Hong Kong (in China) studies: Hong Kong popular culture as example

Introduction

It was argued in Lost in Translation: Hong Kong Culture in the Age of China that “China has become a predicament as well as a condition for Hong Kong culture” in the age of China, especially after the signing of the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2003 (Chu, 2013, p. 13). ¹ This has become even more acute for Hong Kong culture in the integration of the Greater Bay Area, which can be seen as incorporating Hong Kong and Macao’s development into the overall development of the country. At this particular juncture, the issue of integration with the Mainland has become a topic that is of utmost importance for any consideration of the future of Hong Kong culture and the city as a whole. When President Xi Jinping asked Hong Kong people to seize opportunities and “compose new miracles under the Lion Rock” in his keynote speech delivered at a banquet attended by more than 300 elites from various sectors on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s reversion to China, he cited the Cantopop song “Creating Fate”〈創造命運〉(1984), originally sung by Alan Tam 譚詠麟: “A popular song in Hong Kong has this line: ‘Self-confidence is so important. Open up your mind and your dream will come true.’ We should have full confidence in ourselves, in Hong Kong and in our country” (T. Cheung et al., 2017; cited from “Full Text of Speech by President Xi Jinping at Welcome Dinner in HK,” 2017). The rare reference to Cantopop and the use of the Cantonese slang “don’t miss the boat” did speak somewhat about the unique characteristics of Hong Kong culture, and hence, the importance of Hong Kong Studies. Ironically though, “Creating Fate” (melody by Terence Tsoi 蔡國權 and lyrics by Raymond Wong 黃百鳴) is the theme song of a Hong Kong movie titled Heaven Can Help 《上天救命》(1984), directed by David Chiang 姜大衛. Indeed, Hong Kong culture cannot rely on heaven; to create its own fate, Hong Kong has to consider how to retain its own characteristics given its inevitable integration into the Mainland.

As argued in Found in Transition: Hong Kong Studies in the Age of China (Chu, 2018, pp. 124–125), the “8000 rpm, 2 km/h” skill—spinning the wheels like mad while inching 2 km/h to make an almost impossible 90-degree turn—in Pou-Soi Cheang’s 鄭保瑞Motorway《車手》(2012) is key for the Hong Kong film industry as well as Hong Kong culture to move forward. Ironically, Cheang’s next project after Motorway was The Monkey King 《西遊記之大鬧天宮》(2014), a big-budget (reportedly around US$60 million) fantasy epic starring the mega-stars Donnie Yen 甄子丹, Yun-Fat Chow 周潤發, and Aaron Kwok 郭富城, followed by episodes 2 and 3. Cheang can be seen as one of the examples of a different version of “northbound imaginary,” which was proposed by a group of local scholars in 1995 to highlight the importance and possibilities of Hong Kong’s impact on the Mainland (more details in the next section). The new version of “northbound imaginary,” in contrast, embodies the impact of the Mainland market on Hong Kong culture. “Now that China has changed (but not by Hong Kong), if not become, the world, Hong Kong must rethink its future in this special context” (Chu, 2019, p. 10). Toward this end, Hong Kong cinema, television, and popular music have ventured north for many years, and their experience in integrating into the Mainland market can shed critical light on the future development of Hong Kong Studies. For example, how have Hong Kong directors contributed to the development of Chinese cinema and soft power after they were commissioned to make “main melody” (more details below) blockbusters in Mainland China? Will they lose their individual styles? In addition, the transmission of Hong Kong television and Cantopop songs to the Mainland are related topics that need to be explored. What are the implications behind the success of Hong Kong directors and producers who took the helm of immensely popular Mainland television series? After Cantopop crossed the border, to what extent did the singers and the songs that they sang in Mainland music reality shows represent Hong Kong? These would be very good case studies of Hong Kong culture in cross-border ventures, and studying their transmissions would have long-term implications for not only Hong Kong culture in particular, but also Hong Kong Studies in general. I have argued elsewhere that the future continuity of Hong Kong has to take a step further to “consider the (im)possibility of Hong Kong Studies in relation to Hong Kong (in China) Studies” (Chu, 2019). This essay endeavors to use these cross-border experiences as examples to offer a prolegomenon to Hong Kong (in China) Studies, ² which this will in turn contribute to the possibility of generating a cultural studies response to the new configuration of the Greater Bay Area.

