Hong Kong war movies and heritage conservation

Abstract

The media is an important tool for promoting heritage conservation. Of the different types of media, film plays a special role. A careful reading of the literature on film theories and books on Hong Kong movies has established that film is an important tool for promoting heritage conservation. However, neither the theories nor the literature have paid much attention to the authenticity of the time periods represented by any historical film. Also, none of the books the author reviewed made use of the collection of the Hong Kong Film Archive (HKFA). Without historicity (historical authenticity), a historical film’s educational value is compromised.

This thesis has a modest scope in that it limits the historicity of films to the presence or absence, as well as to the quality of the military hardware and buildings, as a matter of scene-setting or directorship for war movies in Hong Kong. The meaning of authenticity in this thesis is accordingly limited to the historicity of films specifically in terms of scene-setting or directorship of each movie. The historicity was assessed by determining: (a) whether or not there was the use of battle equipment (e.g. tanks) and/or field hardware (e.g. gun batteries, pillboxes) in a film and (b) if there was, if such equipment was up to the standards of an ordinary military enthusiast. Authenticity, as such, does not always engage the tricky subjectivity-objectivity debate properly.

This thesis hypothesises that local movies are poor in historicity. The author tested and confirmed this theory after conducting a comprehensive review of war movies available at the HKFA. The author checked the HKFA’s entire database and found 53 movies related to the Sino-Japanese War in Hong Kong. All of the films had incorrect historical interpretations, so their authenticity was doubtful. Most of the problems stem from the different limitations of and political factors behind each film including inaccurate times, scenes, and character relationships during the war. Coupled with the perspective of its creator or political background of its film distributor, a film might have failed to express a complete and true history of war. This means that historicity is a major area for local filmmakers to improve upon if their films are to be used to promote heritage conservation.