In between yesterday and today I managed to read an entire book without really meaning to, but I found some downtime.I read through Hong Kong Babylon, which is a book about HK cinema's "New Wave" (basically late 70s to early 90s or so) and the rise of Tsui Hark, John Woo and the like. Covers many interesting areas of HK Cinema with a number of anecdotes I was already familiar with.
There are a number of sections to the book.
The first 75 pages or so is essentially New Wave HK Cinema 101 covering many aspects of short history, the economics, the main players, some stories compiled from many interview the author held and a quick examination of potential changes for the Hand Over (the book was largely compiled in 1995 - 96 it seems and published in 97). In the second section are selected filmographies and interview excerpts which didn't fit in to the first section. The third section is plot summaries to some 300 films ranging from 1976 to 1996. The fourth section is labeled recommended viewing, wherein 12 critics ranging in expertise from national figures to the more obscure (but more knowledgeable) like Ric Meyers.
The scope of the book unfortunately doesn't allow it to flesh out and go into detail on some aspects I wished to know more about, but for introducing people unfamiliar with HK cinema (or passingly familiar thanks to the expansion of Jet Li, Jackie Chan and John Woo's filmographies here in the US) it would be a good starting place as it tries to give equal weight to genre films and art films.
But really, this isn't something that I'd suggest anyone who is already familiar with HK film read.
You can read the excerpt which ran in The New Yorker here. (registration required)
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