Northbound imaginary: a different version

During the late-transitional period before its reversion to China in 1997, Hong Kong witnessed a rise of Hong Kong cultural studies in academia based on Hong Kong’s handover and the unprecedented “one country, two systems” framework. The “northbound imaginary” was one of the most theoretically important issues related to the trend back then. Hong Kong Cultural Studies Bulletin, published by the research project on Hong Kong Cultural Studies masterminded by Stephen Ching-kiu Chan 陳清僑, issued a special topic on the “northbound imaginary” in 1995, which was later turned into a book in Chinese. Through this topic, some Hong Kong critics pointed their critiques at a Hong Kong megalomania, which also referred to mainstream Hong Kong’s claim that its cosmopolitanism would justify its economic and cultural expansion across the border in China (Chan, 1997, pp. 3–10). It might have been wishful thinking (Shih, 1997, p. 158), but the “northbound imaginary” as such once showed the potential impact of Hong Kong on the Mainland. Some even argued that Hong Kong would bring its core values, such as freedom, to the Mainland in the long run. Few if any could have imagined, however, a different version of the northbound imaginary that would surface shortly after Hong Kong’s reversion to China, and the problematic Hong Kong megalomania later turned into a profit-driven mind-set. I have argued elsewhere that the northern ventures of Hong Kong filmmakers marked a paradigmatic shift: the northbound imaginary in the 1990s, which was supposed to change China by theorizing the politics of Hong Kong’s cultural penetration into the Mainland, had to transform itself into a new version by tapping into the northern market for economic opportunities: “history has since proved that it was not Hong Kong culture influencing China but, rather, the other way round” (Chu, 2018, p. 133).

Since the advent of Mainland-Hong Kong co-productions after the CEPA was signed in 2003, Hong Kong film directors started going north with an eye on the enormous potential of the Mainland market. Well before Pou-Soi Cheang, mentioned earlier, Peter Chan 陳可辛, Tsui Hark 徐克, Gordon Chan 陳嘉上, and the like shifted their bases to the Mainland. In recent years, more and more Hong Kong directors have been commissioned to make “main melody blockbusters,” such as The Taking of Tiger Mountain 《智取威虎山》(2014), Dante Lam’s 林超賢 Operation Mekong 《湄公河行動》(2016), Oxide Pang’s 彭順 My War 《我的戰爭》(2016), Andrew Lau’s Founding of an Army 《建軍大業》(2017), Alan Mak 麥兆輝 and Anthony Pun’s 潘耀明 Extraordinary Mission 《非凡任務》 (2017), and, above all, Dante Lam’s record-breaking box-office hit (reportedly earning a total of 3.4 billion yuan) Operation Red Sea 《紅海行動》(2018), a Chinese anti-terrorism action film. Main melody films are indeed not new to the Mainland market; simply put, they used to refer to propaganda works that paid tribute to the nation. Traditional main melody films, as defined in 1991 by former Head of Film Bureau Teng Jinxian 滕進賢 who advocated the term at the conference of National Film Studio heads in 1987, “have to hold patriotism, collectivism and socialism in esteem” (Zhai, 1991). The Birth of New China 《開國大典》(1989), directed by Li Qiankuan 李前寬 and Xiao Guiyun 蕭桂雲 in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the PRC, is a typical example of traditional Chinese main melody films. The rise of Chinese soft power and changes in government policy in recent years have resulted in main melody films acquiring different meanings. As argued by Xiaomei Chen (2017),

[i]n a postsocialist state with “capitalist characteristics” such as the PRC [People’s Republic of China], “propaganda” can no longer be simply dismissed as a monolithic, top-down, and meaningless practice characterized solely by censorship and suppression of freedom of expression in a totalitarian regime. (p. 1) ³

In other words, the main melody keeps changing, but, apparently, main melody blockbusters will be the main theme in Chinese cinema in the years to come. The situations faced by other popular culture genres are similar, and therefore, the main melody is also the Mainland melody. Against this backdrop, the transmission and transformation of Hong Kong culture in Mainland China is an important area to explore, and Hong Kong filmmakers’ participation in main melody films would be a good topic to be examined in this transitional stage. (This is by no means conclusive due to the constantly changing socio-economic and political contexts in the Mainland.) When top Hong Kong filmmakers directed overt propaganda vehicles in their cross-border ventures, were they able to retain their styles and convey their messages in these main melody blockbusters? While Andrew Lau 劉偉強 was confident that he would be able to maintain his Hong Kong style in Founding of an Army (Y. Cheung, 2017), Ann Hui’s 許鞍華 Our Time Will Come 《明月幾時有》 (2017) was believed by some to have hidden messages related to Hong Kong (e.g. the theme of Hong Kong’s resistance against invaders and the choice of Deanie Ip 葉德嫻, who supported the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in 2014, as one of the leading actresses). No matter how one interprets these films, Hong Kong directors are seen as being able to sing the main melody in a sophisticated way, turning propaganda into commercially acceptable blockbusters. Amazing China, 《厲害了，我的國》, a 2018 Chinese documentary that praised China’s achievements since Xi took power in 2012, is a related example. True to its name, it is an “amazing” work. Chris Berry’s point about this is worth citing here:

