city on fire
review
Filmbill, Nov/Dec 1999
City on Fire By Lisa Odham Stokes and Michael Hoover
Gary Kramer
CITY ON FIRE: Hong Kong Cinema
By Lisa Odham Stokes
and Michael Hoover
Verso, 372 pages
An excellent, in-depth exploration of Hong Kong moviemaking, City on
Fire describes the past and future state of this "city of
commerce," which is host to the number one per capita film
production base in the industry.
As directors John Woo (Face/Off), Stanley Tong (Mr. Magoo) and Peter
Chan (The Love Letter), as well as actors Chow Yun-fat (Anna and the
King), Jackie Chan (Rumble in the Bronx) and Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow
Never Dies), emigrate to Hollywood, they leave behind a cinematic
culture rich in style and energy. The Hong Kong film industry, as City
on Fire shrewdly shows, is one in which multiple films are made
simultaneously, and on the cheap. Many of the productions are completed
hours before they are screened, with editing done as it is being shot.
Yet this guerilla style of filmmaking does have its benefits - gutsy
action sequences, inventive camera angles anf rhythmic editing - as
Woo's series of films about triads, A Better Tomorrow, demonstrates.
Movies such as these incorporate elements of of qing (emotion, feelings)
and jing (body) in their moral action heroes.
In addition, many filmmakers can introduce parallels to the 1997
handover from Britain in their work. In Kar-wai Wong's stunning film,
Happy Together, the director makes subtle political allusions to Hong
Kong's freedom in this story about two lovers trying to work things out
in Buenos Aires after a break-up.
City on Fire also includes an outstanding epilogue in which celebrated
actors and directors offer their perspectives about working in
Hollywood. It is a suitable end to an honorable book that shows the
impact one culture has on the other.
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