Hong Kong cinema began to gain popularity in the United States in the 1970s primarily through the English dubbed-versions of kung fu films. Before that time, kung fu films appealed only to a relatively small audience of martial arts fans and Chinatown immigrants, who managed to provide a stable market for these inexpensive films. Even though by 1979 the genres of kung fu (and wuxia)1 had been largely replaced by comedy in Hong Kong, they continued to be the Hong Kong cinema best known to the general audience of the United States up to this date.

BESIDES FISTS AND BLOOD: MICHAEL HUI
AND CANTONESE COMEDY

Jenny Kwok Wah Lau

THE IMAGE OF HONG KONG CINEMA IN THE UNITED STATES

Hong Kong cinema began to gain popularity in the United States in the 1970s
primarily through the English dubbed-versions of kung fu films. Before that
time, kung fu films appealed only to a relatively small audience of martial
arts fans and Chinatown immigrants, who managed to provide a stable market
for these inexpensive films. Even though by 1979 the genres of kung fu (and
wuxia)1 had been largely replaced by comedy in Hong Kong, they continued
to be the Hong Kong cinema best known to the general audience of the United
States up to this date.

During the early 1980s, several film festivals in the West, including the
Edinburgh Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, discovered a few
interesting films from Hong Kong. In 1982, Boat People (directed by Ann
Hui), which was already a box-office hit in Hong Kong, was screened at the
New York Film Festival and elicited unusual attention from critics for its
(perceived) political content and its production quality.2 The film is the story
of a Japanese journalist’s unsuccessful attempt to rescue a South Vietnamese
Chinese woman on the eve of the Communist takeover of South Vietnam. By
taking on a wartime melodrama, the film exhibited a non-kung fu version of
Hong Kong cinema that was unfamiliar to Western spectators.

Subsequent to the “discovery” of director Ann Hui (and director Allen
Fong in Edinburgh through his work Father and Son), critics suddenly rec-
ognized a Hong Kong cinema quite distinct from their earlier impression, one
which its local critics have named the Hong Kong New Wave since 1979. In
the years that followed, early New Wave films, characterized by modern
techniques and social realism, such as The Secret (Ann Hui, 1979), The Story
of Woo Viet (Ann Hui, 1981), Father and Son (Allen Fong, 1981), Ah Ying
(Allen Fong, 1982), Nomad (Patrick Tarn, 1982), Last Affair (Tony Au, 1983),
and Home Coming (Yim Ho, 1984), became fixtures of the festival/center
circuits in the United States.

158

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

MICHAEL HUI AND CANTONESE COMEDY 159

Almost all of the New Wave directors learned their basic craft in the West.
Their ease with modern production equipment and their interest in modern
special effects (versus traditional special effects) created such innovative films
as Butterfly Murders (Tsui Hark, 1979), The Sword (Patrick Tarn, 1980), and
Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain (Tsui Hark, 1981). On the whole, the
works of New Wave directors were more sophisticated with mise-en-scene
and visual effects. The result can be seen in areas as simple as lighting, color,
the use of visual motifs, composition, and editing, or as complex as “high-
tech” postproduction manipulation, of which Zu is the best example. In fact,
art direction, a position that organizes the overall visual impact of a film,
gained importance in the New Wave. (This position, which sometimes enjoys
a full screen credit, had been practiced in the West for a number of years by
then.)

Another significant aspect of the New Wave films is their realignment of
the Hong Kong cinema with its older tradition of social realism – that cinema
is not about glamorized fictions made up of stereotypical characters but the
concrete retelling of real-life experiences and a reinterpretation of the meaning
of such experiences. A few examples of some of the earliest New Wave films
best illustrate the point. The Secret, a. film that was more appreciated than
Boat People by both its director, Ann Hui, and the local critics of the time, is
a social drama based in part on a local news story. It deals with the taboo
issue of premarital pregnancy and how society forces a pregnant woman into
insanity; she then ends up brutally killing the father of her child. Up until that
point, with the exception of director Michael Hui, such candid social realism
was rare in the cinema of Hong Kong.