[I]t is a form of propaganda in the pursuit of soft power . . . although the Communist Party of China is the power behind this, its attempt to win legitimacy in the eyes of its audience is based on quite similar values and styles of filmmaking to those used in the West. (cited from Zheng, 2018)

As noted by Miao Xiaotian 苗曉天, General Manager of the China Film Co-Production Corp., Hong Kong film talents have played a significant role in boosting the industry in the Mainland: “In the past we focuse[d] mainly on art films. Through our collaboration with Hong Kong we understood the concept of commercial films, beginning to know how to attract the audience to our films” (Jia, 2015). More importantly, Chinese films are still incapable of attracting foreign audiences, and only co-productions, according to Miao, are able to lure overseas markets. It was thus not surprising to see that on the list of the top 100 Chinese film directors, 4 of the top 10 and 13 of the top 30 were in one way or another related to Hong Kong. ⁴

Meanwhile, The Mermaid 《美人魚》 (2016), directed by Stephen Chow 周星馳, one of the most representative icons of Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s, topped the Mainland box-office of co-productions with an eye-popping record of RMB $3393 million (~US$513 million). The total box-office revenue of the local Hong Kong market was HK$1865 million (RMB $1579 million). The box-office figures spoke clearly enough for themselves: it was perfectly understandable why Hong Kong filmmakers swarmed into the Mainland market. Jing Wong 王晶 is another good example, echoing the main melody from another angle. Besides his From Vegas to Macau 《賭城風雲 series (a reboot of his 1989 crime comedy God of Gamblers 《賭神》) that reportedly netted a total of RMB $1118 million (~US$169 million) in the Mainland, his Chasing the Dragon《追龍》(2017), another reboot of his two crime classics To Be Number One《跛豪》(1991) and Lee Rock《五億探長雷洛傳：雷老虎》(1991), pinpointed the corruption of the Hong Kong police and their collusion with drug dealers back in the British colonial days. OCTB《反黑》(Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, 2017), the signature Hong Kong police and gangster genre turned web TV series featuring mainly Hong Kong actors and actresses, generated a craze among the Mainland audience, registering a total of more than 1.38 billion views in the Mainland (“OCTB 1.38 Billion Hit-Rate,” 2017). Not unlike Chasing the Dragon, it focused on police corruption during the dark old days of the former British colony. Regarding the television sector, Hong Kong talents have also dominated the Mainland industry for decades.

As early as 1998, veteran Hong Kong television producer and director Kwok-Lap Li李國立 tested the waters of the Mainland market by co-founding Chinese Entertainment Tianjin Limited. Based on the success of Li’s new renditions of wuxia classics, such as Handsome Siblings《絕代雙驕》(1998) and The Book and the Sword《書劍恩仇錄》(2002), television producers, directors, and actors and actresses became popular among the Mainland audience. These television producers and directors may not have been as high-profile as their film counterparts, but their impact on the Mainland entertainment industry was equally profound. Yuk-Fan Lam林玉芬, the first Hong Kong graduate from the Department of Directing at Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, is a good example. She returned to Hong Kong after graduation in 1989 to develop her career at Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB). After a short spell in Singapore in 1997, Lam moved to the Mainland and soon adapted to the emerging market, catching the limelight with Treading on Thin Ice《步步驚心》(2002). The enormous success of The Journey of Flower《花千骨》(2005) made her a top-tier director with a Midas touch. Lam’s signature costume fantasy dramas Wu Xin The Monster Killer《無心法師》(2015) and Eternal Love《三生三世十里桃花》(2016) were the most popular ones in the Mainland television industry. The director of Princess Agents 《楚喬傳》(2017), the first Mainland television drama to reach a hit rate of more than 40 billion in a week, Gam-Yuen Ng吳錦源, was also from Hong Kong (H. Li, 2017).

