The Cinematheque

“Hong Kong films can be sentimental, joyous, rip-roaring, silly, bloody, and bizarre … These outrageous entertainments harbour remarkable inventiveness and careful craftsmanship … The best of them are not only crowdpleasing but also richly and delightfully artful.”

David Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong

The popular cinema of Hong Kong has defied limits with cool confidence for generations, but never more than in the period of the New Wave to the Handover (1979–1997). ​“For about twenty years, this city-state of around six million people had one of the most robust cinema industries in the world,” wrote David Bordwell in Planet Hong Kong. This was a ​“pure cinema” founded on the rich artistic roots of Cantonese opera, martial arts, popular music, and the first century of cinema (influences from silent-era melodrama, American Westerns, and the formal precision of Jean-Pierre Melville are all buried in these genre works). It all took place in an industry where anything might be made so long as the material could explode—in the form of onscreen pyrotechnics or contagious laughter—for a paying audience. The two forces of art and commerce, for a brief, ephemeral studio age, danced in near-perfect harmony.

This cycle of new restorations includes works by Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, but largely acts as a mini-retrospective for director John Woo. ​“In actual life, I hate violence,” he’s said. ​“But the world is not like I dreamed; there is violence and crime everywhere.” Woo sublimated this fear and awe into films that reinvented action cinema. This series marks the first time Woo’s films have been presented at The Cinematheque since 2003, and they’re accompanied by City on Fire (which similarly stars Woo muse Chow Yun-fat) and Peking Opera Blues (from Woo’s mentor Tsui Hark, now screening in restored form following a limited presentation during our summer Tsui retrospective).

A popular cinema fades when it no longer commands a mass audience, and North American theatrical channels for Hong Kong movies, subject to the whims of temporary distribution deals, dried up around the time analogue distribution transitioned to digital, further complicating matters. But a significant change was augured at the start of 2025: the catalogue of Golden Princess, one of the key production houses of the era alongside Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest, is now, suddenly, available in its entirety, with restoration work well underway. The Cinematheque, via Shout! Studios and GKIDS, is proud to reintroduce some of the most iconic figures of Hong Kong cinema, including John Woo, Ringo Lam, and, as an addendum to our summer retrospective, Tsui Hark. More titles in this series will be presented next year.

“When I think of a director, it’s Ringo Lam, Johnnie To, Tsui Hark—this is such a high level, it’s too far away … I want to be [like them], sometimes you’d like to do it, but you cannot do it.”

Soi Cheang (SPL 2, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In)