Another New Wave film, Man on the Brink (1981), by Alex Cheung Kwok
Ming, was an unusually honest portrayal of the life of an undercover cop.
Unlike most cop movies, the film neither entertains by cliche chase scenes
nor glorifies male chauvinism. The drama of having to live two lives, which
results in serious misunderstanding even by one’s family, was later taken up
by Jackie Chan in his much glamorized Police Story (1985).

The quintessential New Wave film, Father and Son, is a nostalgic bio-
graphical reflection on growing up in the 1960s in one of the government-
built, low-income residential areas of Hong Kong. The highly congested
buildings, each consisting of seven to eight stories, provide only basic accom-
modation, with no elevators to aid the elderly or the disabled. The film begins
with a slow crane up from the outside of one of these buildings and cuts to
the protagonist’s father gasping for air as he climbs the stairs. At the end of
the film, the father dies of a heart attack while climbing the same set of stairs.
This social space of poverty, which was rarely shown on the screen during
the 1970s became a key motif of the film, which succinctly portrays the
hardship suffered by a working-class family and the conflict between a father
and son. The father’s dream is to send his son to study abroad. This works

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

160 JENNY LAU

against the son’s wish to be a local filmmaker, a career not appreciated in a
traditional family. Unlike earlier cinema, which romanticized intergenerational
conflicts, Father and Son reflects on the reality of the pain caused by tradi-
tional filial piety and affirms the rebellious nature of the younger generations.

Indeed, the greatest achievement of the Hong Kong New Wave lay in its
resurrecting realism on a screen that had been dominated by fantasy images
of rich mansions, parties, beautiful women, and handsome men. It was also a
cinema that did not build on the star and genre system that had permeated the
industry for decades.3 Although the New Wave created works such as Butter-
fly and Zu, which belong to the kung fu/wuxia genre, it also showed the West,
at least for a while, that there was more to Hong Kong cinema than action
dramas.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how one perceives it), after
the mid-1980s the Hong Kong New Wave was basically absorbed into the
commercial studio system. Soon a so-called Second Wave appeared. During
the 1980s and early 1990s directors such as Mabel Cheung (An Illegal Immi-
grant, 1985; An Autumn’s Tale, 1987; Eight Tales of Gold, 1989), Clara
(The Reincarnation of the Golden Lotus, 1989; Autumn Moon, 1991; Tempta-
tion of a Monk, 1993), Stanley Kwan (Love unto Waste, 1986; Rouge, 1988,
The Actress, or Center Stage, 1991; Red Rose White Rose, 1994), rence
Ah Mon (Gangs, 1988; Queen of Temple Street, 1990), and Wong Kar-wai
(As Tears Go By, 1988; Days of Being Wild, 1990; Ashes of Time, 1994;
Chungking Express, 1994) were part of a slightly younger group that inherited
the New Wave’s technological competence as well as some of its social
sensitivity. Most of these directors (together with some First Wave directors)
were quite successful working within the commercial confines of the studio/
star system while still being able to impart some creative personal elements
into their films. Although their works are, by comparison, neither as daring
nor as idiosyncratic as the New Wave films (with the notable exception of
Wong Kar-wai), they constituted a significant aspect of the non-action-
oriented contemporary Hong Kong cinema. Some of their films succeeded in
reaching a broader U.S. audience beyond museums and festivals, generating
critical interest.4

Yet the burgeoning new U.S. perception of Hong Kong cinema was quickly
eclipsed by the publicity needs of both the festival circuits and the commercial
distributors. As might be expected, kung fu superstars (actors and/or directors)
provided an easier selling point in the West. Examples are Jackie Chan (Police
Story), Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time in China and its sequels), and John
Woo (A Better Tomorrow, 1986, and its sequels). Most of these artists were
introduced to the United States during the late 1980s by film magazines and
by appearing as guests in film festivals and at centers as part of the Hong
Kong New Wave. Some of their films were soon taken up by major commer-
cial distributors.5 The “New Wave” label served publicity needs but with the

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

MICHAEL HUI AND CANTONESE COMEDY 161

exception of Tsui Hark, few of these artists, including Jackie Chan and John
Woo, could be considered as part of the New Wave per se. Being established
showmen in the business even before the New Wave, their clever incorpora-
tion of the young production talents in the 1980s benefited both sides, by
providing more modern visuals for the former and production opportunities
for the latter. By the time the Second Wave arrived (roughly in 1984 with
Mabel Cheung’s Illegal Immigrants) John Woo, who was an assistant director
for the old-time famous kung fu director Chang Che and who had directed a
few comedies on his own, was considered a veteran director of the old cinema.
But in 1985 he regained recognition through his now-renowned work A Better
Tomorrow, which was more a product of the studio and star system, albeit a
good one, than of the New Wave.