Besides Li, Lam, and Ng, there were also popular veteran Hong Kong directors, such as Kok-Leung Kuk鞠覺亮, Sze-Yue Lau劉仕裕, Samson Lai賴水清, Wai-Chu Lee李慧珠, and Jeffrey Chiang蔣家駿, who blew up Mainland television with their “hot-selling dramas.” These Hong Kong directors successfully translated their experience accumulated in Hong Kong to the Mainland. For example, Kok-Leung Kuk, one of the executive directors of TVB martial arts classics including The Legend of the Condor Heroes《射鵰英雄傳》(1983), The Return of the Condor Heroes《神鵰俠侶》(1983) and The Duke of Mount Deer《鹿鼎記》(1984), co-directed a Mainland version of The Legend of the Condor Heroes in 2003. Besides, so far there are eight television adaptations of Jin Yong’s金庸masterpiece The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber《倚天屠龍記》, and the three most recent versions (2003, 2009 and 2019) were produced by Mainland companies. Hong Kong directors, Samson Lai and Jeffrey Chiang, were in charge of two of the three Mainland versions (2003 and 2019, respectively). This spoke volumes for the popularity of Hong Kong directors in the Mainland television market. Having said that, it is also important to note that the focus on costume fantasy and wuxia dramas may have had side effects. As noted by a Mainland critic, Hong Kong directors’ television dramas produced in the Mainland were much more diversified in terms of subject matters (Lin, 2018). The overemphasis on certain genres limited the future development of Hong Kong directors. Furthermore, it was totally expected that Hong Kong producers and directors would use Hong Kong actors and actresses who understood their production style. While established TV and film stars such as Raymond Lam 林峯 and Charmaine Sheh 佘詩曼 left TVB for greener pastures, there were also actors and actresses not so well received in Hong Kong who became stars in the Mainland. William Chan 陳偉霆, Kenny Kwan 關智斌, Hawick Lau 劉愷威, Sammul Chan 陳鍵鋒, Wallace Chung 鍾漢良, Michelle Ye 葉璇, and Niki Chow 周麗淇, for example, acquired great fame, fortune, and success after they went north (“Greener Pastures on the Mainland,” 2018). ⁵

Regarding Cantopop, after the first season of I Am a Singer 《我是歌手》 premiered in January 2013, triggering a wave of music reality shows in the Mainland, Hong Kong musicians and singers, similar to Hong Kong filmmakers, swarmed north to the Mainland market. Thanks to the immense popularity of I Am a Singer, the music director Kubert Leung 梁翹柏—former member of the Hong Kong Cantopop group Ukiyo-e 浮世繪—became the leading music director and producer in the Mainland. Touted as the “soul” of the show, Leung was the only one who “survived” the six seasons of the show (the fifth and sixth seasons were renamed Singer 《歌手》). Actually, before I Am a Singer, Leung and other Hong Kong Cantopop composers and lyricists had already entered the Mainland market. In 2007, Sina Music interviewed four renowned Hong Kong music industry workers who had just written theme songs for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and who had exerted a big impact on the Mainland music scene: Kubert Leung, Peter Kam 金培達, Lin Xi (aka Albert Leung) 林夕, and Keith Chan 陳少琪 (“Lin Xi and Three Other Top-Tier Hong Kong Musicians Visiting Beijing,” 2007). With respect to singers, while Paul Wong 黃貫中 (mainstay of the legendary Hong Kong rock band Beyond) was knocked out in the early rounds of the first season of I Am a Singer, Hong Kong songstress G.E.M. (aka Gloria Tang) 鄧紫棋 went all the way to the finals in the second season, winning the limelight in both the Mainland and Hong Kong. Thereafter, even top Cantopop singers, including Joey Yung 容祖兒 and Hacken Lee 李克勤, took part in similar reality music shows as the local Hong Kong music industry was in serious decline. When Cantopop ventured north, to what extent could the singers and the songs that they sang in those reality shows represent Hong Kong? G.E.M.’s reinterpretation of “Liking You”〈喜歡你〉 by Beyond, the legendary Hong Kong rock band, in I Am a Singer and Heroes of Remix 《蓋世英雄》, for example, stirred up heated discussions among the Hong Kong audience. “Liking You” is a rare love song by Beyond, and it did not represent the anti-establishment spirit of the legendary Hong Kong rock band. Worse yet, G.E.M. turned it into a dance remix in Heroes of Remix, showcasing a very atypical style of Beyond and their song. These examples spelled out the entanglements that Cantopop and other popular cultural genres faced when they responded to the changes caused by the Mainlandization of Hong Kong culture. However, because of the different structures of different cultural industries, film and television, for examples, would have to face similar situations but different entanglements. Hong Kong film directors, for example, commissioned to direct period martial arts films would have less censorship concerns than those who direct police and gangster films. Meanwhile, television actors and actresses often take on their roles in dramas, and they do not have to deal with the issues faced by Paul Wong, a rock singer with a defiant, anti-establishment stance. Possibly their entanglements have more to do with the chemistry with other actors and/or directors, if not the taste of the Mainland audience.

