the "author movies", the west cinema confront himself with reality to withdraw truth. And even in the films which seem to move away from a realistic model like films with lot of special effects, the director always searches to be credible. In Jurassic Park, when the guests arrived in the future entertainment park, they were invited to see a small documentary which explain them how the scientist would give life to dinosaurs. Whatever the relevance of the made remarks, it is interesting to note that the director had to answer the question " how is it possible ? ". The nearly scientific speech offered to the director an assumption which enables him to direct a fantastic film that seemed to be credible for most of the spectators.

It would be too long to analyze here in detail how is represented reality in the west cinema while bringing all the nuances necessary to such complex question. Nevertheless one can advance that the west spectator used to see movies that try for most of them to remain realistic or credible.

Artificial killers

In the magazine Cinema chez soi N°4, one can read a review of The Killer " One should prefer Hard Boiled in its filmography because the violence, too artificial here, isn't credible ". The author of this review reproach to John Woo the excess of its cinema, excess that prevents the movie to be realistic. This analysis of the film is based on the cinematographic practices of the Westerners, on this waiting to see on the screen a credible and probable reality. One must first wonder whether the director wanted to adopt this step ? A fews minutes are enough to realize that in The Killer the idea of probability is so regularly transgressed that it is not possible any more to regard it as a principle on which the film would be based. Not to go too far in the analysis of this film, there are many things to say on the numerous distorsions made to realism, let us stop simply on the famous scene of the church.

The reality doesn't exist any more in this scene. The heroes as their enemies indeed have a impressive number of weapons. However in reality guns were rare in Hong Kong, the conflicts being regulated most of the time with white weapons and more precisely with machetes. In the same order of idea, the astronomical number of attackers who enter the church and who die isn't credible in the real world. Many more surprising than these exaggerations which could be there only to ensure the spectacle, are the moments when the characters speak each other whereas they should be exposed to bullets. It is as if time was suspended, stopping the confrontation which restart only at the end of the discussion. These moments are inconceivable from a realistic point of view, or it would be necessary that the director arranges the situation in a way that the characters can speak safe. Moreover the characters can move in a strange way by making impressive jumps, like Jeff for example, who is propelled on the back using the retreat of his weapons. It is quite simple, any reconstitution of the scene is impossible, this slaughter exists only thanks to cinematographic processes which build a space-time specific to the film.

Last disconcerting point for the followers of realism, there are the wounds of the characters. If the bad guys fall like flies, the heroes can support tens of shots, be raised and stay alive. It is not so much the physical state which determines the death of a character but the moment chosen by the director. If in west films, it is necessary to make coincide these two needs to be credible, in The Killer, John Woo doesn't mind. The most outstanding example is without any doubt the great bad guy, the boss of the syndicate. Struck, wounded, knocked, he seems puncture- proof. When the heroes send him a cartridges belt which explode near him, he is in a true fireworks which should tear his flesh to pieces ! but he's alive without any wound, protected by a bulletproof jacket

These remarks on the final scene of The Killer show how the question of realism and probability isn't a concern of John Woo. He directs his movies, using his own rules. Even if the polars(dark gangsters movie) take place in Hong Kong, even if some directors, like Ringo Lam or Kirk Wong for example, try to remain realistic, John Woo is not the only one to use already described processes. Outbiddind and ultra violence are one of the trademarks which made the reputation of the polars made in hong kong. However these two practical leads films to go regularly far beyond the reality.

Flying knights

More than the polar, the martial arts movies characterize well better the cinema of Hong Kong. Assistant of the director Chang Cheh, John Woo wanted to transpose the universe of Wu Xia Pian (sword movies) in a nowdays gansters movie. Most of the transgressions used in the hong kong detective films come from this transposition, but the martial arts movies remain more distant from the reality.