Although some of the Second Wave non-kung fu directors such as Wong
Kar-wai and Stanley Kwan were also taken up by commercial distributors,
the majority of the U.S. releases of Hong Kong films were more of the Jackie
Chan or John Woo type.6 Obviously, the strategy of these distributors was to
capitalize on the preexisting kung fu image of Hong Kong cinema and further
expand the market to include the art film audience, which previously gener-
ated by the Hong Kong New Wave. The publicity for these films usually took
on a more “artsy” tone compared to the low-profile, “cheap” image of the
1970s kung fu movies.

Soon the reports on Hong Kong cinema were loaded with descriptions of
“its hyper energy,” “its poetics of violence,” and “its vengeance.”7 Big-
budget publicity campaigns for such films as The Killer and Bullet in the
Head drew attention away from the Second Wave non-action-oriented films,
although the latter are still shown in film festivals and centers to this day. In
exaggerating the blood and violence from Hong Kong, U.S. commercial
distributors have managed to pigeonhole the cinema of Hong Kong back into
its preconceived kung fu corner, only this time it was further mystified by
some “high taste” rhetoric.8

To fixate on the violence of kung fu or its modern weaponized mutation
yields a far from complete picture of the very creative and the most dramatic
era of the cinema of Hong Kong – that of the 1980s. In fact, the excessive
violence found in some films that the West now so savors9 is not always the
most attractive element for the local audience. Even the film A Better Tomor-
row (a more accurate translation would be Essence of a Hero), which sold
extremely well in both Hong Kong and the United States and launched Woo’s
career in Hollywood, was complimented by local critics not so much for its
blood and fists but for its revival of the spirit of wuxia, its transformation (or
“weaponization,” a term used by local critics) of wuxia action into gun-
fights,10 and its modernization of the romantic wuxia hero. The film fits well
with Woo’s experience in making wuxia films. Among the subsequent large
number of films that imitated the action of the “brother-hero” genre (of

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

162 JENNY LAU

which A Better Tomorrow is the prototype) only a few were box-office
successes. In fact, the genre died a quick death. By the time A Better Tomor-
row III (1989) appeared in the local market, the attraction of action movies
had slipped considerably. Only Jackie Chan’s Miracle was among the top five
best sellers of the year. Both A Better Tomorrow III and The Killer were
considered box-office flops.11 The local cinema of Hong Kong had been
recaptured by comedy, a genre that has dominated Hong Kong cinema for
most of the 1980s and the 1990s.

The U.S. translation of Essence of a Hero into A Better Tomorrow draws
audience attention to the Hong Kong 1997 issue, which is an obviously good
selling point in the West. Unfortunately, to some critics the merits of the film
were then largely attributed to its metaphorical interpretation of the 1997
Hong Kong annexation to China.12 This “1997 reading” for every contem-
porary film coming from Hong Kong ran the risk of reducing the understand-
ing of Hong Kong culture in general, and film in particular, to the narrow
spheres of economics and politics. Unquestionably, the 1997 issue is one of
the strongest factors shaping the current life of Hong Kong. Yet the cultural
tradition of Hong Kong extends well beyond the Sino-British Joint Declara-
tion (1984) and the Western recognition of the imminence of the 1997 project.
Reductionistic reading of the cinema neglects the tradition of the local (Can-
tonese) cinema, which has always been vibrant and dynamic in addressing
multifaceted interests and concerns of daily life.

