Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. Action films from Hong Kong have roots in Chinese and Hong Kong cultures including Chinese opera, storytelling and aesthetic traditions, which Hong Kong filmmakers combined with elements from Hollywood and Japanese cinema along with new action choreography and filmmaking techniques, to create a culturally distinctive form that went on to have wide transcultural appeal. In turn, Hollywood action films have been heavily influenced by Hong Kong genre conventions, from the 1970s onwards.
Scene from the wuxia film Buddha's Palm (1964). The magic qi rays are created using crude hand-drawn animation.
Bruce Lee in 1971
Jackie Chan in 2002
John Woo in 2005
The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of political and economic freedom than mainland China and Taiwan, and developed into a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world.
Replica of the Hong Kong Film Awards statuette on the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Runje Shaw, the eldest Shaw brother who started Shaw Brothers Studio, the largest Hong Kong film production company of that era.
Nancy Kwan, a Hong Kong-born American actress.
Julie Yeh Feng, an actress, singer and businesswoman. She starred in various films in throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and is considered to have been one of Hong Kong's biggest stars of the period.
