This episode is sponsored by
Skillshare
If you see an 80s Hong Kong movie
You know it's either going to kickass
Or it's going to be weird AND kickass
From the 1970s to the mid-90s
Hong Kong cinema stood unparalleled on the world stage
Producing some of the most unique and awesome movies in history
But for a Chinese audience
Things are a bit more complicated than that
Yes, you are looking at an unlicensed Street Fighters movie
And Son Goku
Oh, and Mario and Luigi are in a heterosexual relationship
Look, it's complicated
Back then, Hong Kong was pumping out movies like sausages
Fast, cheap, disposable
And obviously, not all of them are good
And so, the label "Hong Kong Flicks" gained a slight negative connotation in the 80s
Often used to mean a specific subset of Hong Kong productions
Movies that put sensationalism in the forefront
From Lady Terminator meets Robocop meets Metropolis
To the bloodiest action movie ever made
To endless sequels and cinematic universes
To all sorts of taboo and sleazy subjects like cannibalism
No matter how ridiculous
As long as the gimmick sells tickets
Today, we are going to dive headfirst into this rabbit hole
And check out the overlooked and forgotten
Just how deep this rabbit hole goes?
Well, all those weird and crazy movies I just showed you
Yeah, say goodbye to them
Because I couldn't even fit them into the main body of the video
It's going to be a wild ride
So, strap in
This is the dark side of Hong Kong cinema
[SLEAZY MOVIES MADE IN HONG KONG]
[CHAPTER ONE]
With the success of the King Kong remake in 1976
Shaw Brothers Studio was quick to capitalize on its success
Just a year later, they would release their own giant ape movie
The Mighty Peking Man
Delivering kaiju action two minutes into the film
Along with a healthy dose of scantily clad blond sex appeal
Love triangle melodrama
Casual racism
Evil business tycoon
Massive destructions
And an unexpected amount of violence
Holy sh@t
This needs a remake!
Also from Shaw Brothers is Infra-Man
Hong Kong's take on the popular Japanese superhero series
Kamen Rider
The selling point is baked right into the Chinese title
Chinese Superhero
It knows it is a knock off
And it's proud of it
Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind has nothing to do with the Spielberg movie
It's about three kids who make bombs as a hobby
And find themselves embroiled in a psychopathic rampage
Yet, the title is so deliberately similar
The poster did an "Autobots"
One of the words in the title is hidden
Just so it looks even closer to Close Encounters
That is the hallmark of the Golden Age Hong Kong cinema
Exploitation cinema
Films that chase after current trends
Gimmick comes first
Story be damned
Instead of relying on star power
They get your butt on the seat through sensationalized premises
And then it just needs to fulfill your expectation to the bare minimum
Quick, and disposable
This trend-chasing is so pervasive at the time
Entire subgenres emerged from it
Such as Brucesploitation
Oh boy
These are the films that were made to capitalize on the unexpected death
Of kung fu superstar Bruce Lee in 1973
The most famous of these examples is, of course, Game of Death
A movie that started by Bruce Lee
But was left unfinished due to his passing
Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse was hired to finish the movie
Using various body doubles
Now, maybe you'd argue that this is just paying respect
To ensure Bruce's legacy is complete
But the fact that they only use 11 minutes of Bruce's original footage
Change the plot so that it involves Bruce Lee faking his own death
And using footage FROM HIS FUNERAL as part of that plot point
Tells me that respecting Bruce is...
Not that high of a priority
Another well-known brucesploitation film is New Fist of Fury
A pseudo-sequel, starring Jackie Chan
This is the first film in which Jackie is billed with his new stage name: Cheng Long
"To become a dragon"
Basically marketing him as the new Bruce Lee
Stepping into even more uncomfortable territory
1976 saw the release of Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger
Starring Bruce Li, with an "i"
And the story focuses on a student of Bruce Lee
Who investigates Bruce's mysterious death
And also fights the Hong Kong Mafia
There is The Clones of Bruce Lee
In which three clones are created after Bruce Lee's death
And are enlisted as secret government agents
And finally, there's The Dragon Lives Again
In which Bruce Lee, now in the underworld
Fights Dracula, James Bond, The Godfather
And for whatever reason...
Clint Eastwood...
In the underworld...
"What the..."
