Sunday, September 14, 2008

798 Art Zone

798 Art Zone , or Dashanzi Art District, is a part of Dashanzi in the of Beijing that houses a thriving artist community, among 50-year old decommissioned military factory buildings of unique architectural style. It is often compared with New York's Greenwich Village or SoHo, but faces impending destruction from the forces driving Beijing's urban sprawl.

The area is often called the 798 Art District or Factory 798 although technically, Factory #798 is only one of several structures within a complex formerly known as Joint Factory 718. The buildings are located inside alleys number 2 and 4 on Jiǔxiānqiáo Lù , south of the Dàshānziqiáo flyover .

Construction



The Dashanzi factory complex began as an extension of the "Socialist Unification Plan" of military-industrial cooperation between the Soviet Union and the newly-formed People's Republic of China. By 1951, 156 "joint factory" projects had been realized under that agreement, part of the Chinese government's first . However the People's Liberation Army still had a dire need of modern electronic components, which were produced in only two of the joint factories. The Russians were unwilling to undertake an additional project at the time, and suggested that the Chinese turn to East Germany from which much of the Soviet Union's electronics equipment was imported. So at the request of then-Premier Zhou Enlai, scientists and engineers joined the first Chinese trade delegation to East Germany in 1951, visiting a dozen factories. The project was greenlighted in early 1952 and a Chinese preparatory group was sent to East Berlin to prepare design plans. This project, which was to be the largest by East Germany in China, was then informally known as Project #157.

The architectural plans were left to the Germans, who chose a functional Bauhaus-influenced design over the more ornamental , triggering the first of many disputes between the German and Russian consultants on the project. The plans, where form follows function, called for large indoor spaces designed to let the maximum amount of natural light into the workplace. Arch-supported sections of the ceiling would curve upwards then fall diagonally along the high slanted banks or windows; this pattern would be repeated several times in the larger rooms, giving the roof its characteristic sawtooth-like appearance. Despite Beijing's northern location, the windows were all to face north because the light from that direction would cast fewer shadows.

The chosen location was a 640,000 square metres area in Dashanzi, then a low-lying patch of farmland northeast of Beijing. The complex was to occupy 500,000 square metres, 370,000 of which were allocated to living quarters. It was officially named Joint Factory 718, following the Chinese government's method of naming military factories starting with the number 7. Fully funded by the Chinese side, the initial budget was enormous for the times: 9 million or approximately 140 million at today's rates; actual costs were 147 million RMB.

Ground was broken in April 1954. Construction was marked by disagreements between the Chinese, Soviet and German experts, which led at one point to a six-month postponement of the project. The Germans' harshest critic was the Russian technology consultant in charge of Beijing's two Soviet-built electronics factories , who was also head consultant of the Radio Industrial Office of the Second Ministry of Machine Building Industry. The disputes generally revolved around the Germans' high but expensive quality standards for buildings and machines, which were called "over-engineering" by the Russians. Among such points of contention was the Germans' insistence, historical seismic data in hand, that the buildings be built to whistand earthquakes of magnitude 8 on the , whereas the Chinese and Russians wanted to settle for 7. Communications expert Wang Zheng, head of Communications Industry in the Chinese Ministry of National Defense and supporter the East German bid from the start, ruled in favor of the Germans for this particular factory.

At the height of the construction effort, more than 100 East German foreign experts worked on the project. The resources of as many as 22 of their factories supplied the construction; at the same time, supply delays were caused by the Soviet Red Army's tremendous drain on East Germany's industrial production. The equipment was transported directly through the Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian railway, and a 15 km track of railroad between Beijing Railway Station and was built especially to service the factory. US-educated scientist Dr. Luo Peilin , formerly head of the preparatory group in 1951-1953, was Head Engineer of Joint Factory 718 during its construction phase. Dr. Luo, now retired in Beijing, is remembered by his former colleagues as a dedicated perfectionist whose commitment to the obstacle-strewn project was a major factor of its eventual success.

Operation


Joint Factory 718 began production in 1957, amid a grandiose opening ceremony and display of Communist brotherhood between China and East Germany, attended by high officials of both countries. The first director was Li Rui , who had been involved in the early negotiations in Berlin.

The factory quickly established a reputation for itself as one of the best in China. Through its several ''danwei'' or "work units", it offered considerable social benefits to its 10,000-20,000 workers, especially considering the relative poverty of the country during such periods as the Great Leap Forward. The factory boasted, among others:

* the best housing available to workers in Beijing, providing fully furnished rooms to whole families for less than 1/30 of the workers' income;
* diverse extracurricular activities such as social and sporting events, dancing, swimming, and training classes;
* its own athletics, soccer, basketball and volleyball teams for men and women, ranked among the best in inter-factory competitions;
* a brigade of German-made motorcycles, performing races and stunt demonstrations;
* an orchestra that played not only revolutionary hymns, but also German-influenced classical Western music;
* literary clubs and publications, and a library furnished with Chinese and foreign books;
* Jiuxianqiao hospital, featuring German equipment and offering the most advanced dental facilities in China.

The factory even had its own volunteer military reserves or ''jinweishi'' , which numbered hundreds and were equipped with large-scale weapons and anti-aircraft guns.

Workers' skills were honed by frequent personnel exchanges, internships and training in cooperation with East Germany. Different incentives kept motivation high, such as rewards systems and "model worker" distinctions. At the same time, political activities such as Maoism study workshops kept the workers in line with Communist Party of China doctrine. During the Cultural revolution, propaganda slogans for Mao Zedong Thought were painted on the ceiling arches in bright red characters .

Frequent VIP visits contributed to the festive atmosphere. Notable guests included Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, and Kim Il-Sung.

The Joint Factory produced a wide variety of military and civilian equipment. Civilian production included acoustic equipment for Beijing's Workers' Stadium and Great Hall of the People, as well as all the loudspeakers on Tiananmen Square and Chang'an Avenue. Military components were also exported to China's Communist allies, and helped establish North Korea's wireless electronics industry.

After 10 years of operation, Joint Factory 718 was split into more manageable components, such as sub-Factories 706, 707, 751, 761, 797 and 798. The first Head of sub-Factory 798 was Branch Party Secretary Fu Ke , who played a major role in recruiting skilled workers from southern China and among returned overseas Chinese.

However, the factory came under pressure during Deng Xiaoping's of the 1980s. Deprived of governmental support like many state-owned enterprises, it underwent a gradual decline and was eventually rendered obsolete. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, most sub-factories had ceased production, 60% of the workers had been , and the remains of the management were reconstituted as a real-estate operation called "Seven-Star Huadian Science and Technology Group", charged with overseeing the industrial park and finding tenants for the abandoned buildings.

Artistic rebirth


The Dashanzi factory complex was vacated at around the time when most of Beijing's contemporary artist community was looking for a new home. Avant-garde art being frowned upon by the government, the community had traditionally existed on the fringes of the city. From 1984 to 1993, they worked in run-down houses near the Old Summer Palace in northwestern Beijing, until their eviction. They had then moved to the eastern Tongxian County , more than an hour's drive from the city center.

Then in 1995, Beijing's , looking for cheap, ample workshop space away from downtown, set up in the now defunct Factory 706. The temporary move became permanent and in 2000 Sui Jianguo , Dean of the Department of Sculpture, located his own studio in the area. The cluttered sculpture workshops have always remained open for visitors to peek at the dozens of workers milling about.

In 2001, Robert Bernell moved his bookshop and publishing office into a former factory canteen; he was the first to move in. One of Timezone 8's early employees was fashion designer Xiao Li, who along her husband, performance artist Cang Xin, helped artists secure and rent spaces in the area.

Through word-of-mouth, artists and designers started trickling in, attracted to the vast cathedral-like spaces. Despite the lack of any conscious aesthetic in the Bauhaus-inspired style, which grounded architectural beauty in practical, industrial function, the swooping arcs and soaring chimneys had an uplifting effect on modern eyes, a sort of post-industrial chic. At the artists' requests, workers renovating the spaces preserved the prominent Maoist slogans on the arches, adding a touch of ironic " kitsch" to the place.

Later that year, Mr. Tabata Yukihito from Japan's set up inside a 400-m? division of Factory 798's main area; this was the first renovated space featuring the high arched ceilings that would become synonymous with the Art District. BTAP's 2002 opening exhibition "Beijing Afloat" , drew a crowd of over 1,000 people and marked the beginning of the popular infatuation with the area.

In 2002, designer artist Huang Rui and hutong photographer Xu Yong set up the next to BTAP. With its cavernous 1200-m? floor and multiple-arched ceilings at the center of Factory 798, it was and still is the symbolic center of the whole district. A glass-fronted café was set up in the former office section at the back of the 798 space, opening into a back alley now lined with studios and restaurants such as Huang's own At Café, and Cang Xin's #6 restaurant, the area's "canteen".

In 2003, Lu Jie set up the , an ongoing project for artistic re-interpretation of the historical Long March, inside the 25,000 Cultural Transmission Center . Around that time, Singapore-owned China Art Seasons opened for display for pan-Asian art, and was one of several new galleries setting up at that time.

Notable exhibitions


Several s of note took place in 2003. In March, Huang Rui and Shu Yang's "Transborder Language 2003" combined poetry and performance art. "Blue Sky Exposure" was held outdoors in southern Beijing and then relocated to the Art District. On April 13, despite widespread fear of public gatherings during SARS, the exhibitions "Reconstruction 798" and "Operation Ink Freedom" drew crowds of 5,000 and definitely confirmed the area's widespread appeal.

In July, with Beijing in full construction boom, Wang Wei's "Temporary Space" featured workers completely enclosing an area of the exhibition with a brick wall and then removing the bricks one by one. In September, "Left Hand - Right Hand" showcased Chinese and German sculptors at 798 Space and Daoyaolu Workshop A. Among the works was Sui Jianguo's enormous concrete sculpture "Mao's Right Hand", which is just what the name suggests, and an example of modern Chinese art's ironic reflections on history.

