Explainer | Who led cinema’s Hong Kong New Wave? The directors, from Tsui Hark to Ann Hui, their movies and how they changed filmmaking in the city

A new breed of filmmakers who wanted more than kung fu movies emerged in the 1970s after Bruce Lee’s death, and forever changed the Hong Kong film industry

We recall the Hong Kong New Wave’s big players, from Patrick Tam to Ann Hui and Tsui Hark, their roots in television and focus on modern techniques and subjects

Reading Time:5 minutes

Alex Man and Angie Chiu in a still from Ann Hui’s “The Secret” (1979), a well-known Hong Kong New Wave film. Hui was one of a group of young filmmakers who brought modern techniques and stories to Hong Kong cinema.

Published: 4:15am, 25 Jun 2023Updated: 8:19pm, 24 Jul 2023

The Hong Kong New Wave of the late 1970s and early 1980s is spoken about with reverence today. We look at the directors and the films that changed the course of filmmaking in the city.

What exactly was the Hong Kong New Wave?

In a nutshell, it was a group of young filmmakers with new ideas and modern techniques who brought Hong Kong films up to international standards in terms of production values and stories.

“In the mid-1970s, the ranks of film and television were joined by a number of filmmakers who eventually changed Hong Kong films,” wrote influential critic Law Kar in his book Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View.

Che Bo-law in a still from “Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind” (1980), directed by Tsui Hark.

“Directors such as Ann Hui On-wah, Tsui Hark, Yim Ho, Patrick Tam Ka-ming, Alex Cheung Kwok-ming, Lau Shing-hon, Kirk Wong Chi-keung, Allen Fong Yuk-ping, and Lawrence Ah Mon, either were educated in the West, or had honed their craft through experimental work.

“Determined to use modernised cinematic language, they managed to update a film industry that had been mired in increasingly archaic ways,” wrote Law, who once worked alongside filmmakers like Hui at Hong Kong broadcasting company TVB.

What was different about their work?

Although Hong Kong filmmakers had made socially oriented films in the 1950s, the 1960s had been dominated by wuxia martial arts films by Shaw Brothers Studio, and the 1970s by kung fu films in the wake of Bruce Lee. Filmmaking techniques had also started to ossify.