In any case, this question perfectly sums up the most pertinent issue for the Hong Kong film, television, and popular music industries: “Hong Kong helped get the [film and television] industry north of the border on its feet in the 1980s and 1990s. Does the city’s future success lie in integration or staying distinct?” (Su, 2018). ⁶ The new version of the northbound imaginary—which no longer aims to change China but to see whether Hong Kong can remain unchanged—may help elucidate the answer. In the next sections, I will discuss Hong Kong cinema, television, and popular music separately to explore the implications of this new northbound imaginary.

Singing the main(land) melody

Teddy Chan’s 陳德森 Bodyguards and Assassins 《十月圍城》(2009), an early example of Hong Kong filmmakers’ participation in main melody films in Mainland China, was arguably an irony at its finest in regard to the (dis)appearance of Hong Kong cinema (Chu, 2013, pp. 111–112). To borrow the term from well-known Hong Kong director Peter Chan, it was a “privately run” (cited from “Peter Chan on Bodyguards and Assassins,” 2009; as opposed to state-run) main melody film that paid tribute to the 100th anniversary of the Xin Hai Revolution 辛亥革命. Interestingly, it can be interpreted as a metaphor for the predicament faced by Hong Kong (the literal translation of the Chinese title is A Besieged City in October). The movie is about protecting Dr. Sun Yat-sen 孫中山, the Father of the Nation, from assassination while he is in Hong Kong meeting with allies to formulate a plan to overthrow the Qing court. Hong Kong’s contribution to the revolution and its place in modern Chinese history was duly recognized in the movie, which would not have been achievable without Mainland resources. The handsome budget not only turned this film into a blockbuster with many superstars, it also allowed the director to build a 1:1 set of the Central District in the early 20th century in a studio near Shanghai. The total budget of the movie was reportedly HK$180 million (including the replica, which cost HK$50 million), which was simply unimaginable for local Hong Kong productions back then. In short, without the co-production and the Mainland market, Bodyguards and Assassins would not have been possible. However, it was ironic that, as noted by Kwai-cheung Lo (2015), the film was an effort “to take sides and show its dedication to the ‘politically correct’ nationalist revolution” (p. 71). Moreover, the movie was also seen by Hong Kong critics as a poignant summary of the impasse faced by Hong Kong cinema in/as a besieged city (echoing the Chinese title) after the 1997 handover. ⁷ As made clear by Yu Dong 于冬 (2009), President of Polybona Films Distribution Co. Ltd., 2009, marked a new beginning of an era dominated by Mainland productions, after which there were no more Mainland-Hong Kong co-productions. Hong Kong filmmakers were simply commissioned to produce films with Mainland themes and stories. After Bodyguards and Assassins, more and more Hong Kong directors started singing the main(land) melody.

Similar to Bodyguards and Assassins, Jackie Chan’s 成龍 1911 (aka Xinhai Revolution, 2011) was also a tribute to the 100th anniversary of the Revolution. But as a successful main melody blockbuster, both in terms of box-office performance and critical acclaim, Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain is an excellent example of how an established, famously commercial Hong Kong director made a main melody blockbuster based on one of the eight model works allowed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (the story is based on Qu Bo’s曲波1957 novel Tracks in the Snowy Forest 《林海雪原》). Although Johnnie To 杜琪峯 made it clear in an interview that “it is not possible to negotiate in between” and “if you wanted to make films on the Mainland, you have to follow their rules” (cited from Wong, 2016). His signature crime-thriller shot entirely in the Mainland, Drug War 《毒戰》 (2012), showed that he was able to zigzag creatively across the border by retaining, at least to a certain extent, his Hong Kong characteristics despite various limitations (Chu, 2018, p. 132). The Taking of Tiger Mountain can, in a way, be seen as a similar case. Not only was the film a box-office hit in the Mainland, but it also won Tsui Hark the Best Director Award at the 35th Hong Kong Film Awards in Hong Kong, on top of his Best Director Award at the 30th Golden Rooster Awards in Mainland China. The film was even highly praised by China’s state-run Global Times: “Many moviegoers have been extremely curious how a Hong Kong director could remake such a mainland-centric red classic so well” (cited from “Golden Rooster Awards Recognize Chinese Blockbusters,” 2015). As the lyricist Siu Hak 小克 declared in Eason Chan’s 陳奕迅 Cantopop song “Main Melody” 〈主旋律〉 (2013), a political allegory packaged as a love ballad: “You want me to give in, and I want you to give in . . . When shall we find the new system of love? Let the melody protest in silence!” “Main melody” is an issue of paramount importance in finding “the new system of love” for Hong Kong.