The first was held in September 18, 2003 at the Art District and featured 14 exhibitions. "Tui-Transfiguration" featured photographs by chronicler Rong Rong and his wife, Japan-born Inri . Their works notably featured their own bodies in various strange locales, and were generally well-received despite being criticized by some as typical of the self-centered nature of much art in the area.

The first , directed by the ever-present Huang Rui, was held from April 24 to May 23, 2004. This first edition, named ''Radiance and Resonance/Signals of Time'' , was beset by logistical problems arising from landowner Seven-Star Group's increasing irritation with the art community. As such, the festival became as much a public protest against the area's upcoming destruction that a showcase of art itself.

One of the most -famous displays at the Festival was performance artist He Yunchang having himself cemented shut in a wooden box with only two pipes for , and staying there for 24 hours before being chiseled out, prompting the proverbial "Is it art?" questionings. "Shock" exhibitions have become increasingly common in the Art District .

Gentrification


The district's popularity has exploded since the opening of BTAP and 798 Space in 2002, with scores of , lofts, publishing firms, design companies, high-end tailor shops, and cafés and fancy restaurants setting up. In 2003, around 30 artists and organizations had set up studios or offices in the area, with 200 more reportedly on the waiting list to move in.

Fashionable clubs also sprang up such as Zhou Ying's "Vibes", known for its nights. A former factory cafeteria became , owned by well-known Beijing socialite and writer Li Xuebing or "Bing Bing" , also owner of Sanlitun's Jam House. Notable performers at Yan included Morcheeba in March 2003.

In keeping with the area's "community spirit", most galleries and spaces in Dashanzi do not charge either exhibitors or visitors. Instead, they generally sustain themselves by hosting profitable fashion shows and corporate events; among others, Sony had a product launch gala at 798 space, and watchmaker presented a fashion show at Yan Club. Others include Christian Dior, Royal Dutch Shell and Toyota; supermodel Cindy Crawford also made an appearance. Even Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Holdings held an event in the district, which some found unsettling given the real-estate industry's designs on the land it sits on.

As such, Dashanzi is now a center of Beijing's nascent "" community. Huang Rui and Xu Yong are good representatives of the type. And a local guru of sorts is artist/curator/architect Ai Weiwei , whose self-designed house in Caochangdi just outside the factory complex was a trendsetter. True to BoBo style, he is an icon of consumerism as much as counterculture, working with Herzog & de Meuron on the design of the Beijing National Stadium.

In the absence of any rent control, tenants' costs have escalated. In 2000-2001, rents were 0.8 RMB per square metre per day . They increased slightly to 30 RMB/m?/month in 2003, and then doubled to 60 RMB/m?/month in 2004. Total costs can be quite high considering the average 200-400 m? area of the spaces, and the overhead of and retrofitting the rooms to use modern appliances.

Another sign of creeping gentrification is the increasing number of luxury cars parked near the galleries; local artist Zhao Bandi purchased the first Alfa Romeo convertible in Beijing. Some of the resident artists and their patrons are quite rich compared to other occupants of the area, the remaining factory workers. Some of the workshops are still operational on a small scale, mostly doing car repair or industrial laundry.

Some local artists such as Zhang Zhaohui, a New-York trained art critic and curator, and architect Zhu Jun, a new Dashanzi resident, have criticized the Art District as being less about art and more about show. Says Zhang: "Few of the artists come to seriously practice art. Most of them just come for opportunities to exhibit and sell works or just have parties and gatherings." On the other hand, young artists like Zhang Yue find this atmosphere particularly condusive to establishing one's career. In the course of one summer, Dashanzi Art District's Platform China Contemporary Art Institute and Unlimited Art Gallery afforded this rising artist two well-received solo shows.

Possible Destruction



In the days of Joint Factory 718, Dashanzi was chosen for its peripheral position well outside the city center. The artists who later moved there were coming from the edges of the city as well. Today however, the area sits right on the strategic corridor between the and downtown Beijing along the , considered of vital importance to the 2008 Olympic games. In the context of China's current real estate , the district is highly likely to be destroyed in the near future; the western entrances of the complex are already flanked by the Jiuxian and Hongyuan luxury apartment towers. Current government projects call for the expansion of the neighbouring industrial park to turn all of Dashanzi into a high-tech development zone similar to Zhongguancun. Landowner Seven-Star Group thus hopes to re-employ some of the 10,000 laid-off workers it is still responsible for.

Influential members of the artist community are lobbying various government instances to persuade them to allow the old buildings to remain, as part of a cultural center which Beijing otherwise lacks and that can only grow organically. They point out that such communities are important if Beijing, and China, is to become a major source of creative design instead of mere manufacturing.

Part of the lobbying effort is resident sculptor Li Xiangqun, professor at the of Tsinghua University, who was elected deputy of the 12th National People's Congress in 2004. Li presented the municipal government with a formal bill in February, requesting suspension of the destruction plans and preservation of the buildings as part of an Olympic-caliber cultural center.

Professors from architecture schools such as Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts and the have proposed various development plans for the area that involve preserving the buildings, although those do not appear especially profitable financially.

Meanwhile, attempts have been made to appeal to the developers' sense of economics by pointing out similarities with New York's Greenwich Village and SoHo, where the high profitability of real estate is due partly to the presence of former post-industrial artists' dwellings. Those arguments have so far been ignored.

As of 2004, Seven-Star Group has frozen the rental of new spaces and prohibited all renewals. Tenants now resort to subdividing and subleasing their spaces, to which the Group has responded by attempting to forbid subleasing to cultural organizations or to foreigners, hoping to drive out the artists. Tenants, despite some of them having leases still valid for several years, have been given the ultimatum of December 31, 2005 to vacate the premises.

At the end of 2007 it was decided that the area will continue in its current format.

July 2008: The area is being refurbished and is thriving. The roads have been repaved, new galleries opened as well as a cafe culture emerging.

Book references


* Huang Rui , editor . . Hong Kong: / Thinking Hands . ISBN 988-97262-3-8.

* Zhu Yan, with contributions by Yin Jinan and Li Jiangshu . . Hong Kong: ISBN 988-97262-7-0.

Feng Boyi

Feng Boyi is an eminent independent art curator and critic in China. He has been assistant editor of the China Artists' Association newsletter ''Artist's Communication'' since 1988. He has also edited and published numerous catalogues and papers on art and established the , a major online forum for contemporary art in China.

Notable curated exhibits include:

* 2003, "Left Hand - Right Hand" showcased Chinese and German sculptors at and Daoyaolu Workshop A. Among the works was Sui Jianguo's enormous concrete sculpture "Mao's Right Hand", which is just what the name suggests, and an example of modern Chinese art's ironic reflections on history.

* 2002, "Beijing Afloat" was the opening exhibition of the inside a 400 m? division of Factory 798's main area. This was the first renovated space featuring the high arched ceilings that would become synonymous with Beijing's 798 Art Zone. The show drew a crowd of over 1,000 people and marked the beginning of the popular infatuation with the area.

* 2000, "," jointly organized with artist Ai Weiwei, was a notorious art exhibition which ran in opposition to the Shanghai Biennial. Its name was a loose and questionable translation of the exhibition's corresponding Chinese title: The Uncooperative Attitude.

Endless knot

The endless knot or eternal knot is a symbolic found in Tibet and Mongolia. The motif is used in Tibetan Buddhism, and may also be found in Chinese art as one of the .

Interpretations


The endless knot has been described as "an ancient symbol representing the interweaving of the Spiritual Path, the flowing of Time and Movement within That Which is Eternal. All existence, it says, is bound by time and change, yet ultimately rests serenely within the Divine and the Eternal." Various interpretations of the symbol are:

* The inter-twining of and .
* Interplay and interaction of the opposing forces in the world of manifestation, leading to their union, and ultimately to harmony in the universe.
* The mutual dependence of religious doctrine and secular affairs.
* The union of and .
* The inseparability of emptiness and dependent origination, the underlying reality of existence.
* Symbolic of knot symbolism in linking ancestors and omnipresence and the magical ritual and meta-process of binding
* Since the knot has no beginning or end it also symbolizes the infinite wisdom of the . See mystic knot.

Drawing an endless knot


Plot the ''A'', ''B'', ''C'', ''D'' of ''ABCD''. Plot ''E'', the midpoint of line segment ''AB''. Plot ''F'', the midpoint of line segment ''BC''. Plot ''G'', the midpoint of line segment ''CD''. Plot ''H'', the midpoint of line segment ''DA''.

Plot ''I'', the midpoint of segment ''AE''. Plot ''J'', the midpoint of ''EB''. Plot ''K'', the midpoint of ''BF''. Plot ''L'', the midpoint of ''FC''. Plot ''M'', the midpoint of ''CG''. Plot ''N'', the midpoint of ''GD''. Plot ''O'', the midpoint of ''DH''. Plot ''P'', the midpoint of ''HA''.

Draw line segment ''AI''. Draw line segment ''IN'' but with leaving a gap in its middle. Draw line segment ''NG''. Draw line segment ''GE'' but leaving a pair of gaps at 1/4 and 3/4 of the way between ''G'' and ''E''. Draw line segment ''EJ''. Draw line segment ''JM'' but leaving a gap in its middle. Draw line segment ''MC''. Draw line segment ''CL''. Draw line segment ''LO'' but leaving a pair of gaps at 1/4 and 3/4 of the way between ''L'' and ''O''. Draw line segment ''OH''. Draw line segment ''HF'' but leaving a gap in its middle. Draw line segment ''FK''. Draw line segment ''KP'' but leaving a pair of gaps at 1/4 and 3/4 of the way between ''K'' and ''P''. Draw line segment ''PA''.

