Ambivalence of entertainment: the Cold War and pro-communist Mandarin cinema

Abstract

ABSTRACTColonial Hong Kong was a transregional hub of Cold War ideological confrontation. The United States and its Chinese ally, Chiang Kai-shek’s Taiwan, struggled with Beijing for the hearts of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and around the world. Pro-Communist émigré cinema in the mid-twentieth century was a prime cultural manifestation of this Cold War contest. After an initial period of radicalization and antagonism, the pro-Communist studios in Hong Kong gradually shifted to a moderate approach whose goal was not to undermine British colonial rule or espouse revolutionary ideologies. Rather, the new strategy was one of flexibility and restraint that aimed to maintain a strategic presence in the local film industry and serve as a point of contact for overseas Chinese. Later, with the emergence of two pro-Free China giant studios, Motion Pictures & General Investment Co. Ltd. and Shaw Brothers, the cinematic ecosystem in Hong Kong was significantly altered. In order to hold on to their market presence in an increasingly more competitive environment, pro-Communist film companies embraced a more entertainment-oriented ethos and experimented with various popular genres, while struggling to remain truthful to their ideal of “guiding people to do good.” With in-depth analysis of two popular films by Zhu Shilin, The Dividing Wall (Yibang zhi ge) and Sweet as Honey (Tiantian mimi), this essay seeks to historicize the ways in which the Beijing-sponsored film establishment in 1950s Hong Kong negotiated and balanced a changing set of political, ideological, and commercial interests in pursuit of its strategic mission.KEYWORDS: Cinematic ecosystemcold warmarch first incidentZhu ShilinChang-Feng-Xin Special termsTableDownload CSVDisplay TableNotes1 Box-office statistics from 1950s Hong Kong are hard to come by, but the limited evidence we have does indicate the market success of “Patriotic” films. In 1951, for instance, Li Pingqian’s A Night-Time Wife (Jin hun ji), a Great Wall production, was the highest grossing Mandarin-language film in Hong Kong, followed by three productions—Zhu Shilin’s Should They Marry? (Wu jiaqi) and Flower Girl (Hua guniang), and Wang Weiyi’s The Fiery Phoenix (Huo fenghuang)—by Loon-Ma and Wushi niandai, the two companies that would merge to become Feng Huang (“Yi jiu wu yi nian” 1952). Similarly, three films by Great Wall—Yue Feng’s Modern Red Chamber Dream (Xin honglou meng),Tao Qin’s Father Marries Again (Yi jia chun), and Li Pingqian’s Honeymoon (Miyue)—held the top-grossing spots in 1952, while Zhu Shilin’s The Dividing Wall was at the sixth place (Wang Citation1953). In 1955, Hu Xiaofeng’s Loves of the Youngsters (Da Ernü jing) came in third place, while topping the box-office chart was Sang Hu and Huang Sha’s The Romance of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yingtai, 1954), a Shanghai Yue opera film from China whose immense success in Hong Kong, as we shall see, would pave the way for the trend of costume opera films pursued by both Shaw Brothers and “patriotic” studios (“Yi jiu wu wu nian” Citation1956).2 According to a report, The Battle of Love grossed more than HK$150,000 and broke the ten-year box-office record for Hong Kong Mandarin films (“Qingchang ru zhanchang” 1957).Additional informationNotes on contributorsPo-Shek FuPo-Shek Fu taught history and cinema studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His recent book is Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War (Oxford, 2023).Man-Fung YipMan-Fung Yip is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of Martial Arts Cinema and Hong Kong Modernity: Aesthetics, Representation, Circulation (2017) and co-editor of The Cold War and Asian Cinemas (2020). His current research focuses on the cinematic Cold War in Asia and the Global South.