In a similar context, Cantopop and Hong Kong television in the Mainland are related topics to explore. Mainland rock music legend Cui Jian’s 崔健 comment on the performance of Andy Hui 許志安 sounded offensive to many Cantopop fans: “Some would agree the song represents Hong Kong, but I absolutely disagree” (cited from Yeung, 2015). Cui made this remark after Hui sang “God of Cantopop” Jacky Cheung’s 張學友 classic “How Can I Forget You?”〈怎麼捨得你〉 at the Star of China 《中國之星》 singing contest in China. Hong Kong netizens voiced their discontent with the veteran Hong Kong Cantopop singer for not standing up to the Mainland rock star over what they thought to be an abusive comment. When Cantopop ventured north, to what extent could the singers and the songs that they sang in those reality shows represent Hong Kong? This was a crucial question raised by Cui Jian’s remark. In these mainstream music reality shows, Cantopop was represented as romantic ballads, but Cantopop was significantly more than that. As mentioned earlier, G.E.M.’s reinterpretation of Beyond’s “Liking You” in I Am a Singer and Heroes of Remix stirred up heated discussions among the Hong Kong audience. Fans felt offended as this was not the “authentic” Beyond, which had long been famous for its anti-establishment critiques. Hong Kong rapper MC Jin’s 歐陽靖 performance in The Rap of China 《中國有嘻哈》 was equally, if not more, controversial, especially when he said that “anything is possible” in Chinese hip-hop. It is an open secret that in Mainland China there are some things one cannot rap about. The “anything is possible” here, of course, cannot go beyond that red line. Ironically, it was reported in January 2018 by Sina Entertainment, a Chinese news site, that regulators had requested that television programs avoid guests associated with hip-hop culture because of its negative impacts on the audience, causing the producers of The Rap of China to rebrand the second season of programming to highlight rap, not hip-hop. Although new shows continued to be released, hip-hop as a whole faced official scrutiny (CNBC, 2018). A Hong Kong netizen made a very straightforward remark when he or she took stock of Hong Kong singers’ setbacks in Chinese singing reality shows, “self-esteem kicked to the curb for the sake of money” (cited from The ABCs of Entertainment, 2017).

G.E.M. did steal the limelight in the Mainland as first runner-up in the second season of I Am a Singer, while the Cantopop stars Paul Wong, Hacken Lee, Teresa Carpio 杜麗莎, and Leo Ku 古巨基 were all defeated. Sandy Lam 林憶蓮, the only exception, won in the fifth season (retitled Singer 2017), but during the whole season she sang only a couple of Cantopop songs—classics by Faye Wong 王菲 and Leslie Cheung 張國榮, who were well-known in China. Actually, Sandy Lam turned to Mandopop in the mid-1990s. While it is a reasonable claim that Hong Kong singers should cross the border to promote Cantopop, most of them had to turn to Mandopop to sing the Main(land) melody (Yuen, 2015). The power of Cantopop, the voice of the city that “once brought a thriving Hong Kong together,” to unite has recently diminished because of its decline (Chow, 2018). Cantopop singers may find new opportunities in the Mainland, but apparently, the genre no longer functions as a source of cultural identity for Hong Kong people. It is believed that, after a series of social movements in Hong Kong, the Cantopop scene in Hong Kong has turned “from heartbreak to protest” (H. Cheung, 2016). Even though this may be an exaggeration—heartbreak is arguably still the key theme of the genre—the latter theme would not be able to cross the border. A study of the entanglements that Cantopop and other popular cultural genres faced when they responded to the changes caused by the Mainlandization of Hong Kong culture would therefore cast significant light on Hong Kong Studies.

