What films represent a decline in Hong Kong cinema?
Well, my site is kind of known for being ultra harsh on Hong Kong films, and so people say, “How can you love Hong Kong films when you’re so mean to them all the time?” And I am frequently quite harsh, it is true. Sometimes, if you are so invested in something, you can’t make excuses for it as much as you would like to. There are a lot of films of all types that are just not very good, but it makes the good ones worth even more. Making excuses for even the bad movies is unfair to the good ones, because you’re saying, “Who cares if this one’s not that good? They’re all like this.” It kind of denigrates the whole industry.
There is some stuff you’ll find at Blockbuster that isn’t very good. But they get played for certain reasons: they’re action pictures or there’s an appearance by someone. There’s a film called The Vampire Effect, which is actually called The Twins Effect starring a couple of bubble-gum pop idols, and Jackie Chan has a cameo in it. Not a very good film. There’s one called China Strike Force that Miramax put out that has Mark Dacascos – he’s on the American version of Iron Chef, the Chairman Kaga guy, but he was also in Brotherhood of the Wolf and Cradle 2 the Grave. China Strike Force has Hong Kong-style action that’s over-the-top choreographed stuff, but really, the film is terrible.
A lot of Hong Kong films have tried to emulate Western ones, more recently, in terms of their plotlines, their emotions, and I think that’s a mistake. I think it’s one of the things that have hurt Hong Kong films, besides the bubble-gum pop idols, which are now everywhere.
What did you think of the attempts to Hollywoodize the Hong Kong directors and stars in American productions?
It’s hard for me to say, really. The fan point of view is they really wish they would go back [to Hong Kong]. But it’s hard to tell people what to do. I think John Woo’s movies were better in Hong Kong – I think he lost a lot in coming here. But he gets a lot more money to make his films here, and he gets more creative freedom in some ways, especially now that he’s like a name in the U.S. So in terms of what they’ve done, the only Hong Kong star whose films in America are decently representative of what he can do is probably Jackie Chan – the Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon movies. But it’s a tough thing. Hollywood is the big beacon for everybody – they want to go there, they want to be a part of it. Part of it is about the money, part of it is about expanding their horizons. But some of them you really want to see go back; you really want to see Chow Yun-Fat go back because he doesn’t do enough movies over here and they don’t really challenge him, like Bulletproof Monk. And people have really given up on John Woo, which is sad.
There is a whole cult of people devoted to the anti-Miramax, we-hate-what-has-happened-to-Hong-Kong-cinema feeling, because it has become a commodity. It’s a real sticking point for some people. But there are two sides to it – the Hong Kong people want to make money, too, and you can’t really deny them that. In some ways, them being able to make money selling off their talents and their properties to the U.S. does allow them to hopefully keep their own industry afloat. So it’s not really for me to say whether it should or should not be happening. I don’t like how Miramax does it, obviously, but sometimes I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot, so really they’re the ones who pay the price.
But even with these people coming over here, I think there are people still working in Hong Kong who are worth seeing. Even though you don’t have Chow Yun-Fat there anymore, you still have Andy Lau and Tony Leung and Stephen Chow.
What’s wrong with Miramax’s American releases of Hong Kong titles?
Over on the Miramax side, they spend so much time trying to figure how to sell these movies, they end up doing things to them that really hurt the films. Shaolin Soccer ultimately was not that bad; it’s a pretty good video release. The danger is you’re going to get a film that was cut and dubbed and the soundtrack was changed to hip hop or something to fly with people here. But it’s not going to work forever. It’d be better if they could find a way to put out what is being made, and hopefully the audience will make itself known.
How can people find uncut Hong Kong films over here?
The problem is now you have companies telling these importers, “You can’t sell these films in the U.S. because we own the rights for U.S. distribution.” Sometimes that’s not so terrible. In the case of Shaolin Soccer, people had to buy the Miramax DVD and it’s not such a bad alternative to the one over there. But there’s a problem when people want to buy Drunken Master II, which is not available in its original form. Or if people want to buy all the Jet Li films that were put out by Miramax: Fong Sai-Yuk I and II, which are called The Legend and The Legend 2 here, and Fist of Legend which is cut and has a different soundtrack. It makes it so we can’t see the versions we want to see. It’s true that probably 90 percent of the people who saw these films in America never knew the existence of the original ones, but that’s not really fair to the way films are made – there is an audience, and maybe they don’t think it’s worth their time to satisfy this audience, but these are the people who, in a sense, were promoting their products for free for many years. There is a real disconnect between the way studios do things and the way fans get into it.