Worse still, some critics, somewhat condescendingly and without looking
deeply into the history of local popular cinema, simplistically linked 1997
with the success of Hong Kong cinema (of the 1980s) and claimed that
because of the former the latter had “awakened” and finally found itself
(Hong Kong) as a “subject” (and hence was making itself more interesting).
Such a generalization of the 1997 effects on Hong Kong cinema tends to erase
the concrete details of cultural experiences and covers up the complex social
and psychological realities of life in Hong Kong in the early 1980s, a life
which, though overshadowed by the two-headed monster of colonialism and
“China-ism,” was still capable, in certain instances, of reconnecting itself.
As mentioned earlier, the contribution of the New Wave was indeed to
reestablish (the temporarily Mandarin-dominated) local Hong Kong as its
subject within the cinematic discourse through its portrayal of poverty, social
prejudice, modernization, and other issues. Because this happened in 1979, it
was at least three years before 1997 became an issue.13 It is only fair to say
that after 1982, 1997 became one (but not the only) issue in some (but not
all) of the best films coming out of Hong Kong.

In the past, it may have been true that Hong Kong was marginalized by
some China-centered and/or Eurocentric cultural scholars who were engaged
in literature, fine arts, or other “high-art” circles. To them, Hong Kong was
a cultural desert, which implied that Hong Kong had no culture of its own.

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

MICHAEL HUI AND CANTONESE COMEDY 163

The high or proper culture of Hong Kong was but a weak extension of
mainland China culture and/or Britain, and the indigenous culture, if there
was any, was of low level and even base. These scholars tended to link such
a “lack of culture” to Hong Kong’s detachment from its root (i.e., mainland
China) and related its baseness to its commercialism.14 It was not uncommon,
then, that many cultural elites hardly watched or wrote about local films.
In fact, some of them attended only European films screened in Studio One,
a “high taste” film club in Hong Kong. But in the popular art of movie-
making itself, for which the audience was mostly made up of the middle and
lower classes, elitist arrogance was not prevalent. Many of the popular films
of the 1950s and 1960s, including those that featured the Cantonese super-
stars Cheung Ying (Zhang Ying) and Ng Chor-fan (Wu Chufan), were quite
Hong Kong conscious, although some of them did not fail to be escapist.15
Another prime example is Chor Yuen’s The House of 72 Tenants (1973), a
definitive work of Cantonese social satire. Obviously, this part of popular
culture history is easily left out of elitist historiography because it is the
domain in which, using Ranajit Guha’s terms, “the principal actors are the
subaltern classes.”16

In hindsight, it is not surprising that the New Wave directors (First or
Second) were Hong Kong-centered even though their technical training was
mostly Western. Most of the directors of the New Wave were born and raised
in Hong Kong in contrast to their parents’ midlife immigration from mainland
China. By the time they began their careers in local TV in the 1970s the
industry had turned completely to Hong Kong for its programming. Major
prime-time programs included variety shows such as Happiness Tonight and
serial dramas such as Family Change, Tears of a Crocodile, and Heavenly
Silkworm. All of these programs were focused on issues directly related to
Hong Kong. It is therefore not accidental that these directors, after switching
to film production, also identified Hong Kong as the center of their subject.

Whether there is a 1997 issue or not, China has always been a factor in
Hong Kong cinema for obvious historical and geographical reasons.17 Never-
theless, the 1997 consciousness did further sensitize China-related issues in a
large number of films made between 1982 and 1986. Furthermore, ever since
mainland China opened itself up in 1979, the commercial and cultural
exchange between the PRC and Hong Kong made a more open discourse
possible. Films that were considered politically sensitive and were censored
by the colonial government in the past, such as The Last Winter in Beijing
and China Behind, were rereleased. Even icons that were prohibited, such as
the flags of communist and nationalist China, were permitted to be shown on
the big screen. The reopening of China to the rest of the world, including
Britain, prompted certain regulatory changes that facilitated the curiosity of
the younger generation, most of whom had long been fascinated by their
parents’ China stories, real or imaginary.

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

164 JENNY LAU

Some frequently cited ” 1 9 9 7 ” films such as Stanley Kwan’s Rouge and
Center Stage are good examples of works that mix history and imagination
into the relationship between China, Hong Kong, the past, and the present.
According to the director himself, the inspiration for these films came from
his own childhood experience with his Shanghai family. He had always
wanted to seek out the relationship between the two places, one of which is
real and concrete, whereas the other seems fascinating but elusive. By not
reducing the films to a simplistic 1997 political metaphor, one can better
comprehend how they portray the contradictions involved in having to live
through a history of dislocation and relocation, rejection and identification,
and other particular aspects of an exile/colonial culture.