Directing two clans blocked in an inn lost in a desert, the dragon inn, could have been an inner fight as one can see in west films. However, during the fights, the combattants start to fly and a cook is able to move into the ground ! These scenes don't belong to our reality, but to another where gravity and sand don't block any more the movements of the characters. What is attractive is that the kind never codified a single representation of the transgressions of the reality which would legitimate this type of processes. Each time the spectator is invited to enter a new universe having his own rules. In La rage du tigre, the warriors will be able to make jumps of a few meters, in a film such as the dragon inn they can fly, in Swordsman the movements of kung fu would have a mega destruction power. In addtion to this these transgressions of reality are not only done apart from any convention, but they are rarely justified. The west cinema must be unceasingly explained as soon as it wants to go beyond reality, the cinema of Hong Kong invites its spectators to enter a universe which they should adhere without put any question. In the dragon inn, the origin of the super capacities of some characters aren't justified any more. It is thus and it is all. From some point of view this kind of approach is very modern since the cinematographic illusion is not gummed. On the contrary, it is assumed and even amplified by all these plays with reality.

This absence of realistic will explains why the hong kong directors are not afraid to direct insane ideas even if they don't have sufficient means to make them credible. In similar situation, the west directors give up or bypass as it was for example the case for Jacques Tourneur who didn't have financial means to transform his heroin into panther in Cat People. He bypassed the problem by suggesting what he did not have the possibility to do. Apart from any realistic concern, the hong kong directors do not have this kind of scruples. For them, it is always the idea which prevails on its technical feasibility. It does not matter the result since the searched effect is on the screen. Even if the special effects of a Green Snake are completely missed, the director gave the idea of a impressive fight where two woman snakes wanted to drown an island protected by a buddhist monk who raised it in the air using a ribbon of tissue ?!?

Non-sensical comedy

This idea of cinema have contaminated all the kinds, giving the directors the freedom to play with the reality, to project on screen unreal worlds where everything are possible, and obviously the more insane delirious. The comedy didn't escaped from this idea, and a specific kind even appeared to indicate a type of comedy made with completely unslung form and subjects : the " Mo Lai To ". The comedy is undoubtedly the more criticized kind in Hong Kong. It should be said that chinese humour is not very subtle. However one too often confuses this humour with the non-sensical comedy. Even if generally these two ingredients form part of the comedies, they are far from being synonymous.

The non-sensical comedy is a refusal of the sens and logic. In this type of film, all is allowed, any rules of reality doesn't prevent a spectacle to become completely surrealist. Radical ruptures of tone, gags from the animated drawings of Tex Avery, inconsistencies, incongruous mixtures of various styles, famous film parodies, all is made to plunge the spectator in a delirious universe. In total freedom, these films can even play with the cinematographic processes, breaking cinematographic conventions once more. Thus in Fight Back To School 3, a scene play on the shot and the out of shot to produce a comic effect, or in Out Of The Dark, Chow Sing Chi is saying to an officer to turn off his radio, which stop distressing music on which is based the suspense of the scene.

Associating madness and humour, the non-sensical comedy could be the best illustration of this step very used in the cinema of Hong Kong which consist to build, by the means of cinema, a world governed by its own rules. Unfortunately the commercial requirements, the vulgarity of hong kong humour and the difficulty of maintain the rhythm are such that any masterpiece isn't born. Nevertheless, the popular success of the non- sensical comedies shows that Hong Kong people have an extremely ludic relation with the cinema, relation that authorizes sometimes the worst overflows, but proposes a particularly amusing spectacle.

In the contrary of the cinema of the reality which is made mainly by the west, most of the hong kong directors develop an other project which it is necessary to appreciate and judge according to the principles on which it is based. And this project can allure people cause it gives to the cinema some values as the sens of the spectacle, amazement, pleasure and dream... One doesn't believe that the cinema would be completely disconnected from the concerns of the everyday life. When films are made by good directors, these concerns are tackled, but otherwise, in particular through the symbolic and metaphorical approaches. If you wanna appreciate the cinema of Hong Kong, you have to see it using an another way, different from the usual west way. It is the price to pay.

