What Hong Kong cinema can take away from a popular Chinese war film
In late August, I took my parents to see Once Upon a Time in the Middle East in their small-town cinema on the mainland. Built around an unnamed conflict widely understood to be the US-led Iraq war, the film has become the kind of phenomenon no marketing budget could buy, projected to reach 2.5 billion yuan (US$372.5 million) largely through word of mouth. Its Hong Kong and overseas release will…
The article discusses the success of the Chinese war film "Once Upon a Time in the Middle East" and its potential to revive geopolitical arguments. The author, who saw the film with their parents, notes that the film gave their parents a personal connection to the Middle East through the faces of ordinary people affected by war.
The piece then explores the decline of Hong Kong cinema, attributing it to co-productions, filmmakers chasing mainland money, and the need for more authentic and local content. However, the author argues that these explanations do not account for the market success of the war film. The author suggests that Hong Kong cinema must develop stories that resonate beyond its borders and language, rather than simply trying to replicate its local identity.
The article contrasts the situation of Hong Kong cinema with that of mainland cinema, which operates under stricter content controls but has still managed to create commercial hits that appeal to a larger domestic market.
Brief written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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