Erase points ''D'' and ''B'', and the drawing is done.

Endless knots in other cultures


Endless knots come as /mythological symbols have developed independently in various cultures. A well-known example is the various Celtic knots.

The interlaced form of the unicursal hexagram of occultism is topologically equivalent to the Buddhist endless knot.

Eight Treasures

The Eight Treasures are popular symbols in Chinese art.

While technically they may be any subset of the much longer list of the Hundred Treasures, there is a combination that is most popular.

# the wish-granting pearl or "flaming pearl"
# the double lozenges
# the stone chime
# the pair of
# the double coins
# the gold or silver ingot
# coral
# wish-granting scepter

Eight Immortals

The Eight Immortals are a group of legendary '''' in Chinese mythology. Each Immortal's power can be transferred to a tool of power that can give life or destroy evil. Together, these eight tools are called "Covert Eight Immortals" . Most of them are said to have been born in Tang Dynasty or Song Dynasty. Not only are they revered by the Daoists, but they are a popular element in the secular Chinese culture. They live on .

The Immortals are:
* Immortal Woman He ,
* Royal Uncle Cao ,
* Iron-Crutch Li ,
* Lan Caihe,
* Lü Dongbin,
* ,
* Elder Zhang Guo , and
* Zhongli Quan.

For their names in Chinese characters and Wade-Giles, see the individual pages in the list above.

In literature before the 1970s, they were sometimes translated as the Eight Genie. First described in the Yuan Dynasty, they were probably named after the .

In art


The tradition of depicting humans who’ve become an immortal is an ancient practice in Chinese art, and when religious Taoism gained popularity, it quickly picked up this tradition with its own immortals. While cults dedicated to various Taoist immortals date back to the Han dynasty, the popular and well known Eight Immortals first appeared in the . The art of the Jin tombs of the 12th and 13th centuries depict a group of eight Taoist immortals in wall murals and sculptures. They officially became known as the Eight Immortals in the writings and works of art of the Taoist sect known as the Complete Realization . The most famous art depiction of the Eight Immortals from this period is a mural of them in the Eternal Joy Temple at Ruicheng.

The Eight Immortals are considered to be signs of prosperity and longevity, so they are popular themes in ancient art. They were frequent adornments on celadon vases. They were also common in sculptures owned by the nobility. Their most common appearance, however, was in paintings. Many silk paintings, wall murals, and wood block prints remain of the eight immortals. They were often depicted either together in one group, or alone to give more homage to that specific immortal.

An interesting feature of early Eight Immortal artwork is that they are often accompanied by jade hand maidens, commonly depicted servants of the higher ranked deities, or other images showing great spiritual power. This shows that early on the Eight Immortals quickly became eminent figures of the Taoist religion, and had great importance. We can see this importance only is heightened in the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasties. During these dynasties, the Eight Immortals are very frequently associated with other prominent spiritual deities in artwork. They are numerous paintings with them and the Three Stars together. Also, other deities of importance, such as the Queen Mother of the West, are commonly seen in the company of the Eight Immortals.

The artwork of the Eight Immortals isn’t limited to paintings or other visual arts. They are quite prominent in written works too. Authors and playwrights wrote numerous stories and plays on the Eight Immortals. One famous story that has been rewritten many times and turned into several plays is , which is the story of how Lǚ Dòngbīn met Zhongli Quan and began his path to immortality.

In literature



The Immortals are the subject of many artistic creations, like paintings and sculptures. Examples of writings about them include:

* ''The Yueyang Mansion'' by Ma Zhiyuan ,
* ''The Bamboo-leaved Boat'' by Fan Zi'an , and
* ''The Willow in the South of the City'' by Gu Zijing .
* The most significant of the writings is ''The Eight Immortals Depart and Travel to the East'' by Wu Yuantai in Ming Dynasty.
* There is another work in Ming, by an anonymous writer, called ''The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea'' . It is about the Immortals on their way to attend the Conference of the Magical Peach and encountered an ocean. Instead of going across by their clouds, Lü Dongbin suggested that together, they should use their powers to get across. Stemming from this, the Chinese proverb "The Eight Immortals cross the sea, each reveals its divine power" indicates the situation that everybody shows off their powers to achieve a common goal.

Reverence


Established in the Song Dynasty, the Xi'an temple Eight Immortals Palace , formerly Eight Immortals Nunnery , where statues of the Immortals can be found in the Hall of Eight Immortals . In Mu-cha , Taipei County, Taiwan, there is a temple called South Palace , nicknamed Eight Immortal Temple .

Modern depictions


In modern China, the Eight Immortals are still a popular theme in artwork. Paintings, pottery, and statues of the Eight Immortals are still common in households across China, and are even gaining some popularity world wide.

Several movies about the Eight Immortals have been produced in China in recent years.

In Jackie Chan's movie "Drunken Master", there were eight "drunken" Kung Fu forms that were said to be originated from the Eight Immortals.

The Eight Immortals play an important part in the plot of the video game ''Fear Effect 2''.

In the X-Men comic book, the Eight Immortals appear to protect China along the Collective Man, when the mutant Xorn caused a massacre in one small village.

The Eight Immortals played a role in the animated show: Jackie Chan Adventures.

The Eight Immortals played an important role in the 2008 movie "The Forbidden Kingdom" starring "Jackie Chan" and "Jet Li"

Also in the book: "Cathy's Book" by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman



Further reading


* Lai, T. C., ''The Eight Immortals'' .

Eastern art history

Eastern art history is devoted to the arts of the Far East and includes a vast range of influences from various cultures and religions. The emphasis is on art history amongst many diverse cultures in . Developments in Eastern art historically parallel those in Western art, in general a few centuries earlier. African art, Islamic art, Indian art, Chinese art, and Japanese art each had significant influence on Western art, and, vice-versa.


Buddhist art




Buddhist art originated in the Indian subcontinent in the centuries following the life of the historical Gautama Buddha in the to 5th century BCE, before evolving through its contact with other cultures and its diffusion through the rest of Asia and the world. Buddhist art traveled with believers as the dharma spread, adapted, and evolved in each new host country. It developed to the north through Central Asia and into Eastern Asia to form the Northern branch of Buddhist art, and to the east as far as Southeast Asia to form the Southern branch of Buddhist art. In India, Buddhist art flourished and even influenced the development of art, until Buddhism nearly disappeared in India around the 10th century due in part to the vigorous expansion of Islam alongside Hinduism.

In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. Its symbolic nature can help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises." The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as ''"a representation of the unconscious self,"'' and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.

Bhutanese art




Bhutanese art is similar to the art of Tibet. Both are based upon , with its pantheon of divine beings.

Bhutanese art is particularly rich in bronzes of different kinds that are collectively known by the name ''Kham-so'' even though they are made in Bhutan, because the technique of making them was originally imported from the eastern province of Tibet called Kham. Wall paintings and sculptures, in these regions, are formulated on the principal ageless ideals of Buddhist art forms. Even though their emphasis on detail is derived from Tibetan models, their origins can be discerned easily, despite the profusely embroidered garments and glittering ornaments with which these figures are lavishly covered. In the grotesque world of demons, the artists apparently had a greater freedom of action than when modeling images of divine beings.

Cambodian art



Cambodian art and the culture of Cambodia has had a rich and varied history dating back many centuries and has been heavily influenced by India. In turn, Cambodia greatly influenced Thailand, Laos and vice versa. Throughout Cambodia's long history, a major source of inspiration was from religion. Throughout nearly two millennium, a Cambodians developed a unique belief from the syncreticism of indigenous animistic beliefs and the Indian religions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Indian culture and civilization, including its language and arts reached mainland Southeast Asia around the 1st century A.D. Its is generally believed that seafaring merchants brought Indian customs and culture to ports along the gulf of Thailand and the Pacific while trading with China. The first state to benefit from this was Funan. At various times, Cambodia culture also absorbed elements from , , Lao, and cultures.

Visual arts of Cambodia




The history of Visual arts of Cambodia stretches back centuries to ancient crafts; Khmer art reached its peak during the Angkor period. Traditional Cambodian arts and crafts include textiles, non-textile weaving, silversmithing, stone carving, lacquerware, , wat murals, and kite-making. Beginning in the mid-20th century, a tradition of modern art began in Cambodia, though in the later 20th century both traditional and modern arts declined for several reasons, including the killing of artists by the Khmer Rouge. The country has experienced a recent artistic revival due to increased support from governments, NGOs, and foreign tourists.

Chinese art



Chinese art has varied throughout its , divided into periods by the ruling dynasties of China and changing technology. Different forms of art have been influenced by great philosophers, teachers, religious figures and even political leaders. Chinese art encompasses fine arts, folk arts and performance arts. Chinese art is art, whether modern or ancient, that originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers.


In the Song Dynasty, poetry was marked by a lyric poetry known as which expressed feelings of desire, often in an adopted persona. Also in the Song dynasty, paintings of more subtle expression of landscapes appeared, with blurred outlines and mountain contours which conveyed distance through an impressionistic treatment of natural phenomena. It was during this period that in painting, emphasis was placed on spiritual rather than emotional elements, as in the previous period. Kunqu, the oldest extant form of Chinese opera developed during the Song Dynasty in Kunshan, near present-day Shanghai. In the Yuan dynasty, painting by the Chinese painter Zhao Mengfu greatly influenced later Chinese landscape painting, and the Yuan dynasty opera became a variant of Chinese opera which continues today as Cantonese opera.

