ABSTRACT
In the effort to more fully understand Hong Kong cinema’s global context – and to avoid an over-reliance on sometimes problematic East/West oppositions in doing so – it is particularly productive to examine that cinema’s connections to Thailand. Thailand’s relationship is especially strong in that the country has long been a significant market for Hong Kong film, in that numerous Hong Kong-Thailand co-productions have been mounted over the years, in that Hong Kong has wielded a strong stylistic influence over Thai cinema, and, perhaps most strikingly, in that Thailand has long been a favourite location for the filming of Hong Kong productions.1 The importance of Thailand as an overseas market is not surprising considering both its proximity and its substantial population of Chinese descent, a largely urban population responsible, as in other Southeast Asian countries, for a disproportionate amount of the country’s economic activity.2 Indeed, the Hong Kong-Thailand cinematic connection, both in terms of film distribution and co-production, is fostered in part by Sino-Thai involvement in the film business; for example, Sahamongkol Film, one of Thailand’s most important distribution and production companies, and the main distributor of Hong Kong films in Thailand, is run by a Sino-Thai family. A number of filmmakers have in fact significantly blurred Hong Kong-Thailand cinematic boundaries with lives and films which straddle both places: Hong Kong-based producer-director Peter Chan, who lived in Thailand as a child, has been involved with a number of high-profile Thai-Hong Kong coproductions through his Applause Pictures, while the Hong Kong-born twins Danny and Oxide Pang are filmmakers whose careers have likewise moved fluidly between Hong Kong and Thailand, as they work on a range of films from each industry, as well as co-productions.
