Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [16]
Election (2005) and Election 2 (2006), by master of Hong Kong noir Johnnie To, also enjoyed immense critical and box-office success. To, who incorporates an experimental style into the commercial form of the action film, is the only filmmaker who consistently thrills both critics and mainstream audiences.
Film Festivals & Awards
The Hong Kong International Film Festival, now in its third decade, is the best in Asia –
it boasts a laudable if precarious balance of art-house choices and titles offering red-carpet opportunities. Every March and April, film buffs from all over Asia, in particular mainland China, join local viewers for a 20-day spectacle. The Hong Kong Film Awards, held at the same time, is also among the most respected in this part of the world. The Hong Kong Film Archive ( Click here) is a treasure trove of Hong Kong films and resources on them. If you are interested in spotting Hong Kong locations on film, pick up a copy of the freebie Hong Kong Movie Odyssey Guide from the Hong Kong Tourist Board.
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ART
Hong Kong is the third-largest art market in the world by auction turnover (after New York and London). Though this is largely due to the extended boom or, some would say, the over-heating of the Chinese art market, Hong Kong art has been nimbly riding the bull wave so far.
Contemporary Hong Kong art tends not to bother itself too much with grandiose narratives about nationhood and religion, preferring to take an introverted view of the world and expressing visions of Chineseness outside of the national frame.
Roots
The most distinct group of painters and sculptors to appear in Hong Kong were the proponents of the New Ink Painting movement who came to prominence in the late 1960s. Most were artists with strong links to China or its cultural heritage. The movement aimed at reconciling Chinese and Western ideas by steering traditional Chinese ink painting towards Abstract Expressionism. Lui Shou-kwan (1919–75), who came to Hong Kong in 1948, was the earliest and the best known of the New Ink Painting artists. Lui worked for the Yau Ma Tei ferry as a pier inspector and taught in his spare time. Speaking no English, his only experience of the West was through pictures and books he borrowed from the British Council library. Many of the artists who became associated with the movement were his students.
The only major artist to break free of the dominant style of the era was Luis Chan (1905–85). Born in Panama, Chan came to Hong Kong at the age of five, where he learnt to paint from art magazines and a correspondence course. Stylistically, Chan was a loner with no apparent allegiance to any painting tradition. He was also a genius who, particularly in his post-’60s works, transformed Hong Kong into a fantastical realm of dreams and hallucinations.
Avant-Garde
The 1980s and ’90s saw the coming of age of artists born after WWII, many of whom had received their training abroad. Less burdened by the need to reconcile East and West, they devoted their efforts to defining avant-garde art, often through Western mediums. They were also politically engaged. Wong Yan-kwai, a painter educated in France, was arguably the most influential artist of that period and is still one of the most accomplished today. His powerful paintings in vibrant colours are uniquely free of any social or historical context. Wong’s mural graces Club 71 (Click here) in Central, where he is sometimes spotted playing the blues with his friends very late at night. London-trained Antonio Mak (1951–94) is Hong Kong’s most famous contemporary sculptor and he’s known for his figurative pieces in