Indian art




Indian art can be classified into specific periods each reflecting certain religious, political and cultural developments. The earliest examples of are the petroglyphs such as found in Bhimbetka, some of them being older than 5500 BC. The production of such works continued for several millennia with later examples, from the 7th century being the carved pillars of Ellora, Maharashtra . Other examples are the frescoes of Ajanta and Ellora Caves.
Specific periods:
*Hinduism and Buddhism of the ancient period
*Islamic ascendancy
*The colonial period
*Independence and the period
*Modern and Postmodern art in India

One of the most popular art forms in India is called Rangoli. It is a form of sandpainting decoration that uses finely ground white powder and colours, and is used commonly outside homes in India.

he visual arts are tightly interrelated with the non-visual arts. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, "Classical Indian architecture, sculpture, painting, literature , music and dancing evolved their own rules conditioned by their respective media, but they shared with one another not only the underlying spiritual beliefs of the Indian religio-philosophic mind, but also the procedures by which the relationships of the symbol and the spiritual states were worked out in detail."

Insight into the unique qualities of Indian art is best achieved through an understanding of the philosophical thought, the broad cultural history, social, religious and political background of the artworks.

Indonesian art




Indonesian art and culture has been shaped by long interaction between original indigenous customs and multiple foreign influences. Indonesia is central along ancient between the Far East and the Middle East, resulting in many cultural practices being strongly influenced by a multitude of , including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam, all strong in the major trading cities. The result is a complex cultural mixture very different from the original indigenous cultures.
Indonesia is not generally known for paintings, aside from the intricate and expressive Balinese paintings, which often express natural scenes and themes from the traditional dances.

Other exceptions include indigenous Kenyah paint designs based on, as commonly found among Austronesian cultures, endemic natural motifs such as ferns, trees, dogs, hornbills and human figures. These are still to be found decorating the walls of Kenyah Dayak longhouses in East Kalimantan's Apo Kayan region.



Calligraphy, mostly based on the Qur'an, is often used as decoration as Islam forbids naturalistic depictions. Some foreign painters have also settled in Indonesia. Modern Indonesian painters use a wide variety of styles and themes.


Indonesia has a long-he and Iron Ages, but the art-form particularly flourished from the 8th century to 10th century, both as stand-alone works of art, and also incorporated into temples.

Most notable are the hundreds of meters of relief sculpture at the temple of Borobodur in central Java. Approximately two miles of exquisite relief sculpture tell the story of the life of and illustrate his teachings. The temple was originally home to 504 statues of the seated Buddha. This site, as with others in central Java, show a clear Indian influence.

Japanese art






Japanese art and architecture is works of art produced in Japan from the beginnings of human habitation there, sometime in the 10th millennium BC, to the present. Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper, and a myriad of other types of works of art; from ancient times until the contemporary 21st century.

''Ukiyo'', meaning "floating world", refers to the impetuous young culture that bloomed in the urban centers of Edo , Osaka, and Kyoto that were a world unto themselves. It is an ironic allusion to the homophone term "Sorrowful World" , the earthly plane of death and rebirth from which Buddhists sought release.
The art form rose to great popularity in the metropolitan culture of Edo during the second half of the 17th century, originating with the single-color works of Hishikawa Moronobu in the 1670s. At first, only India ink was used, then some prints were manually colored with a brush, but in the 18th century Suzuki Harunobu developed the technique of polychrome printing to produce ''nishiki-e.''

is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese arts, encompassing a wide variety of genre and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the history Japanese painting is a long history of synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and adaptation of imported ideas.

The origins of painting in Japan date well back into . Simple stick figures and geometric designs can be found on Jōmon period pottery and Yayoi period ''dotaku'' bronze bells. Mural paintings with both geometric and figurative designs have been found in numerous tumulus from the Kofun period .

Ancient Japanese sculpture was mostly derived from the idol worship in Buddhism or animistic rites of Shinto deity. In particular, sculpture among all the arts came to be most firmly centered around Buddhism. Materials traditionally used were metal—especially bronze—and, more commonly, wood, often lacquered, , or brightly painted. By the end of the Tokugawa period, such traditional sculpture - except for miniaturized works - had largely disappeared because of the loss of patronage by Buddhist temples and the nobility.

Korean Art





Korean art is noted for its traditions in pottery, music, calligraphy, painting, sculpture, and other genres, often marked by the use of bold color, natural forms, precise shape and scale, and surface decoration.

While there are clear and distinguishing differences between three independent cultures, there are significant and historical similarities and interactions between the arts of Korea, China and Japan.

The study and appreciation of Korean art is still at a formative stage in the West. Because of Korea’s position between China and Japan, Korea was seen as a mere conduit of Chinese culture to Japan. However, recent scholars have begun to acknowledge Korea’s own unique art, culture and important role in not only transmitting Chinese culture but assimilating it and creating a unique culture of its own. ''An art given birth to and developed by a nation is its own art.''

Generally the history of Korean painting is dated to approximately 108 C.E., when it first appears as an independent form. Between that time and the paintings and frescoes that appear on the Goryeo dynasty tombs, there has been little research. Suffice to say that til the Joseon dynasty the primary influence was painting though done with Korean landscapes, facial features, Buddhist topics, and an emphasis on celestial observation in keeping with the rapid development of Korean astronomy.

Throughout the history of Korean painting, there has been a constant separation of monochromatic works of black brushwork on very often mulberry paper or silk; and the colourful folk art or ''min-hwa'', ritual arts, tomb paintings, and festival arts which had extensive use of colour.

This distinction was often class-based: scholars, particularly in Confucian art felt that one could see colour in monochromatic paintings within the gradations and felt that the actual use of colour coarsened the paintings, and restricted the imagination. Korean folk art, and painting of architectural frames was seen as brightening certain outside wood frames, and again within the tradition of Chinese architecture, and the early Buddhist influences of profuse rich thalo and primary colours inspired by .

Laotian art



Laotian art includes , , and .

Many beautiful Lao Buddhist sculptures are carved right into the Pak Ou caves. Near Pak Ou the ''Tham Ting'' and the ''Tham Theung'' are not too far from Luang Prabang, Laos. They are a magnificent group of caves that are only accessible by boat, about two hours upstream from the center of Luang Prabang, and have recently become more well known and frequented by tourists.The caves are noted for their impressive Buddhist and style sculptures carved into the cave walls, and hundreds of discarded Buddhist figures laid out over the floors and wall shelves. They were put there as their owners did not wish to destroy them, so a difficult journey is made to the caves to place their unwanted statue there.

Thai art



Thai art and was traditionally and primarily . Sculpture was almost exclusively of Buddha images, while painting was confined to illustration of books and decoration of buildings, primarily palaces and temples. Thai Buddha images from different periods have a number of distinctive styles. Contemporary Thai art often combines traditional Thai elements with techniques.

Tibetan art





Tibetan art refers to the art of Tibet and other present and former kingdoms . Tibetan art is first and foremost a form of sacred art, reflecting the over-riding influence of Tibetan Buddhism on these cultures. The Sand Mandala is a tradition which symbolises the transitory nature of things. As part of Buddhist canon, all things material are seen as transitory. A sand mandala is an example of this, being that once it has been built and its accompanying ceremonies and viewing are finished, it is systematically .

Historian note that Chinese painting had a profound influence on Tibetan painting in general. Starting from the 14th and 15th century, Tibetan painting had incorporated many elements from the Chinese, and during the 18th century, Chinese painting had a deep and far-stretched impact on Tibetan visual art. According to Giuseppe Tucci, by the time of the Qing Dynasty, "a new Tibetan art was then developed, which in a certain sense was a provincial echo of the Chinese 18th century's smooth ornate preciosity."

Vietnamese art



Vietnamese art is from one of the oldest of such cultures in the Southeast Asia region. A rich artistic heritage that dates to prehistoric times and includes: silk painting, sculpture, pottery, ceramics, woodblock prints, architecture, music, dance and theatre.

is art practiced in Vietnam or by Vietnamese artists, from ancient times to post- art which was strongly influenced by , among other philosophies such as Taoism and Confucianism. The art of Champa and also played a smaller role later on.

The Chinese influence on Vietnamese art extends into , calligraphy, and traditional architecture. Currently, Vietnamese lacquer paintings have proven to be quite popular.

Vietnamese calligraphy




Calligraphy has had a long history in Vietnam, previously using Chinese characters along with Chu Nom. However, most modern Vietnamese calligraphy instead uses the Roman-character based Quoc Ngu, which has proven to be very popular.

In the past, with literacy in the old character-based writing systems of Vietnam being restricted to scholars and elites, calligraphy nevertheless still played an important part in Vietnamese life. On special occasions such as the , people would go to the village teacher or scholar to make them a calligraphy hanging . People who could not read or write also often commissioned scholars to write prayers which they would burn at temple shrines.




Eastern art gallery

Duilian

In Chinese poetry, a duìlián or antithetical couplet is a pair of lines of poetry pasted on the sides of doors leading to people's homes. The two lines correspond in their metrical length and some properties of each , such as meaning and . The ideal for a duilian is to have few words but deep meaning. For this reason, they use one character per word, as in much Classical Chinese.

Requirements


A Duilian is only considered as such if the following rules apply:
#Both lines must have exactly the same number of Chinese characters.
#The lexical category of each character must be the same as its corresponding character.
#The tones need to be in order. Usually, this means if one character is of the first or second tone, its corresponding character must not be of the first or second tone.
#The meaning of the two lines need to be related, with each pair of corresponding characters having related meanings too.

History


Originating during the Five Dynasties, flourishing during the and , duilian have a history of more than a thousand years.

Dafen (town of painting replicas)

Dafen is a suburb of Buji, Longgang, Shenzhen in Guangdong province, China. In the early 1990s a group of about twenty artists under the leadership of the painter and businessman Huang Jiang took up residence in this town. They specialised in the making of large numbers of replicas of oil paintings by masters such as , , , Rembrandt or .

These replicas were sold in many countries for relatively low prices. The endeavor was quite successful and the demand for replicas increased. In order to fulfill the demand more and more artists took up residence and started to make a living, the estimate being in the thousands.

