From July 9th to August 27th a new Hong Kong film season is opening at The Garden Cinema in London, focused on the Golden Age.
Following last year’s Hong Kong New Wave 1979–1989 season, The Garden Cinema turns to the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema, focusing on the period from the mid-1980s to the handover year of 1997.
During this period, Hong Kong emerged as one of the world’s most prolific, dynamic and influential filmmaking centres. At its peak, Hong Kong was producing hundreds of films a year and ranked as the world’s second-largest film exporter after Hollywood. Yet the era was defined by far more than industrial scale – it was a period of extraordinary auteur diversity, star power, genre innovation and international reach.
Curated by Millie Zhou, East Asia Film Curator at The Garden Cinema, she said the golden age was chosen “Because of the quantity, quality and the diversity of that period. There were hundreds of films produced every year at that time… looking at it today, it feels both admirable and deeply nostalgic.”
The season runs across eight weeks with two guest directors, a series of academic introductions, and a public panel discussion.
It opens on 9 July with a members’ event screening of Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994) preceded by a live performance from Hong Kong-born musician Emmy the Great (Emma-Lee Moss).
Across the season, a range of films from Hong Kong’s golden age will be screened. This includes Mabel Cheung’s migration trilogy of The Illegal Immigrant (1985), An Autumn’s Tale (1987), and Eight Taels of Gold (1989). Cheung takes part in an online Q&A following The Illegal Immigrant on August 8th.
Director Stanley Kwan will join in person at the screening of Full Moon in New York (1989) on August 25th, moderated by Prof Victor Fan, and Red Rose White Rose (1994) on August 27th, moderated by critic Tony Rayns.
Other screenings include John Woo’s Once a Thief (1991), Tsui Hark’s exuberant Peking Opera Blues (1986), and Ching Siu-Tung’s A Chinese Ghost Story (1987).
Explaining some of the curatorial choices, Millie Zhou said: “I want to show the auteur side and focus on two filmmakers. One of them is Stanley Kwan. His focus is on women, but his focus on gender goes deeper than that. He himself openly identifies as gay, which was almost unheard of for his time – he was a pioneer. The other is Mabel Cheung. Her films are very relatable: they’re all ‘immigrant films’. As a first-generation immigrant myself, I am very drawn to stories of migration and displacement, as well as female perspectives and voices”
The season is supported by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, London.
If you like this article, why not read: Best Chinese Animated Movies
