On Maturity Of The Hong Kong Martial Arts Films In The Sixties And Seventies, Evolution And Its Significance

Wuxia (swordplay or martial arts) film is the most typical film genre of China. This genre matured in both art and production system in the sixties and seventies of last century in Hong Kong, which was called"New School Martial Arts Movement". It entered international cinema at the same time, and had great influence on the Chinese cinema to the present. It is because that Hong Kong took over the Chinese film industry in the fifties from Shanghai, those filmmakers who came to Hong Kong from the mainland inherited the traditional culture and thus developed the film art, and brought Wuxia films to a climax in the sixties and seventies, and as time went on developed from Wuxia film into Kongfu film and action film.This thesis has a prelude, four chapters and a conclusion. The prelude shows the aim of this thesis, gives a profile of the subject, and introduces the present status on the study of the subject and the approaches of the thesis. The first chapter looks back the inheritance of traditional culture by the Chinese cinema in Shanghai and the limitation of this inheritance due to social and historical reasons, and then how Hong Kong inherited Chinese film industry after the war. The second chapter explores the traditionalism of the film tycoon Shaw Films, and analyses the inheritance and development of the traditions by the directors, focusing on Wuxia film's origin from Chinese traditional drama. The third chapter traces out the route from Wuxia film to Kongfu film and action film, and sums up its contributions to film art. The fourth chapter discusses the influence of Wuxia film of this period and how it went astray as time goes on. The conclusion focuses on the attitude to the inheritance of tradition in the past and raises this question for the future.