Opinion

Happy day for Hong Kong cinemas could have been a showcase of local films

The offer of HK$30 movie tickets will boost the cinema business, but the campaign should have done more for the local film industry

Not only are classic Hong Kong films far from forgotten, recent releases depicting local issues show that the industry is worthy of support

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Francis Ng Chun-yu (right) and Loletta Lee Lai-chun in a still from Drifting, a 2021 film about the homeless in Hong Kong. Photo: Riddiculous Studio

Franklin Koo is an accredited mediator, lawyer and author of Power to the People: Extending the Jury to the Hong Kong District Court.

Published: 8:15am, 29 Apr 2023

Today Hongkongers and tourists alike will be able to enjoy films in cinemas at a discounted price of HK$30 per ticket, if one is lucky enough to secure one of the 200,000-plus available tickets. As long as you can get a ticket, there are no restrictions on which movie you can watch, but was this a missed opportunity?

This campaign, which in addition to discounted cinema tickets includes food fairs and a music carnival, comes at a cost of HK$20 million to the government’s coffers, and while it is expected that it will give the cinema business a boost, it leaves a lot to be desired for the local film industry.

Hong Kong’s film industry has shed its reputation of churning out low-budget movies solely to make a quick buck. The decline in popularity of local films is due to a change in market factors.

Some of the criticism has been aimed at the larger budget films which, due to the economic reality, simply cannot cater to Hong Kong’s limited local market of around 7 million and seek to attract a much broader Asian market. These films may employ non-local supporting actors and actresses, with the dialogue being dubbed into Cantonese, and sometimes use Hong Kong simply as a backdrop for an otherwise vanilla plot.