---

This article has just tried to define what one can name the hong kong irrealism. Here is a selection of some films, to illustrate the concept:

Zu, les guerriers de la montagne magique
Director : Tsui Hark. Actors : Yuen Bio, Sammo Hung, Adam Cheng, Brigitte Lin. Release : 1983.
An mixture of Wu Xia Pian and marvellous tale, ZU contains many transgressions of the reality which have been used by many films of Hong Kong since: flying knights, super capacities, devils, combat in weightlessness... From this point of view the movie is a true enchantement. Moreover it is not only a big spectacle. Tsui Hark keeps his distance with the Manicheism of a scenario based on the eternal opposition between the good and the evil, ironic but also tender distance which brings a saving freshness to a project suffering from a badly controlled scenario.

The Killer
Director : John Woo. Actors : Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee. Release : 1989
Far from a description of the everyday life of the criminals, John Woo creates his own universe. His heroes are supermen fighting themselves in titanic combats within a city as unreal as film sets. And if in this context, the director doesn't seek the credibility, that does not prevent him it from introduce a very interesting vision of the characters captive of the laws of their mediums, running away via violence, from a destiny which will catch them again. They reach a tragic dimension which is maybe more explicit than a more realistic movie.

Out Of The Dark
Director : Jeff Lau. Actors : Stephen Chow, Karen Mok, Wong Yat-fei. Release : 1994
Forsaking the comedies about games and the comedies in costumes, Stephen Chow make with Jeff Lau a strange film which one could name fantastic non-sensical comedy. The story : a building is haunted by an old woman who makes disappear her grandson. Police is fortunately helped by Leon, an odd character, specialist in the occult things. The director plays then with his spectators by multiplying the effects of surprise. He systematically reverses the logic of the situations. Thus Leon is actually insane, the asylum where he lives, a place which shelters intellectual and artists and the police, some feeble people sometimes even robber... The most incongruous ideas exist, Leon is helped by a flower that is able to detect ghosts, and paper caps make people to fly. It is really a tasty and surrealist film, an intelligent fable which obliges spectators to believe in the magic of the cinema without being easily deceived by cinematographic illusions. If one adheres to this project, one can believe that on the screen, paper caps make fly, but if you don't believe in it, you will finish like the man of law, at the end of the film, which, pushed by two police officers, crushes to the ground. He haven't the faith, says a police officer.

Love In The Time Of Twilight
Director : Tsui Hark. Actors : Nicky Wu, Charlie Young, Eric Kot. Release : 1995
Tsui Hark is without any doubt the director of the irrealism whose this film is one of the best example. It is about a love story which would repeat several times by the means of returns in the past, until the day where finally the young people fall in love. Incredible story in the reality thus, but which offers a true glance on the human relations, made of failures that a change of point of view can make very different. In this movie Tsui Hark can realize the most insane ideas like the travel through time using electrical current, or people who burst literally out laughing... Tsui Hark also recall to spectators that they're in a cinema room. Thus the introduction of the movie reminds the animated drawings of Warner, an actor speaks with an invisible being whose name is Tsui Hark. And that is what want Tsui Hark, win the spectator's approval, even by the only magic of cinema.

Storm Riders
Director : Andrew Lau. Actors : Aaron Kwok, Dior Cheng, Sonny Chiba. Release : 1998
Far from being a masterpiece, this movie has the merit to make the Hong Kong cinema spirit reborn, whereas the American productions seem to have definitively invaded the screens of the colony. Since Zu, nothing basically changed on the principle, the innovation comes here from the use of the graphic data processing and the blue screen. These new technologies make possible the production of fights with luminous balls, a dragon of fire or always more gracious takes-off. One doesn't believe that the hong kong irrealism is dead, because of the US methods of production. On the contrary, these special effects are integrated to a stylised production, cut out like a manga, without any geographical or temporal anchorage . Unfortunately the amount of special effects, instead of increase the spectacular dimension of movie, limits actually the intensity of the fights which are often summarized to a profusion of luminous flashes, the weakest fighter being defeated very quickly. In addtion to this, the scenario isn't very original and the moments which are supposed to be the best, aren't very amazing, Storm riders isn't a revolution. What a shame because the production is very neat, the costumes and the decorations are splendid. It should be noted that this success wasn't followed by the usual commercial exploitation. A sign of times

 

Laurent HENRY.

(Marsh-April 1999)