Many of the artists are trained at art academies in the required techniques and produce dozens of replicas daily.

These replicas are of paintings of artists who have died more than seventy years ago and consequently out of copyright. The only requirement is that it is made clear that these paintings are replicas. Currently, the village sells both originals and replicas. It is possible to commission paintings for low prices. The village is a gated development, recognizable by the large sculpture of a hand holding a paintbrush outside its gates.

Cynical Realism

Cynical realism is a movement in Chinese art, especially in the form of painting, that began in the 1990s. Beginning in Beijing, it has become the most popular Chinese modernist art movement in mainland China. It arose through the pursuit of individual expression by Chinese artists that broke away from the collective mindset that existed since the Cultural Revolution. The major themes tend to focus on socio-political issues and events since Revolutionary China to the present. These include having a, usually humorous and post-ironic, take on a realist perspective and interpretation of transition that Chinese society has been through, from the advent of Communism to today's industrialization and modernization.

Artists associated with Cynical Realism include Fang Lijun, , and Yue Minjun.

Confucian art

Confucian art is art inspired by the writings of Confucius, and teachings. Confucian art originated in China, then spread westwards on the Silk road, southward down to southern China and then onto Southeast Asia, and eastwards through northern China on to Japan and Korea. It still maintains a strong influence within Indonesia. Confucian influence on western art has been limited.

Notable elements of this art are calligraphy of Confucian writings and thoughts, often contained within Confucian temples and schools, as well as whiteware ceramics and pottery related to Confucian religious and scholarly practices. In China, Chinese scholar's rocks were part of this tradition. As most importantly the Korean stone art which continues to this day.

Confucian art may be distinguished between: classical early period, neo-Confucianism, and post-modern Confucian art.

Contemporary art events


Confucius' birthday, the 27th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, is celebrated as a holiday in Taiwan and within a community of a million Confucians within Indonesia. Mainland and overseas Chinese have a more limited celebration, mostly among the scholarly community where calligraphy and paintings are done. The month varies between late September and early October in the western calendar. And celebrations provide visuals of contemporary Confucian art, music, and maintenance of the rites.

Cinema of Hong Kong

The of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language , alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of political and economic freedom than mainland China and Taiwan, and developed into a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world and for East Asia in general. For decades, Hong Kong was the third largest motion picture industry in the world and the second largest exporter. Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-'90s and Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage.

In the West, Hong Kong's vigorous pop cinema has long had a strong cult following, which has become large enough that it is now arguably a part of the cultural mainstream, widely available and imitated. This influence has been particularly heavy on recent Hollywood trends in the genre.

The Hong Kong industry


Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little to no direct government support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It is a thoroughly commercial cinema: highly corporate, concentrating on crowd-pleasing like comedy and action, and relying heavily on s, sequels and remakes.

Hong Kong film derives a number of elements from Hollywood, such as certain genre parameters, a "thrill-a-minute" philosophy and fast pacing and . But the borrowings are filtered through elements from and , particularly a penchant for stylization and a disregard for Western standards of . This, combined with a fast and loose approach to the filmmaking process, contributes to the energy and surreal imagination that foreign audiences note in Hong Kong cinema.

The star system


As is common in commercial cinema, the industry's heart is a highly developed . In earlier days, beloved performers from the Chinese opera stage often brought their audiences with them to the screen. For the past three or four decades, television has been a major launching pad for movie stardom, through acting courses and widely watched drama, comedy and variety series offered by the . Possibly even more important is the overlap with the . Many, if not most, movie stars have recording sidelines, and vice versa; this has been a key marketing strategy in an entertainment industry where American-style, multimedia advertising campaigns have until recently been little used . In the current commercially troubled climate, the casting of young Cantopop idols to attract the all-important youth audience is endemic.

In the small and tightly knit industry, actors are kept very busy. During previous boom periods, the number of movies made by a successful figure in a single year could routinely reach double digit.

Budgets


Films are typically low-budget in comparison with . A major release with a big star, aimed at "hit" status, will typically cost around US$5 million . A low-budget feature can go well below US$1 million. Occasional projects by the very biggest stars or international co-productions aimed at the global market, can go as high as US$20 million or more, but these are rare exceptions. Hong Kong productions can nevertheless achieve a level of gloss and lavishness greater than these numbers might suggest, given factors like lower wages, the efficient professionalism typical of behind-the-scenes personnel, and the general lack of the expensive frills that are typical on Hollywood sets.

Language and sound


Since the 1980s, films have been made mostly in the language.

For decades, films were typically , with dialogue and all other sound afterwards. In the hectic and low-budget industry, this method was faster and more cost-efficient than recording live sound, particularly when using performers from different dialect regions; it also helped facilitate dubbing into other languages for the vital export market. Many busy stars would not even record their own dialogue, but would be dubbed by a lesser-known performer. Shooting without sound also contributed to an improvisatory filmmaking approach. Movies often went into production without finished scripts, with scenes and dialogue concocted on the set; especially low-budget productions on tight schedules might even have actors mouth silently or simply count numbers, with actual dialogue created only in the editing process.

A trend towards sync sound filming grew in the late '90s and this method is now the norm, partly because of a widespread public association with higher quality cinema.

History



1909 to World War II


During its early history, Hong Kong's cinema played second fiddle to that of the , particularly the city of Shanghai, which was then the movie capital of the Chinese-speaking world. Very little of this work is extant: one count finds only four films remaining out of over 500 produced in Hong Kong before World War II . Detailed accounts of this period, especially those by non- speakers, therefore have inherent limitations and uncertainties.

Pioneers from the stage



As in most of China, the development of early films was tightly bound to Chinese opera, for centuries the dominant form of dramatic entertainment. Opera scenes were the source for what are generally credited as the first movies made in Hong Kong, two 1909 short comedies entitled ''Stealing a Roasted Duck'' and ''Right a Wrong with Earthenware Dish''. The director was stage actor and director Liang Shaobo. The producer was an American, Benjamin Brodsky , one of a number of Westerners who helped jumpstart Chinese film through their efforts to crack China's vast potential market.

Credit for the first Hong Kong feature film is usually given to ''Zhuangzi Tests His Wife'' , which also took its story from the opera stage, was helmed by a stage director and featured Brodsky's involvement. Director Lai Man-Wai was a theatrical colleague of Liang Shaobo's who would become known as the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema". In another borrowing from opera, Lai played the role of wife himself. His brother played the role of husband, and his wife a supporting role as a maid, making her the first Chinese woman to act in a Chinese film, a milestone delayed by longstanding taboos regarding female performers . ''Zhuangzhi'' was the only film made by Chinese American Film, founded by Lai and Brodsky as the first movie studio in Hong Kong, and was never actually shown in the territory .

The following year, the outbreak of World War I put a large crimp in the development of cinema in Hong Kong, as Germany was the source of the colony's film stock . It was not until 1923 that Lai, his brother and their cousin joined with Liang Shaobo to form Hong Kong's first entirely Chinese-owned-and-operated production company, the Company. In 1924, they moved their operation to the Mainland after government red tape blocked their plans to build a studio.

The advent of sound


With the popularity of talkies in the early 1930s, China's many, mutually unintelligible, spoken had to be grappled with. Hong Kong was a major center for , one of the most widely spoken, and political factors on the Mainland provided other opportunities. The government of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party wanted to enforce a "-only" policy and was hostile to Cantonese filmmaking in China. It also banned the wildly popular ''wuxia'' genre of martial arts swordplay and fantasy, accusing it of promoting superstition and violent anarchy. Cantonese film and ''wuxia'' film remained popular despite government hostility, and the British colony of Hong Kong became a place where both of these trends could be freely served. The name soon became the standard name for black and white Cantonese movies.

Filmed Cantonese operas proved even more successful than ''wuxia'' and constituted the leading genre of the 1930s. Major studios that thrived in this period were Grandview, Universal, Nanyue and Tianyi .

The advent of war


Another important factor in the '30s was the . "National defense" films - patriotic war stories about Chinese resisting the Japanese invasion - became one of Hong Kong's major genres; notable titles included Kwan Man Ching's ''Lifeline'' , Chiu Shu Sun's ''Hand to Hand Combat'' and Situ Huimin's ''March of the Partisans'' . The genre and the film industry were further boosted by emigre film artists and companies when Shanghai was taken by the Japanese in 1937.

This of course came to an end when Hong Kong itself to the Japanese in December 1941. But unlike on the Mainland, the occupiers were not able to put together a collaborationist film industry. They managed to complete just one propaganda movie, ''The Attack on Hong Kong'' before the British returned in 1945 . A more important move by the Japanese may have been to melt down many of Hong Kong's pre-war films to extract their silver nitrate for military use .

The 1940s-1960s


Postwar Hong Kong cinema, like postwar Hong Kong industries in general, was catalyzed by the continuing influx of capital and talents from Mainland China. This became a flood with the 1946 resumption of the Chinese Civil War and then the 1949 victory. These events definitively shifted the center of Chinese-language cinema to Hong Kong. The colony also did big business exporting films to countries and to Chinatowns in Western countries .

Competing languages


The postwar era also cemented the bifurcation of the industry into two parallel cinemas, one in , the dominant dialect of the Mainland emigres, and one in , the dialect of most Hong Kong natives. Mandarin movies had much higher budgets and more lavish production. Reasons included their enormous export market; the expertise, capital and prestige of the Shanghai filmmakers; and the cultural prestige of Mandarin, the official language of China and the tongue of the Chinese cultural and political elite. For decades to come, Cantonese films, though sometimes more numerous, were relegated to second-tier status .

Another language-related milestone occurred in 1963: the British authorities passed a law requiring the of all films in English, supposedly to enable a watch on political content. Making a virtue of necessity, studios included Chinese subtitles as well, enabling easier access to their movies for speakers of other dialects. Subtitling later had the unintended consequence of facilitating the movies' popularity in the West.