When Hong Kong was the trendsetter of Chinese popular culture across the globe from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, the Hong Kong cinema, popular music, and television industries had a kind of creative synergy that enabled the city to become a star-making center of the Chinese entertainment business. As the market leader in the television industry in Hong Kong, TVB’s fall from grace has made it difficult, if not impossible, to break the vicious cycle of the decline of Hong Kong pop. TVB has become a so-called “major station” (with hegemonic power) despised by the younger generation to such an extent that it is no longer possible to create synergy among different media to make stars. As mentioned in the previous section, many established television stars, directors, and producers have already crossed the border to enjoy greener pastures. Instead of thinking outside the box to recreate their lost synergy, the television company chose to follow the northern ventures of the film and music industries. TVB started collaborating with Youku in 2013, airing its dramas on China’s leading online video and streaming service platforms. One such drama, Line Walker 《使徒行者》, recorded a total of 2.4 billion views in 2014. Owing to new state administration restrictions that were rolled out in late 2014, Hong Kong dramas could no longer be simulcast in the Mainland, which dealt a heavy blow to the popularity of TVB dramas in the Mainland market. In fact, when China Media Capital, the most influential media and entertainment investor in Mainland China, became an indirect investor in TVB by buying an undisclosed stake in Young Lion Holdings—which owned a 26% stake of TVB—in April 2015, critics voiced their concerns of Mainlandization. Besides, giving prime-time slots to Mainland China-produced drama series, TVB also followed the film industry’s model of co-productions. It later began working with iQiyi and Tencent in 2016, hoping to bring back its glory days by creating co-productions with abundant Mainland resources. These drama serials provided higher production budgets to TVB, supposedly raising the production quality. Legal Mavericks 《踩過界》 (or 《盲俠大律師》 in the Mainland), the first co-produced title with iQiyi that premiered in June 2017, successfully accumulated total streaming views of over 500 million in Mainland China. Another co-production, Line Walker: The Prelude 《使徒行者2》, a crime-thriller drama serial, also reached remarkable total streaming views of over 2 billion on Tencent’s platform in Mainland China (cited from TVB, 2017, p. 22).

As per TVB’s press release in July 2018, one quarter of its dramas will be co-produced with Mainland media (cited from “Po-On Lee: 1/4 of TVB Dramas Co-Produced With Mainland Media,” 2018). TVB seems not to be learning the lesson of co-productions in the film sector: catering to the Mainland audience will risk losing the local market. The limitation of subject matters and the inclusion of Mainland casts, among other requirements, have further chased away the local Hong Kong audience. Citing Manfred Wong 文雋, the former Chairman of the Hong Kong Film Awards Association, first, Hong Kong films opened the door to the Mainland but lost their domestic market; second, Hong Kong films merged with Chinese culture but sacrificed their local characteristics; and third, Hong Kong film workers won international acclaim but forfeited the “Hong Kong” brand (Sina Entertainment, 2007). Whether history will repeat itself or not is too early to tell, but, for example, in 2018, three of the five TVB serial dramas that recorded the lowest viewership ratings were co-productions: Another Era 《再創世紀》, Infernal Affairs 《無間道》, and The Great Adventurer Wesley 《冒險王衛斯理》 (“The Five TVB Dramas With Lowest Viewership Ratings,” 2019). As mentioned in the previous section, the Hong Kong television directors and producers who have gone north have largely been commissioned to make costume fantasy dramas. Internet dramas such as OCTB have focused mainly on corrupt police in British colonial Hong Kong, which echoes perfectly with the main melody of anti-corruption in the Mainland. After online dramas became more and more popular in the age of new media, they cut into the viewership of traditional TV dramas. In this changing mediascape, the immense potential of the Mainland online platform will not but become more dominant in the television sector. For those who care about the distinguishing characteristics of Hong Kong culture, perhaps Derek Kwok’s 郭子健 catchphrase in his big-budget co-production As the Light Goes Out 《救火英雄》 (2013) will serve as a kind reminder after Hong Kong media enters the enormous Mainland market: “The only way to survive is to live with the thick smoke . . . don’t ever believe what you see in the thick smoke; your mind will be distorted by hallucinations” (Chu, 2018, p. 131). To live with the thick smoke, Rey Chow’s famously inspiring reading of the gaze and the image would be helpful.

Rey Chow’s interpretation of the works of “the Fifth Generation” directors in her seminal Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema is worth mentioning in this context. In the light of Edward Said’s Orientalism, there have been critiques focusing on Zhang Yimou 張藝謀 and Chen Kaige 陳凱歌 as “autoethnographies” that have aimed to fulfill the desirous appetite of Western audiences. According to Rey Chow (1995), it is “imprecise, though not erroneous, to say that directors such as Zhang are producing a new kind of Orientalism,” and the “self-subalternizing, self-exoticizing visual gestures of the Orientals’ Orientalism is first and foremost a demonstration—a display of a tactic” (p. 171). Quoting my own work,

With such a tactic, the “China” in the films turns its ambivalently victimized image into an asset. The Oriental’s Orientalism can thus be seen as “self-Orientalism” employing the Orientalist image to look back—it is both the image and the gaze at the same time. (Chu, 2013, p. 28)

In that context, I read this as a marketing tactic that packages and sells Chineseness to the world, so I would like to twist my original reading of the normal, if not banal, reading of the Orientalist representation of China a bit here. Not unlike the Oriental’s Orientalism, the fusion of the representation of Hong Kong and the Main(land) melody can also be interpreted as displaying a tactic. Rey Chow (2007) further developed her argument in Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films:

