The 14th Hong Kong Cinema: Undefeated and Immortal - What Lies Beyond the Reboot of Hong Kong Film.
■ Chapter 1: Cinema That Speaks Through the Body — The Principles of the Golden Age
🥋 Police Story / 🎭 A Better Tomorrow
Hong Kong cinema was once built upon the "body."
Jackie Chan falls, breaks, and yet rises again.
Chow Yun-fat elevates even death into an aesthetic.
What existed there was
the cinematic principle that "the body equals truth."
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■ Chapter 2: Collapse and Void
After 1997, Hong Kong cinema changed rapidly.
The exodus of stars, changes in production systems.
The momentum of the past was lost, and for many viewers, Hong Kong cinema became something that had "ended."
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■ Chapter 3: The Reason It Never Disappeared
However, that flame did not go out completely.
Through rental videos, DVDs, and small-scale movie theaters,
Hong Kong cinema continued to live underground.
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■ Chapter 4: Hong Kong Cinema as an Experience
Here, I would like to interject a personal memory.
2017, Lunar New Year.
I watched a Jackie Chan film at the Lux Theatre, a classic cinema in Mong Kok, Hong Kong.
It was "Kung Fu Yoga."
It was a long-held wish since childhood—
the fulfillment of a 30-year dream: "to watch a Jackie Chan movie in Hong Kong."
However, the environment could by no means be called ideal.
• The theater was surprisingly old and somewhat dirty
• The man in the seat in front of me was talking on the phone endlessly
• Even though it was winter, the air conditioning was abnormally strong
• The restroom was indescribably wretched
To be honest,
it was the "worst movie theater."
Even so—
no, precisely because of that, the experience is unforgettable.
The sound of Cantonese.
The murmur of the audience.
Jackie's body reflected on the screen.
Everything blended together,
and I fell into the illusion of having time-slipped back to the 90s.
By the end, I realized I couldn't stop my tears.
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After the movie, I went into a cha chaan teng,
and ate a violent plate of curry fried rice topped with fried chicken and a fried egg.
That taste, that atmosphere, that sense of fatigue.
Everything became one with the film,
**and I understood with my body that "Hong Kong cinema is an experience."**
On that same trip, I took a ferry to Macau,
and stepped into a casino I had long admired.
But it was somewhat disappointingly casual,
almost like an arcade.
Including even that gap,
everything remains as a "Hong Kong cinema-like" memory.
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■ Chapter 5: Signs of a Reboot
⚔️ Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
🧨 Ride On
In recent years, Hong Kong cinema is definitely starting to change.
In "Ride On",
Jackie Chan does not hide his aging, yet he still offers up his body.
This is not the invincibility of the past, but
a new stage where the continued movement of a finite body itself becomes the realism.
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■ Chapter 6: Why a Reboot Now?
In the current age of streaming dominance,
movies are becoming things to be "consumed."
But at the same time,
audiences are beginning to seek "experience" once again.
Hong Kong cinema was originally at the extreme north of that experience.
That is precisely why now,
its value is resurfacing.
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■ Conclusion
Hong Kong cinema is not over.
It continues to live on in memories and bodies,
while changing its form.
And now,
it is about to stand up on the screen once again.
The reboot of Hong Kong cinema is
not merely a revival.
It is
a rediscovery of the experience of cinema itself.