While the world knew Hong Kong through Jackie Chan
Local Chinese audience also knew Hong Kong for this sort of insane shenanigans
Crazy movies with the most absurd attention-grabbing premises
Luckily, behind these films are talented filmmakers
And fierce market competition means the audience had standards
So, even if these movies are often rushed and not well made
They are usually technically competent
And in their own ways, entertaining
The same cannot be said about the next group of movies
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[CHAPTER TWO]
One thing to note, is that all the movies I mentioned so far
Were made in the 70s and 80s
But enter the 90s, Hong Kong cinema became the leading industry
That means Hong Kong can't just copy someone else's homework
And so, it began to cannibalize itself
This was when the endless serializations began
In 1989, God of Gamblers was released
It's an excellent crime thriller about a man navigating through the dangerous world
Of crime and gambling
It was a huge success
Launching Chow Yun-Fat's career to a new height
So naturally, not one, but THREE follow-ups were immediately pushed into production
Just the next year, there were God of Gamblers II, the sequel to the original
All for the Winner, a comedy spin-off starring Stephen Chow and Ng Man-tat
And King of Gambler
That's how disposable these movies were
This multiple films a year tactic would continue through the rest of the 90s
Actors got tired of it
Filmgoers got bored of it
By the time a reboot came around, with the Conman series
Andy Lau, the star of the movie, looks like he's bored out of his mind
The movie just sucks all the fun out of you
And expect you to pay for the service
No thanks
Another example is the Chinese vampire genre
Encounters of the Spooky Kind kickstarted the Hong Kong horror-comedy genre
And in 1985, Mr. Vampire made Jiangshi into a household monster
So, of course, the industry immediately rushed to this new fad
Many studios would start making their own jiangshi movies
Multiple movies a year
One-upping each other in their absurdity
From Jiangshi in modern-day
To Jiangshi vs. Dracula
To Jiangshi in the modern-day, again
To Chinese vampire meets the Gods Must Be Crazy
Narrated by the God of Gamblers actor for markee value
(Stephen Chow: This is the famous N!xau)
And here I thought Kung Fu vs. King Kong was a ridiculous concept
No doubt, many of you are tired just from listening
And that's how the local audience felt at the time
An industrial-scale fatigue
One defining feature of Hong Kong cinema was the amount of excitement it offers
And when the excitement dies
The industry dies with it
[CHAPTER THREE]
And then we come to the part YouTube doesn't like
Category III movies, adults only
"Oh my..."
Now, just because it's Category III
Doesn't mean it's automatically spicy
On the tame side, it's barely even R-rated
From Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together
To Stephen Chow's Flirting Scholar
Yeah, half of you sick bastards saw an adult film as a kid and didn't know it!
But, even on the hardcore side
In true Hong Kong fashion, it usually sells you the idea
More so than actual adult content
Instead of showing you torture, it's just BDSM
A lot of moaning, not a lot of gore
For example, The Untold Story
One of, if not the most famous CAT III Hong Kong horror
Anthony Wong plays a serial killer and a restaurant owner
Not a nice combo
Yes, he would kill someone
And then process his victims into meat buns
And sell them to get rid of the evidence
It's that signature sensationalized premise
But the gore is actually quite minimal for an adult film
The implication, however, is deeply unsettling
And some might even say
It's actually more effective to not show you the gore
Other similar CAT III horror includes Ebola Syndrome
In which Anthony Wong plays the patient zero in an ebola outbreak
The Underground Banker, in which Anthony Wong...
Okay, you might be enjoying this too much, mister
There's also Dr. Lamb
Which is another serial killer movie filled with uncomfortable implications
Of course, there are also pornographic movies
Like Sex and Zen
Crazy Love
And A Chinese Torture Chamber Story
Which, despite the name, is actually a comedy porno
Again, calling it pornographic is really overselling it
The sex scenes are actually all really tame and, of course, fake
These films mostly focus on risque subjects like...
I don't know, having sex outside the bedroom?
Crazy Love is flat out just a romance movie with nudity and sex scenes
It's nowhere near as risque as popular culture made it out to be
Trust me, I know far worse
But that was precisely how Hong Kong cinema operated
Titilating premises
With bare minimum deliveries
(Or maybe I'm just desensitized by the Internet)
The popularity of CAT III films emerged
Mostly as a result of market competition
With how many films were made in Hong Kong
Film producers were desperate to ensure their film can stand out from the crowd
But sensationalism can only bring you so far
And, as we all know today
The Hong Kong film industry just isn't what it used to be
[CONCLUSION]
Looking back, Hong Kong's sensationalism problem
May be one of the main driving factor in ending the its golden age
A lot of people blame 1997
Sure, a dramatic shift in the political landscape probably didn't help
But the decline in domestic box office began all the way back in the late 80s
And this oversaturation of sensationalized materials was probably one of the culprits
The industry was kept alive thanks to outside markets
Like Taiwan and Indonesia
Whose markets weren't as saturated
And viewer's fatigue wasn't as severe
But, as the cold war ends
Major Hollywood productions began entering theatres in Asia
Hong Kong simply could not keep up
The quote-unquote "Hong Kong flicks" got washed away by a tsunami of American films
Only the tip-top filmmakers managed to stay afloat
And after everything settled
No new filmmakers were there to take the torch
But the sensationalism is not without its benefits
Today, we listed a lot of movies
And, this might surprise you
I'd say the majority of them are actually good!
Or at least entertaining
Where else are you going to find a movie about a Buddhist love story
Between a dog in a human's body and her owner?
Some of the most batsh@t insane movies were made
Because Hong Kong had the balls to experiment
And for that, I have to give Hong Kong a round of applause