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Hong Kong is a small place. So how come its films have done so well around the world? Movies produced in Hong Kong were distributed across Asia by Shaw Brothers studios, and found international success during the 1970s, and again in the 1990s. “Our kung fu films can’t be made by foreigners,” super-producer Ng See-yuen told the Hong Kong Film Archive in 1999.

“The Americans can’t make these films, even though the younger generations there like them.” Today, after a lull that started in the 2000s, there is renewed global interest in Hong Kong films from both past and present. We look beyond their dangerous stunts, innovative action sequences and major stars to discover why Hong Kong films have often travelled so well.



The main reason for the success of Hong Kong cinema is because of the industry’s highly entertaining films, wrote David Bordwell in the 2000 edition of his book . “How did this tiny cinema [industry] become so successful? Some answers lie in history and culture, but many others are found in the films themselves,” he wrote. “Hong Kong’s film industry offered something audiences desired.

Year in and year out, it produced dozens of fresh, lively and thrilling movies. Since the 1970s it has been arguably the world’s most energetic, imaginative popular cinema.” Hong Kong action films became an international cultural currency, film historians Law Kar and Frank Bren wrote in their book .

“The martial arts boom [of the late 1960s and early 1970.

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