Film as a Way of Life: Hong Kong Cinema

An entirely essential artifact for the study of the Hong Kong New Wave. Film as a Way of Life is a TV documentary made for Channel Four in which film critic Tony Ryans maps Hong Kong cinema of the period. Particularly valuable are the interviews with contemporary young Hong Kong critics and filmmakers, to which a wealth of information about the specifics of the local film industry and viewing habits adds context. In addition to this, there are a handful of now paradoxical curiosities that are both amusing and surprising with respect to the time in which they occurred, though they reflect the atmosphere and ethos of the transformation that took place during the given period (e.g. Aces Go Places is not spoken of as a blockbuster, but rather as an independent film, because the then newly established company Cinema City was a new young fish in the existing system before it turned out to be one of the big sharks). (2023.01.08)