Hong Kong Cinema: Not just in the Theaters Anymore

Over the past few years, Hong Kong cinema has been packing art-house theaters and leaving filmgoers mesmerized. The spectacle of heartthrob Chow Yun-Fat dodging a barrage of enemy bullets while clutching a newborn in one hand and a machine gun in another, or acrobatic actors Jackie Chan and Jet li annihilating foes by the dozen with devastating kung fu, has drawn many a new fan.

As these films continue to gain popularity, enthusiats are clamoring for more news about this Far Easter industry: juicy gossip, feature profiles of their favorite stars, and information on upcoming releases. But, short of perusing various Chinese-language pubs and industry monthlies, most fans have been out of luck.

Until now.

Followers can now fawn over photos of their favorite Hong Kong stars to their hearts delight. Joseph M. Fierro's Hong Kong Cinema page at http://egret0.stanford.edu:80/hk/ is the best, most complete guide, with a database of information on nearly every Hong Kong film ever made, including actor profiles, jpegs, and comprehensive catalogs of actor's work. The page also provides a list of San Francisco Bay area video stores and theaters offering these celluloid gems, as well as box office stats and links to other Hong Kong film sites.

While the Hong Kong film industry's resurgence has been driven by the traditional violent action genre, an increased emphasis on story line and character relationships distinguish today's movies. The recent work of director John Woo and actor-icon Chow Yun-Fat has spawned better action flicks, comedies, and even dramas. If you're a budding disciple, Lars Erik Holmquist's Hong Kong Movies page at http://www.mdstud.chalmers.se/hkmovie offers invaluable information in the form of FAQs, film lists, reviews, and his own catalog of worldwide video stories that carry these hard-to-find movies. Hong Kong film company Mandarin Films has created a homepage at http://www.mandarin.films.com.hk/, offering trailers, plot summaries, and stills from upcoming movies. Another treasure is John Woo Central at http://underground.net/~koganuts/Galleries/jw.main.html. This site offers a glut of trivia and information from one of Woo's frothing devotees.

In the Hong Kong entertainment industry, some of the top box-office draws are also the brightest music stars. Case in point: Faye Wong, star of the film named Best Picture at the 1994 Hong Kong Golden Statue Awards (Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express, scheduled for wide release in the US in early 1996), is Cantonese pop's hottest female vocalist. Ray's World, at http://www.hk.super.net/~rayc/ray.html deftly reflects this trend. The site's gardener, Raymond Chu, is a music editor and radio sound mixer - he's an industry insider, and his web site shows it, offering information about upcoming music releases, jpegs of CD art, and interesting tidbits, say, the commercial recently shot by popular actor-singer Andy Lau. (You'll also find an oh-so-exclusive listing of artists' and producers' e-mail addresses!)

So fire up your browser and break out the popcorn. Any way you slice it, the latest Hong Kong films and their web counterparts are a far cry from those cheesy, late-night martial-arts flicks. Better still, the Web isn't dubbed.

— Dan Wong