Despite the many social and political changes of the 1980s, three clear
lines of development can still be delineated: comedy, kung fu or martial arts,
and social drama. While none ever disappeared completely, each had its own
period of prominence. Comedy was most popular from 1980 to 1984 and
again from 1988 to 1993. Even during its decline between 1985 and 1987, the
comic element never totally disappeared. Thus vampire comedies, kung fu
comedies, detective comedies, and others rampaged the markets of both Hong
Kong and Taiwan. Along with comedy were the ever-present genres of mod-
ern martial arts films (climaxing in 1985 with A Better Tomorrow) and the
social dramas of the New Wave. Currently, the martial arts and the art films
are popular in the United States, with the former leading the commercial front,
leaving behind the most dominant genre of comedy, a genre which generated
nine out of the top ten best sellers of the past two decades.18

It is not difficult to understand why the West has ignored comedy in the
cinema of Hong Kong. First, as discussed in Comedy/Cinema/Theory, the
genre of comedy has traditionally not received much attention or respect in
the cultural history of the West (or in that of the East for that matter).19
Second, the analysis of comedy is exceptionally difficult because the recog-
nition of humor depends heavily upon the understanding of the complex
dynamics involved in the interaction of the symbolics, such as gestures, icons,
linguistics, and so on, which are defined by their own social and cultural
traditions. The difficulty is especially pronounced in the scrutiny of social or
political comedy, which depends on a fairly specific contextual relationship
between the text and the viewer and whose unfinalizing game-like form calls
for what deconstructionists describe as ” a state of conspiratorial irony.” That
is, a comic moment is appreciated when the audience recognizes that it could
or should be “read against the grain.”

Finally, the reading of Hong Kong comedy is further complicated by its
heavy dependence on Cantonese dialogical gags. Although comedies of the
1980s tended to stage the chase scenes, fights, sex, and slapstick action
common in Western films, whimsical slang and even nonsense verse and puns

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

MICHAEL HUI AND CANTONESE COMEDY 165

still remained major ingredients of the humor. At times they tended to be
bizarre or even ridiculous. Popular examples included Wrong Kind of Love
(1983) by Cheung Kin Ting, Aces Go Places (1984) by Tsui Hark, and My
Lucky Stars (1985) by Samo Hung. Yet if one agrees with Jameson that any
general theory of the modern – assuming one to be possible in the first place –
would have to register the informing presence of, among others, sign systems
and mass culture, of which popular cinema is a major point of convergence,20
then comedy, as an extremely contextualized text and the most popular form
of cinematic entertainment, provides a significant entry point for the consid-
eration of the culture of modern Hong Kong.

SOME HISTORY

To appreciate the central role of comedy in Hong Kong cinema one should
trace its history back to its initial phase of industrialization. This major step,
which established Hong Kong as an important film producing city, did not
begin until 1949-50, when the refugee waves coming from mainland China
brought an influx of artists and film entrepreneurs to the island. These immi-
grants, who fled the Chinese communist government, were from northern
China and for the most part spoke Mandarin. Soon a fierce competition broke
out between Mandarin films produced by the newcomers and Cantonese films
made by the locals.

While melodrama and detective fictions were popular genres for both
groups, the dream factory of the Mandarin camp excelled in producing Hol-
lywood imitations of historical epics and musicals, while the Cantonese camp
specialized in martial arts films, which featured popular folk heroes such as
Wong Fei-hung’s well-known series (modernized in Tsui Hark’s Once Upon
a Time in China) and social satire, which depicted the suffering of the lower
classes.21

From 1950 to 1970, three thousand Cantonese films were made and shown
in Hong Kong. Out of this corpus, about 750 films (about 25 percent) were
comedy, indicating a steady local preference for jokes and laughter.22 How-
ever, when the big-budget Mandarin films carrying extravagant Hollywood
glitziness began to gain the upper hand in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the
smaller local (Cantonese) cinema deteriorated until it literally ceased produc-
tion in 1972. Mandarin films were dominant for much of the 1970s.