Cantonese movies


During this period, Cantonese opera on film dominated. The top stars were the female duo of Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin . Yam specialized in male scholar roles to Pak's female leads. They made over fifty films together, ''The Purple Hairpin'' being one of the most enduringly popular .

Low-budget martial arts films were also popular. A series of roughly 100 kung fu movies starring Kwan Tak Hing as historical folk hero Wong Fei Hung were made, starting with ''The True Story of Wong Fei Hung'' and ending with ''Wong Fei Hung Bravely Crushing the Fire Formation'' . Fantasy ''wuxia'' serials with special effects drawn on the film by hand, such as ''The Six-Fingered Lord of the Lute'' starring teen idol Connie Chan Po-chu in the lead male role, were also popular , as were contemporary melodramas of home and family life.

Mandarin movies and the Shaws/Cathay rivalry


In Mandarin production, and were the top studios by the 1960s, and bitter rivals. The Shaws gained the upper hand in 1964 after the death in a plane crash of MP&GI founder and head Loke Wan Tho. The renamed Cathay faltered, ceasing film production in 1970 .

A musical genre called '''' was derived from Chinese opera; the Shaws' record-breaking hit ''The Love Eterne'' remains the classic of the genre. Historical costume epics often overlapped with the ''Huángméidiào'', such as in ''The Kingdom and the Beauty'' . . Romantic melodramas such as ''Red Bloom in the Snow'' , ''Love Without End'' , ''The Blue and the Black'' and adaptations of novels by Chiung Yao were popular. So were Hollywood-style , which were a particular specialty of MP&GI/Cathay in entries such as ''Mambo Girl'' and ''The Wild, Wild Rose'' .

In the second half of the '60s, the Shaws inaugurated a new generation of more intense, less fantastical ''wuxia'' films with glossier production values, acrobatic moves and stronger violence. The trend was inspired by the popularity of imported samurai movies from Japan , as well as by the loss of movie audiences to television. This marked the crucial turn of the industry from a female-centric genre system to an action movie orientation . Key trendsetters included Xu Zenghong's ''Temple of the Red Lotus'' , King Hu's ''Come Drink with Me'' and ''Dragon Inn'' , and Chang Cheh's ''Tiger Boy'' , ''The One-Armed Swordsman'' and ''Golden Swallow'' .

Years of transformation


Mandarin-dialect film in general and the Shaw Brothers studio in particular began the 1970s in apparent positions of unassailable strength. Cantonese cinema virtually vanished in the face of Mandarin studios and Cantonese television, which became available to the general population in 1967; in 1972 no films in the local dialect were made . The Shaws saw their longtime rival Cathay ceasing film production, leaving themselves the only megastudio. The martial arts subgenre of the ''kung fu'' movie exploded into popularity internationally, with the Shaws driving and dominating the wave. But changes were beginning that would greatly alter the industry by the end of the decade.

The Cantonese comeback


Paradoxically, television would soon contribute to the revival of Cantonese in a movement towards more down-to-earth movies about modern Hong Kong life and average people.

The first spark was the ensemble comedy ''The House of 72 Tenants'', the only Cantonese film made in 1973, but a resounding hit. It was based on a well-known play and produced by the Shaws as a showcase for performers from their pioneering television station TVB .

The return of Cantonese really took off with the comedies of former TVB stars the Hui Brothers . The rationale behind the move to Cantonese was clear in the trailer for the brothers' ''Games Gamblers Play'' : "Films by devoted young people with you in mind." This move back to the local audience for Hong Kong cinema paid off immediately. ''Games Gamblers Play'' initially made US$1.4 million at the Hong Kong box office, becoming the highest grossing film up to that point, even beating such favourites as the films of worldwide kung fu superstar Bruce Lee. The Hui movies also broke ground by satirizing the modern reality of an ascendant middle class, whose long work hours and dreams of material success were transforming the colony into a modern industrial and corporate giant . Cantonese comedy thrived and Cantonese production skyrocketed; Mandarin hung on into the early '80s, but has been relatively rare onscreen since.

Golden Harvest and the rise of the independents



In 1970, former Shaw Brothers executives Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho left to form their own studio, Golden Harvest. The upstart's more flexible and less tightfisted approach to the business outmaneuvered the Shaws' old-style studio. Chow and Ho landed contracts with rising young performers who had fresh ideas for the industry, like Bruce Lee and the Hui Brothers, and allowed them greater creative latitude than was traditional. By the end of the '70s, Golden Harvest was the top studio, signing up Jackie Chan, the kung fu comedy actor-filmmaker who would spend the next twenty years as Asia's biggest box office draw .

Meanwhile, the explosions of Cantonese and kung fu and the example of Golden Harvest had created more space for independent producers and production companies. The era of the studio juggernauts was past. The Shaws nevertheless continued film production until 1985 before turning entirely to television .

Other transformative trends


The rapidly growing permissiveness in film content that was general in much of the world affected Hong Kong film as well. A genre of softcore erotica known as ''fengyue'' became a local staple . Such material did not suffer as much of a stigma in Hong Kong as in most Western countries; it was more or less part of the mainstream, sometimes featuring contributions from major directors such as Chor Yuen and Li Han Hsiang and often crossbreeding with other popular genres like martial arts, the and especially comedy . Violence also grew more intense and graphic, particularly at the instigation of martial arts filmmakers.

Director blended these trends into the social-issue dramas which he had already made his specialty with late '60s Cantonese classics like ''The Story of a Discharged Prisoner'' and ''Teddy Girls'' . In the '70s, he began directing in Mandarin and brought elements to serious films about subjects like prostitution , the atomic bomb and the fragility of civilized society .

The brief career of Tang Shu Shuen, the territory's first noted woman director, produced two films, ''The Arch'' and ''China Behind'' , that were trailblazers for a local, socially critical . They are also widely considered forerunners of the last major milestone of the decade, the so-called Hong Kong New Wave that would come from outside the traditional studio hierarchy and point to new possibilities for the industry .

1980s-early 1990s: the boom years



The 1980s and early '90s saw seeds planted in the '70s come to full flower: the triumph of Cantonese, the birth of a new and modern cinema, superpower status in the East Asian market, and the turning of the West's attention to Hong Kong film.

A cinema of greater technical polish and more sophisticated visual style, including the first forays into up-to-date special effects technology, sprang up quickly. To this surface dazzle, the new cinema added an eclectic mixing and matching of genres, and a penchant for pushing the boundaries of sensationalistic content. Slapstick comedy, sex, the supernatural, and above all ruled, occasionally all in the same film.

The international market



During this period, the Hong Kong industry was one of the few in the world that thrived in the face of the increasing global dominance of Hollywood. Indeed, it came to exert a comparable dominance in its own region of the world. The regional audience had always been vital, but now more than ever Hong Kong product filled theaters and video shelves in places like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea. Taiwan became at least as important a market to Hong Kong film as the local one; in the early '90s the once-robust came close to extinction under the onslaught of Hong Kong imports . They even found a lesser foothold in Japan, with its own highly developed and better-funded and strong taste for American movies; Jackie Chan in particular became popular there.

Almost accidentally, Hong Kong also reached further into the West, building upon the attention gained during the '70s kung fu craze. Availability in Chinatown theaters and video shops allowed the movies to be discovered by Western attracted by their "exotic" qualities and excesses. An emergence into the wider popular culture gradually followed over the coming years.

Leaders of the boom



The trailblazer was production company Cinema City, founded in 1980 by comedians Karl Maka, and Dean Shek. It specialized in contemporary comedy and action, slickly produced according to explicitly prescribed commercial formulas. The lavish, effects-filled spy spoof ''Aces Go Places'' and its numerous sequels epitomized the much-imitated "Cinema City style."

Directors and producers Tsui Hark and Wong Jing can be singled out as definitive figures of this era. Tsui was a notorious Hong Kong New Wave tyro who symbolized that movement's absorption into the mainstream, becoming the industry's central trendsetter and technical experimenter . The even more prolific Wong is, by most accounts, the most commercially successful and critically reviled Hong Kong filmmaker of the last two decades, with his relentless output of aggressively crowd-pleasing and cannily marketed pulp films.

Other hallmarks of this era included the gangster or "" movie fad launched by director John Woo, producer and long-time actor Alan Tang and dominated by actor Chow Yun-Fat; romantic melodramas and martial arts fantasies starring Brigitte Lin; the comedies of stars like Cherie Chung and Stephen Chow; and contemporary, stunt-driven kung fu action epitomized by the work of Jackie Chan.

Category III films



The government's introduction of in 1988 had a certainly unintended effect on subsequent trends. The "Category III" rating became an umbrella for the rapid growth of and generally outré films; however, while considered graphic by Chinese standards, these films would be more on par with movies rated "R" or "NC-17" in the United States, and not "XXX". By the height of the boom in the early '90s, roughly half of the theatrical features produced were Category III-rated softcore erotica descended from the fengyue movies of the '70s. A definitive example of a mainstream Category III hit was Michael Mak's ''Sex and Zen'' , a comedy inspired by ''The Carnal Prayer Mat'', the seventeenth century classic of comic-erotic literature by .

The rating also covered a fad for grisly, taboo-tweaking and films, often supposedly based on true crime stories, such as ''Dr. Lamb'' , ''The Untold Story'' and ''Ebola Syndrome'' .

Since the mid-'90s, the trend has withered with the shrinking of the general Hong Kong film market and the wider availability of pornography in home video formats . But in 2000's, three Category III movies: '''' its sequel, ''Election 2'' , and ''Mad Detective'' still enjoyed surprising box office successes in Hong Kong.

