EXCLUSIVE: While Hong Kong’s film industry has not had the easiest ride since the pandemic, it continues to defy expectations by throwing up locally produced films that have been breaking records at the local box office.
The most recent of these, Emperor Motion Pictures’ The Last Dance, released in November 2024, has become the highest-grossing Hong Kong film of all time – indeed the highest-grossing Chinese-language film ever at the Hong Kong box office – grossing more than $20M (HK$161M).
The film has also performed strongly on its international release – taking more than $800,000 (GBP620,000) in the UK, where it’s the third highest grossing Hong Kong film of all time behind Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle and Wong Kar Wai’s In The Mood For Love. It has also done well in other territories, including North America, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, grossing $4M (RM18M) in the latter, a market that usually only watches action movies from Hong Kong.
A Directors Cut of the film is being rolled out in Hong Kong and several other territories on April 4, which should push its box office even higher. It’s also leading the race for the upcoming Hong Kong Film Awards on April 27 with 18 nominations.
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Directed by relative newcomer Anselm Chan, the film tells the story of an out-of-work wedding planner, played by Dayo Wong, who teams up with a Taoist priest, played by Michael Hui, to run a funerals business. In addition to revealing Hong Kong’s elaborate funeral traditions, it also touches on themes of family bonds and obligation, death and grieving, clashing religious faiths and gender equality in traditional society.
But it does all of that whilst making the audience laugh. Wong and Hui are two of Hong Kong’s best-known comedians, albeit from very different generations, who display both their serious and comedic sides in the film.
Emperor Motion Pictures’ COO Cecil Yow sat down with Deadline at their Hong Kong offices to talk about the making of the film, the reasons for its success, and how it has influenced their production strategy moving forward.
“What seems to be happening, in this part of world especially, is that you need movies with characters that people can relate to, rather than big-budget special effects,” says Yow. “Every single character in The Last Dance is going through something that the audience can relate to. Michael Hui’s character, for example, is a professional in his trade, who’s always stuck to traditional values, but by the end of the film realizes he was wrong.
“His daughter – of course in Chinese culture they always feel like the boy is the favorite of the family. And the son who is working in the family trade even he doesn’t like it, and how his sister reacts when he decides to move away. All these are issues that resonate with people. So I think the audience taste is changing. Previously Hong Kong movie-makers were very good at cop movies, gangster films, action, but now people want more emotional reward.”
While The Last Dance’s success brought some cheer to the local film industry, overall box office has struggled to recover from the pandemic, decreasing 6% year-on-year in 2024, due to a combination of factors including the increasing popularity of streaming, changing consumption patterns and a depressed local economy.
At the same time, big-budget Hong Kong-China co-productions have been seeing reduced earnings in the mainland market where box office has also been slowing outside of key holiday periods. Like many big Hong Kong production companies, Emperor Group is also an exhibitor, operating cinemas in Hong Kong, mainland China and Macau, and with a limited ancillary market, declining box office is an issue for everyone.
Yow says that films such as The Last Dance, and Chinese animation Nezha 2, produced by Beijing-based Enlight Media, which has grossed more than $2bn, prove that audiences are not shunning the theatrical experience – it’s just that they’ll only turn out for the right films.
“If you have a good movie that people can relate to, then they’re going to go and see it, there’s no doubt about that. So the answer for Hong Kong filmmakers is that we need to find new methods, new strategies and new story ideas, something much more down to earth. All the big superhero and action movies aren’t working any more. The audience is clamoring for more substance and meaning.”
Yow adds that changing course will require taking a chance on untested talent and bold ideas, which is not easy in a depressed market where investors tend to stick to proven formulas. He explains that The Last Dance director Anselm Chan had only made two relatively small comedy dramas for EMP before he approached them with the script of the film.
“He’s very good with characters, but obviously it’s a very sensitive subject, if you get it wrong it could be depressing or backfire. So it’s a subject that very few investors would be interested in. But we bought the guy’s ability to tell good stories.”
The other factor that helped the movie – and one that encouraged EMP to put in slightly more budget than they usually would for a newcomer’s film – was the casting of Michael Hui and Dayo Wong. The two actors represent two generations of Hong Kong cinema; Hui reinvented Cantonese-language cinema back in the 1970s with this down-to-earth comedies about Hong Kong working class life, while Wong has brought his own brand of humor to local films, although he also played a more serious role in legal drama A Guilty Conscience, which was Hong Kong’s highest-grossing film ever with $15m, until The Last Dance came long.
“The chemistry between them was just amazing,” says Yow. “Both are comedians but are not usually recognized as actors in serious movies. Michael, who is 82 now, was really happy with the project. So from now on, what we’re looking at is more movies with messages, but also with the right combination of artists. If we have the right script and director, we’re willing to invest a bit more in terms of getting the right cast and doing it right.”
EMP majority financed The Last Dance, with Alibaba Pictures coming in as a co-producer so the film could be released in mainland China, where it grossed $30M.
“It did well in the southern part of China, which understands the culture and the ceremonies depicted in the film,” says Yow. “The reaction from audiences in the north was that they’d never known a father to be so tough on his children. There are definitely cultural differences between the north and south of China.”
While EMP is developing more films along these lines – with strong, relatable stories and the right combination of artists – the company is not giving up on its signature big-budget action movies completely, and has a few in the pipeline, which are being sold here at Hong Kong Filmart. These include Derek Kwok’s Raging Havoc, starring Andy Lau and Nicholas Tse, about two brothers seeking revenge for the brutal murder of their family, which is currently in post-production.
The company’s small to mid-budget titles include Tam Wai Chin’s Someone Like Me, produced by Stanley Kwan and starring Fish Liew and Carlos Chan, about a woman with cerebral palsy exploring her sexuality, while Stan Liu’s Once Upon A Lie, produced by Pang Ho Cheung, follows a struggling writer who stumbles into an online romance with a fan of his work.
“Comedy is another genre that we think is quite interesting and want to explore,” Yow continues. “We want to revisit that genre because audiences need to feel uplifted. But it needs to be comedy with a message, not the slapstick kind of comedy that Hong Kong used to be famous for. Audiences are not buying those anymore.”
Yow said next steps for the company may also include international collaboration and EMP’s production chief Jason Siu has recently been meeting filmmakers in Taiwan. The company has also been looking at production infrastructure and subsidies in markets such as Thailand and Malaysia, as well as Hong Kong’s recently introduced Europe and Asia co-production schemes.
“We’re not ruling anything out,” says Yow. “Taiwan has a lot of great talent and many of their filmmakers were educated in the West so have an international outlook. Hong Kong companies have found it difficult to collaborate with Europe in the past, as we work at a different pace and often with different logic, but this is a good time to be looking at more diversity and Europe makes some excellent films.”
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