From a comparative cultural perspective, what continues to concern me is that a certain predictable attitude tends to dominate the agenda these days whenever works inhabiting the East-West divide come under scholarly scrutiny. Instead of enabling the critical potential embedded in such works to come to light, this attitude often ends up blocking and annulling that potential in the name of political rectitude. (p. 147)

This kind of political rectitude has appeared in another form in the Mainland-Hong Kong divide, and a similar predictable attitude—entering the Mainland market for the sake of money, Hong Kong has lost its distinguishing characteristics—has blocked and annulled the critical potential embedded in those works. While Rey Chow (2007) has warned us against “the pursuit of certain non-Western native traditions and their ideological demands on representation” with which the critique of Orientalism has become smoothly allied (p. 147), I focus on the need to trace the (im)possibility of cultural translations across borders. The abovementioned examples can be seen as self-effacing—similar to self-subalternizing or self-exoticizing—as tactics.

Epilogue ⁸

Hong Kong Studies, albeit marginalized in China Studies, will also contribute a vital dimension to related fields such as Asian Studies, especially against the backdrop of the recent revival of Cold War Studies in academia. As astutely noted by Poshek (Fu, 2018), although peripheral to global geopolitics, Hong Kong was nevertheless “a central battlefield of Asia’s cultural Cold War,” and “Hong Kong cinema was on the front line of the cultural Cold War” (p. 3). The experience of Hong Kong’s cultural interaction with Chinese politics back then could be inspiring in regard to the present situation, in which I am interested. As perceptively noted by Arif Dirlik (2016) in “The Rise of China and the End of the World as We Know It,” the PRC is a rising power in search of a paradigm that may provide an identity of its own that may also be appealing to others. Its paradigm appeals to others by following international standards, but in some respects only. As Hong Kong is the place where the impact of the rise of China is most acutely felt, Hong Kong Studies can and will continue to shed illuminating light on politically engaged analyses of the changes and social challenges that confront the world today, with far-reaching theoretical implications for related areas such as Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies.

Inspired by Lawrence Grossberg’s (2010) Cultural Studies in the Future Tense, which “offers a modest proposal for future formations of cultural studies” (p. 2), I will make a provisional conclusion—or prolegomenon, to be exact—by exploring Hong Kong (in China) Studies as an interdisciplinary model for future work. Grossberg (2010) made a very bold statement in the introduction of his book: “We all want to change the world” (p. 6). ⁹ As noted in the “Introduction” section, the northbound imaginary of Hong Kong back in the 1990s might have been overbearing, but it also aimed at changing China. While China has in a sense become the world, Hong Kong must rethink its future in this special context. Grossberg hoped to take the economy back from economists and put it back in the social world. For the future of Cultural Studies, more importantly, Grossberg highlighted the importance of going beyond the established Eurocentric border. Hong Kong Studies, understood in this special context, must be inscribed between Eurocentric and Sinocentric borders. Jacky Chan is famous for making controversial statements about Hong Kong, and thus, it was not surprising to hear him say, at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference’s Arts Group held in March 2018, “Now, we don’t say whether a film is a Hong Kong film or a Chinese film—Hong Kong films are Chinese films as well” (cited from Cheng, 2018). His remark, which may sound controversial to many ears, is actually not unreasonable. To paraphrase Chan, it would arguably be Hong Kong Studies is China Studies and/or Greater Bay Area Studies. A proactive consideration of the role of Hong Kong Studies within emerging formations of global modernity with Chinese characteristics seems inevitable. Grossberg (2010) believed that culture can be an effective mediator, universal and specific at once, and the new generation of scholars must foster an “open-minded and progressive vanguard of intellectual and political movements to come” (p.181). In the Hong Kong context, progressive vanguards cannot but take a step further to consider the (im)possibility of Hong Kong Studies in relation to Hong Kong (in China) Studies. I would argue that it is in this sense that the future continuity of Hong Kong has to be understood. I have repeatedly argued that after Hong Kong’s reversion to China in 1997, both China and the West wanted to retain Hong Kong’s status quo as a “capital of free-wheeling capital” (Chu, 2013, p. 5), and thus, spawned a myth of status quo that “froze” Hong Kong as a commercial city. However, what made Hong Kong unique in the world was not its role in global capitalism, which was in a sense not genuinely different from that of other global cities, but its distinctive humanities-related aspects, such as its culture. As such, the study of Hong Kong culture in Mainland China carries long-term significance for Hong Kong Studies as an academic discipline.