Alternative cinema



In this landscape of pulp, there remained some ground for an alternative cinema or , due at least in part to the influence of the . Some New Wave filmmakers such as Ann Hui and Yim Ho continued to earn acclaim with personal and political films made at the edges of the mainstream.

The second half of the '80s also saw the emergence of what is sometimes called a "Second Wave." These younger directors included names like Stanley Kwan, Clara Law and her partner Eddie Fong, Mabel Cheung, Lawrence Ah Mon and Wong Kar-wai. Like the New Wavers, they tended to be graduates of overseas film schools and local television apprenticeships, and to be interested in going beyond the usual, commercial subject matters and styles .

These artists began to earn Hong Kong unprecedented attention and respect in international circles and the global film festival circuit. In particular, Wong Kar-wai's works starring Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung in the 1990s has made him an internationally acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker.

Mid-1990s-Present: Post-boom


The industry in crisis



During the 1990s, the Hong Kong film industry underwent a drastic decline from which it has not recovered. Domestic ticket sales had already started to drop in the late '80s, but the regional audience kept the industry booming into the early years of the next decade . But by the mid-'90s, it went into freefall. Revenues were cut in half. By the decade's end, the number of films produced in a typical year dropped from an early '90s high of well over 200 to somewhere around 100 American blockbuster imports began to regularly top the box office for the first time in decades. Ironically, this was the same period during which Hong Kong cinema emerged into something like mainstream visibility in the U.S. and began exporting popular figures to Hollywood.

Numerous, converging factors have been blamed for the downturn:

* The Asian financial crisis, which dried up traditional sources of film finance as well as regional audiences' leisure spending money.
* Overproduction, attended by a drop in quality control and an exhaustion of overused formulas .
* A costly early '90s boom in building of modern multiplexes and an attendant rise in ticket prices .
* An increasingly cosmopolitan, upwardly mobile Hong Kong middle class, that often looks down upon local films as cheap and tawdry.
* Rampant video piracy throughout East Asia.
* A newly aggressive push by Hollywood studios into the Asian market.

The greater access to the Mainland that came with the July '97 to China was not as much of a boon as hoped, and presented its own problems, particularly with regard to censorship.

The industry had one of its darkest years in 2003. In addition to the continuing slump, a SARS virus outbreak kept many theaters virtually empty for a time and shut down film production for four months; only fifty-four movies were made . The unrelated deaths of two of Hong Kong's famous singer/actors, Leslie Cheung, 46, and Anita Mui, 40, rounded out the bad news.

The Hong Kong Government in April 2003 introduced a Film Guarantee Fund as an incentive to local banks to become involved in the motion picture industry. The guarantee operates to secure a percentage of monies loaned by banks to film production companies. The Fund has received a mixed reception from industry participants, and less than enthusiastic reception from financial institutions who perceive investment in local films as high risk ventures with little collateral. Film guarantee legal documents commissioned by the Hong Kong Government in late April 2003 are based on Canadian documents, which have limited relevance to the local industry.

Recent trends



Efforts by local filmmakers to retool their product have had middling results overall. These include technically glossier visuals, including much ; greater use of Hollywood-style mass marketing techniques; and heavy reliance on casting teen-friendly Cantopop music stars. Successful genre cycles in the late '90s and early 2000s have included: American-styled, high-tech action pictures such as ''Downtown Torpedoes'' , ''Gen-X Cops'' and ''Purple Storm'' ; the " kids" subgenre launched by ''Young and Dangerous'' ; yuppie-centric romantic comedies like ''The Truth About Jane and Sam'' , ''Needing You...'' and ''Love on a Diet'' ; and supernatural chillers like ''Horror Hotline: Big-Head Monster'' and ''The Eye'' , often modeled on the then making an international splash.

In the 2000s, there have been some bright spots. , founded by filmmakers Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai in the mid-'90s, has had considerable critical and commercial success, especially with offbeat and character-driven crime films like '''' and ''Running on Karma'' . An even more successful example of the genre was the blockbuster ''Infernal Affairs'' trilogy of police thrillers co-directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak . Comedian Stephen Chow, the most consistently popular screen star of the '90s, directed and starred in ''Shaolin Soccer'' and ''Kung Fu Hustle'' ; these used digital special effects to push his distinctive humor into new realms of the surreal and became the territory's two highest-grossing films to date, garnering numerous awards locally and internationally. Johnnie To's two Category III movies: '''' and ''Election 2'' also enjoyed Hong Kong box office successes. ''Election 2'' has even been released in the theatrically under the new title ''''; this movie received very positive reviews in the United States, with a more than 90% "Fresh" rating on .

Still, some observers believe that, given the depressed state of the industry and the rapidly strengthening economic and political ties among Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan, the distinctive entity of Hong Kong cinema that emerged after World War II may have a limited lifespan. The lines between the mainland and Hong Kong industries are ever more blurred, especially now that China is producing increasing numbers of slick, mass-appeal popular films. Predictions are notoriously difficult in this rapidly changing part of the world, but the trend may be towards a more pan-Chinese cinema, as existed in the first half of the twentieth century.

Notable persons


Directors


*Fruit Chan
*Peter Chan
*Samson Chiu
*Stephen Chow
*King Hu
*Ann Hui
*Michael Hui
*Wong Jing
*Stanley Kwan
*Dante Lam
*Ringo Lam
*Andrew Lau
*Lau Kar-Leung
*
*Alan Mak
*Patrick Tam
*Johnnie To
*Stanley Tong
*Tsui Hark
*John Woo
*Wong Kar-wai
*Herman Yau
*Yuen Woo-ping

Cinematographers


*Christopher Doyle
*Peter Pau
*Arthur Wong

Actors


*Jackie Chan
*Ekin Cheng
*Jacky Cheung
*Leslie Cheung
*David Chiang
*Stephen Chow
*Chow Yun-Fat
*Sammo Hung
*Takeshi Kaneshiro
*Aaron Kwok
*Leon Lai
*Andy Lau
*
*Bruce Lee
*Tony Leung Chiu-Wai
*Tony Leung Ka-Fai
*Jet Li
*Alan Tang
*Eric Tsang
*
*Daniel Wu
*
*Donnie Yen
*Yuen Biao

Actresses


*Sammi Cheng
*Maggie Cheung
*Cheng Pei-Pei
*Chin Tsi-Ang
*Fung Bo Bo
*Gigi Lai
*Gigi Leung
*Gong Li
*Lin Dai
*Ivy Ling Po
*Betty Loh Ti
*Anita Mui
*Shu Qi
*Michelle Reis
*Lydia Shum
*Sally Yeh
*Michelle Yeoh
*Miriam Yeung
*Michelle Yim
*Xia Meng
*Zhang Ziyi
*Moon Lee
*Yukari Oshima

Further reading


In English


Hong Kong cinema


* Baker, Rick, and Toby Russell; Lisa Baker . ''The Essential Guide to Deadly China Dolls''. London: Eastern Heroes Publications, 1996. ISBN 1-899252-02-9. Biographies of Hong Kong action cinema actresses.
* Baker, Rick, and Toby Russell; Lisa Tilston . ''The Essential Guide to Hong Kong Movies''. London: Eastern Heroes Publications, 1994. ISBN 1899252002. Contains reviews, but is best for its Hong Kong Film Personalities Directory.
* Baker, Rick, and Toby Russell; Lisa Tilston . ''The Essential Guide to the Best of Eastern Heroes''. London: Eastern Heroes Publications, 1995. ISBN 1-899252-01-1.
* Charles, John. ''The Hong Kong Filmography 1977–1997: A Complete Reference to 1,100 Films Produced by British Hong Kong Studios''. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2000. ISBN 0-7864-0842-1. Very comprehensive.
* Cheung, Esther M. K., and Yaowei Zhu . ''Between Home and World: A Reader in Hong Kong Cinema''. Xianggang du ben xi lie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0195929691.
* Chu, Yingchi. ''Hong Kong Cinema: Coloniser, Motherland and Self''. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. ISBN 0700717463.
* Fitzgerald, Martin. ''Hong Kong's Heroic Bloodshed''. North Pomfret, VT: Trafalgar Square, 2000. ISBN 1903047072.
* Fonoroff, Paul. ''At the Hong Kong Movies: 600 Reviews from 1988 Till the Handover''. Hong Kong: Film Biweekly Publishing House, 1998; Odyssey Publications, 1999. ISBN 962-217-641-0, ISBN 962-8114-47-6.
* Fu, Poshek, and David Desser, eds. ''The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity''. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, July 2000. ISBN 0521772354.
* Glaessner, Verina. ''Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance''. London: Lorimer; New York: Bounty Books, 1974. ISBN 0856470457, ISBN 0517518317.
* Hammond, Stefan. ''Hollywood East: Hong Kong Movies and the People Who Make Them''. Contemporary Books, 2000. ISBN 0809225816.
* Hammond, Stefan, and Mike Wilkins. ''Sex and Zen & A Bullet in the Head: The Essential Guide to Hong Kong's Mind-bending Films''. New York: Fireside Books, 1996. ISBN 0-684-80341-0, ISBN 1-85286-775-2.
* Kar, Law, and Frank Bren. ''Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View''. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004. ISBN 0810849860.
* Li, H. C. ''Chinese Cinema: Five Bibliographies''. Hong Kong: Studio 8, 2003.
* Lo Che-ying . ''A Selective Collection of Hong Kong Movie Posters: 1950's–1990's''. Hong Kong in Pictorials Series. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., Ltd., 1992. ISBN 962-04-1013-0. Bilingual:
* O'Brien, Daniel. ''Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror''. Manchester: Headpress, 2003. ISBN 1900486318.
* Pang, Laikwan, and Day Wong . ''Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema''. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005. ISBN 9622097375, ISBN 9622097383.
* Stokes, Lisa Odham, Jean Lukitsh, Michael Hoover, and Tyler Stokes. ''Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema''. Historical dictionaries of literature and the arts, no. 2. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2007. ISBN 0810855208.
* Stringer, Julian. "Problems with the Treatment of Hong Kong Cinema as Camp". ''Asian Cinema'' 8, 2 : 44-65.
* Stringer, Julian. ''Blazing Passions: Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema''. London: Wallflower, 2008. ISBN 1905674309, ISBN 1905674295.
* Tobias, Mel C. ''Flashbacks: Hong Kong Cinema After Bruce Lee''. Hong Kong: Gulliver Books, 1979. ISBN 9627019038.
* Wong, Ain-ling. ''The Hong Kong-Guangdong Film Connection''. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archive, 2005. ISBN 9628050338.
* Wong, Ain-ling. ''The Shaw Screen: A Preliminary Study''. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archive, 2003. ISBN 9628050214.
* Wood, Miles. ''Cine East: Hong Kong Cinema Through the Looking Glass''. Guildford, Surrey: FAB Press, 1998. ISBN 0952926024. Interviews with Hong Kong film makers.
* Yau, Esther C. M., ed. ''At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. ISBN 0816632340, ISBN 0816632359.
* Zhong, Baoxian. ''"Hollywood of the East" in the Making: The Cathay Organization Vs. the Shaw Organization in Post-War Hong Kong''. : Centre for China Urban and Regional Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2004. ISBN 9628804448.
* Zhong, Baoxian. ''Moguls of the Chinese Cinema: The Story of the Shaw Brothers in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore, 1924–2002''. Working paper series ; no. 44. Hong Kong: David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2005.

