| Since the late 1940s, Hong Kong Martial Arts movies has reached the highest level of Chinese Martial Arts ones. After the early 1990s, Hong Kung film industry temporarily suffered its downturn while Martial Arts movies also experienced hard times; however, Hong Kong Martial Arts movies stepped into a new developmental stage after Hong Kong's return to China. Hence, this paper attempts to study Hong Kong Martial Arts movies produced after the return, the number of which is 34 up to now. Jointly shot films are the main forms of cooperation between Hong Kong and the Chinese inland and the forms are more various after the return, which mainly include jointly shot films dominated by inland film companies and those by Hong Kong ones (namely Hong Kong-made cooperation films). Compared to jointly shot films dominated by inland film companies, Hong Kong-made ones can better display the features of Hong Kong films, therefore, the author studies Hong Kong-made cooperation films as a part of Hong Kong films.The paper adopts research approaches of typology to study Hong Kong Martial Arts movies produced after the return, and analyzes their typological characteristics from the perspective of type and typological element to sum up the typological change rules of Martial Arts movies.Chapter One first reviews and unscrambles the history of Hong Kong Martial Arts movies produced before the return, which can be divided into four phases. The first phase is from late 1940s to late 1950s when Hong Kong Cantonese movies were seen in prosperous period, and it was also the golden age of"Wong Fei-hung"film series. The second phase is from mid-1960s to mid-1970s when Hong Kong Mandarin Martial Arts movies saw the upsurge called"Era of Color Martial Arts"The third phase is from late 1970s to mid-1980s when the transition of Hong Kong Martial Arts movies took place and a new style called Martial Arts Comedy movies was formed. The fourth phase lasts till early 1990s and during this period, Hong Kong Martial Arts movies prospered again. This chapter then sums up the development trend of Hong Kong Martial Arts movies. Multi-element integration emerges in Hong Kong Martial Arts movies after the return to motherland, which means typological elements of other movies are added to Martial Arts movies. It breaks the single pattern of martial arts movies and integrates multiple typological elements in it to form some new types of martial arts movies with variety and complexity. According to the typological quantity integrated with martial arts movies, those new types include two categories. One is the integration of martial arts movies and a single type, which brings about a subtype. Relatively prominent ones are martial arts western films, martial arts science fiction films, martial arts vampire films and the like. The other is the integration of martial arts movies and multiple types, for instance, integrating several typological elements of movies, such as comedy and romance, into martial arts movies.Chapter Two summarizes various changes of Hong Kong Martial Arts movies in typological elements after the return and these changes include three aspects. In terms of the theme, the connotation of the fictional society in martial arts movies begins to be played down, or degenerated into simple narrative space, or the carrier of modern commercial society with interest entanglement. From typological space-time aspect, narrative space-time has been expanded. Time expands from past and present to future while space from local places to the whole world and from real space to virtual one. With respect to expressive means, initial"dance of martial arts"spectacle based on genuine Kungfu is transformed into digital wonders based on digital technologies. Besides, theme props like swords in martial arts movies are paid more attention to and endowed with richer meanings.Chapter Three explores causes for typological changes of Hong Kong Martial Arts movies after the return. Both the development of Hong Kong social culture and the internal and external pressure film industry suffers contribute to those changes. Hong Kong film makers keep seeking for breakthrough in film types, that is to say, they use film types of Hollywood relatively successful blockbusters for reference and try to form a new type of martial arts movies by merging martial arts film types, which is also demanded by the changes of martial arts genre films themselves.The conclusion analyzes the significance of martial arts movies for the promotion of Chinese national culture and development of Chinese film industry. |
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