But miracles do happen sometimes. In 1974, Games Gamblers Play, a
Cantonese comedy scripted, acted, and directed by the now well-known
“master of modern Cantonese Comedy,” Michael Hui, who then was a
popular TV talent, drew a huge audience. The film was the top box office hit
of the year, grossing three times as much as its runner-up. Hui’s next four
films, The Last Message (1975), The Private Eyes (1976), The Contract

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

166 JENNY LAU

(1978), and Modern Security Guard {Modern Bo-Biu, 1981), continued to top
the box office. Cantonese/local films had finally made their way back via one
of their best traditions – social comedy.

MICHAEL HUI – MASTER OF CANTONESE COMEDY

Michael Hui grew up in one of the government-built, low-income residential
areas of Hong Kong. As a graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong,
he had an unusually outstanding educational background in the world of show
business before the 1970s. His major in sociology would soon be reflected in
his social satirical films. Hui started his career in local television as a cohost
with his brother in a highly successful game/talk show. Between 1972 and
1974 he starred in four films directed by the then major director Li Han
Hsiang (Li Hanxiang). In 1974 he made his writer-director debut with Games
Gamblers Play. The rest is history.

As Hong Kong film critic Kar has pointed out, “Michael Hui is to
Comedy what Bruce Lee is to the Martial Arts: they both reign supreme.”23
Yet the latter was a catch name in the West, and the former is still almost
unknown. Between 1974 and 1992, Michael Hui scripted and acted in fourteen
films, half of which he also directed. It is clear that by occupying key positions
in production Hui had the luxury of almost total control of his films. He was
one of the few auteurs who not only survived but prospered even in the
cutthroat commercial setting of Hong Kong cinema. Unlike many directors of
his generation who turned cinema into an unsuccessful dream factory, Hui
managed to be consistent in enriching his films with social messages. Some
of these films have been quite successful, such as The Private Eyes, the story
of a private detective; The Contract, the struggle of a minor TV talent to
advance his career; Modern Security Guards, which satirizes an egotistical
security worker; Teppanyaki (1984), a food-fixated sex comedy; Chicken and
Duck Talk (1988), which details a competition between a traditional roast
duck restaurant and a Western fast-food store; Mr. Coconut (1989), which is
about a mainland Chinese rural bumpkin’s visit to his metropolitan Hong
Kong city relatives; Front Page (1990), a satire on yellow journalism; and
Magic Touch (1992), a critique on superstition. Others have not been as
successful, such as Happy Ding Dong (1985), a Hong Kong version of Some
Like It Hot.

Hui’s success in combining entertainment with local social concern was
also a factor that indirectly ushered in the Hong Kong New Wave (1979-84).
Between 1978 and 1979, the Hong Kong film industry suffered from both an
internal creative block and the popularization of television. It seemed that the
cinema could no longer attract an audience even with sex or violence. While
the studios were desperate to find some kind of solution, Hui’s outstanding
success in tackling social issues obviously challenged the dream factory’s

, 6 C6 B 7 DB6 2 2: 23 6 2C 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 C6 B 9CC B : 8 , /
2 6 7 9CC B 2 3 : 86 8 6 1,0 1 : 6 B:C 7 ,2 :7 :2 02 :68 .2 2C BD3 6 C C C96 ,2 3 : 86

MICHAEL HUI AND CANTONESE COMEDY 167

escapism. It seemed that, at least for once, investors and theater exhibitors
were convinced by Hui’s films that social realism and money making could
sometimes go together. With the financial boom of the late 1970s and early
1980s, some investors began to take advantage of the crisis in the movie
industry. Instead of depending on established directors to grind out new films,
which had proven to be of little success, money was given to a group of
young directors whose films would be different from those of the past. Be-
tween 1979 and 1980 about thirty to forty directors made their debuts. A New
Wave was born.

The old Cantonese cinema had died out partly because it lacked a new
perspective on the changing society of Hong Kong, but Hui succeeded exactly
where the old approach failed. His sensitivity in capturing the unique transi-
tions that Hong Kong was experiencing during the 1970s provided him with
plenty of fresh material for dramas. At the same time, as local critics soon
realized, Hui was capable of retaining the strength of the Cantonese comic
cinema of the 1950s and 1960s – the comedy of the everyday man versus the
Mandarin cinema of the upper class fairyland from Shanghai. Although Hui’s
characters are strongly based on traditional Chinese social and moral norms,
his concern is with how his protagonist uses these values in interacting with
the modern environment of Hong Kong. It is Hui’s genius to be among …