Note that "very year, since 1978, the HKIFF has published both a catalog of films released that year and a retrospective book -- and sometimes, special interest publication or two in the form of books and pamphlets. In 1996, a 10th Anniversary special was issued, and from 1997 onward, there have been yearly 'Panorama' special interest books in addition to the annual catalogs, retrospective books, and occasional pamphlets. In 2003, the HKIFF started carrying publications of the Hong Kong Film Archive, as well."—

Works which include Hong Kong cinema


* Access Asia Limited. ''Cinemas, Film Production & Distribution in China & Hong Kong: A Market Analysis''. Shanghai: Access Asia Ltd, 2004. ISBN 1902815629.
* Berry, Chris . ''Perspectives on Chinese Cinema''. London: British Film Institute, 1991. ISBN 0851702716, ISBN 0851702724.
* Berry, Michael. ''Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers''. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2004. ISBN 0231133308, ISBN 0231133316.
* Browne, Nick, et al. . ''New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0521448778.
* Eberhard, Wolfram. ''The Chinese Silver Screen; Hong Kong & Taiwanese Motion Pictures in the 1960's''. Asian folklore and social life monographs, v. 23. , 1972.
* Fu, Poshek. ''Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas''. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2003. ISBN 080474517X, ISBN 0804745188.
* Hunt, Leon. '' Kung Fu Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to Crouching Tiger''. Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN 1903364639.
* Julius, Marshall. ''Action!: The Action Movie A–Z''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; London: Batsford, 1996. ISBN 0253332443, ISBN 0253210917, ISBN 0713478519.
* Leung, Helen Hok-Sze. ''Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong''. Sexuality studies series. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008. ISBN 0774814691.
* Lu, Sheldon Hsiao-peng, ed. ''Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender''. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8248-1845-8.
* Marchetti, Gina, and Tan See Kam . ''Hong Kong Film, Hollywood and the New Global Cinema: No Film Is an Island''. London: Routledge, 2007. ISBN 0415380685, ISBN 0203967364.
* Meyers, Ric. ''Great Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan and More''. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 2001. ISBN 0806520264.
* Meyers, Richard, Amy Harlib, Bill and Karen Palmer. ''From Bruce Lee to the Ninjas: Martial Arts Movies''. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1985 . ISBN 0806509503, ISBN 0806510099.
* Mintz, Marilyn D. ''The Martial Arts Film''. South Brunswick, N.J.: A.S. Barnes, 1978. ISBN 0498017753.
* Mintz, Marilyn D. ''The Martial Arts Films''. Rutland, VT: C.E. Tuttle, 1983. ISBN 0804814082.
* Palmer, Bill, Karen Palmer, and Ric Meyers. ''The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies''. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995. ISBN 0810830272.
* Read, Pete. ''The Film and Television Market in Hong Kong''. : Canadian Heritage, 2005. ISBN 0662437675.
* Server, Lee. ''Asian Pop Cinema: Bombay to Tokyo''. Chronicle Books, 1999. ISBN 0-8118-2119-6.
* Tasker, Yvonne. ''Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema''. London: Routledge, November 2003. ISBN 041509223X, ISBN 0415092248.
* Thomas, Brian. ''Videohound's Dragon: Asian Action & Cult Flicks''. Visible Ink Press, 2003. ISBN 1578591414.
* Tobias, Mel C. ''Memoirs of an Asian Moviegoer''. Quarry Bay, Hong Kong: South China Morning Post Ltd., 1982. "The book is actually an updated, enlarged and revised edition of 'Flashbacks' which was first published in 1979. I have decided to change the book's title because it now has widened its scope in the world of cinema."—from the book's introduction.
* Tombs, Pete. ''Mondo Macabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema Around the World''. London: Titan Books, 1997; New York, NY: Griffin Books, 1998. ISBN 1852868651, ISBN 0-312-18748-3.
* Weisser, Thomas. ''Asian Cult Cinema''. New York: Boulevard Books, 1997. ISBN 1572972289. Updated and expanded version of both volumes of ''Asian Trash Cinema: The Book''; reviews and filmographies.
* Weisser, Thomas. ''Asian Trash Cinema: The Book ''. Miami, Florida: Vital Sounds Inc./Asian Trash Cinema Publications, 1995.
* Weisser, Thomas. ''Asian Trash Cinema: The Book''. Houston: Asian Trash Cinema/European Trash Cinema Publications, 1994.
* Weyn, Suzanne, and Ellen Steiber. ''From Chuck Norris to the Karate Kid: Martial Arts in the Movies''. New York: Parachute Press, 1986. ISBN 0938753002. Juvenile audience.

In other languages


French


* Armanet, Fran?ois, and Max Armanet. ''Ciné Kung Fu''. France: Ramsay, 1988. ISBN 2859566996.
* Fonfrède, Julien. ''Cinéma de Hong-Kong''. Les élémentaires - une encyclopédie vivante series. Montréal: L'Ile de la tortue, 1999. ISBN 2-922369-03-X.
* Glaessner, Verina. ''Kung fu: La Violence au Cinéma''. Montreal: Presses Select, 1976. Translation of ''Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance''.
* Glaessner, Verina. ''Kung Fu: La Violence au Cinéma''. Paris: Edit. Minoutstchine, 1975. ISBN 2856940064. Translation of ''Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance''.
* Reynaud, Bérénice. ''Nouvelles Chines, nouveaux cinémas''. Paris, France: éditions des Cahiers du Cinéma, 1999. ISBN 2866422260.

German


* Kuhn, Otto. ''Der Eastern Film''. Ebersberg/Obb.: Edition 8 1/2, 1983. ISBN 3923979029, ISBN 3923979029.
* Morgan, Jasper P. ''Die Knochenbrecher mit der Todeskralle: Bruce Lee und der "Drunken Master" - Legenden des Eastern-Films''. Der Eastern-Film, Bd. 1. Hille: MPW, 2003. ISBN 3931608565, ISBN 978-3931608569.
* Umard, Ralph. ''Film Ohne Grenzen: Das Neue Hongkong Kino''. Lappersdorf, Germany: Kerschensteiner, 1996. ISBN 3-931954-02-1.

Italian


* Bedetti, Simone, and Massimo Mazzoni. ''La Hollywood di Hong Kong Dalle Origini a John Woo'' . Bologna: PuntoZero, 1996. ISBN 8886945019. Book + computer disk filmography.
* Esposito, Riccardo F. ''Il Cinema del Kung-fu: 1970–1975''. Rome, Italy: Fanucci Editore, March 1989. ISBN 88-347-0120-8.
* Esposito, Riccardo F. ''Il Drago Feroce Attraversa le Acque'' . Florence: Tarab Edizioni, 1998. A "little handbook" about kung-fu movies released in Italy.
* Esposito, Riccardo, Max Dellamora and Massimo Monteleone. ''Fant'Asia: Il Cinema Fantastico dell'estremo Oriente'' . Italy: Grenade, 1994. ISBN 88-7248-100-7.
* Nazzaro, Giona A., and Andrea Tagliacozzo. ''Il Cinema di Hong Kong: Spade, Kung Fu, Pistole, Fantasmi'' . Recco : Le Mani, 1997. ISBN 88-8012-053-0.
* Parizzi, Roberta. ''Hong Kong: Il Futuro del Cinema Abita Qui''. Parma: S. Sorbini, 1996. ISBN 8886883056. Notes: At head of title: Comune di Parma, Assessorato Alla Cultura, Ufficio Cinema; Cineclub Black Maria.
* Pezzotta, Alberto. ''Tutto il Cinema di Hong Kong: Stili, Caratteri, autori'' . Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 1999. ISBN 88-8089-620-2.

Spanish


* Escajedo, Javier, Carles Vila, and Julio ?ngel Escajedo. ''Honor, plomo y sangre: el cine de acción de Hong Kong''. : Camaleón, 1997.
* Domingo López. ''Made in Hong Kong: Las 1000 Películas que Desataron la Fiebre Amarilla''. Valencia: Midons Editorial, S.L.: 1997. ISBN 84-89240-34-5.

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* —Reviews the vast majority of the movies currently coming out of Hong Kong
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* —Celebrating Asian Films
* —includes an extensive bibliography on martial arts films.
* —another extensive bibliography on Chinese film.
* , Film Services Office