Spanning an eighty year history, the Hong Kong film industry gained international attention in the early 1980s, simultaneous to negotiations over the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Not coincidental to film output, the relative uncertainty of 1997 compounded an already accelerated rate of accumulation. From the gangster films and martial arts costumers, to the lightweight comedies and meditative dramas, the subtexts illustrate both variations on the means of early capitalist accumulation and a fear of losing ground gained during Hong Kong's three decade drive into late capitalism. Along with its new status, Hong Kong has become the 'Hollywood of the East,' home to a film industry first in the world in per capita production, second only to the U.S. in film export, and third in the world in the number of films produced per year.

The Hong Kong movie industry reflects the crisis of Hong Kong itself-- on the one hand, the 'on the fly' nuts and bolts approach indicates an early capital stage, 'reproduced' by the territory's vast pirating operations of tapes, records, videos and films; on the other, the emphasis on film as commodity epitomizes late capital and its cultural logic. Similarly, the movie worlds themselves mirror early and late capitalist cultural conditions as they assimilate and narratively maneuver between both worlds. They place viewers in 'ideologically-produced frames of meaning' which makes representations 'not only feasible but natural.' The oft-noted penchant that both the Hong Kong movie business and Hong Kong movie fans have for escapism may, in some measure, affirm Horkheimer's and Adorno's depiction of the culture industry as amusement, diversion, and distraction. But the Hong Kong perspective is as a 'city on fire,' representing not only the illumination of images on a screen but burning with anxiety and confusion, and best imagined as icon Chow Yun-Fat burning a counterfeit hundred dollar bill in A Better Tomorrow.