ABSTRACT
The triangular relationship between China, Britain and Hong Kong that dominated the history of Hong Kong at the end of the twentieth century also operated in the first half of that century, but in a very different way. In the earlier period, the British policy of non-interference in local Chinese affairs and the lack of a defined Hong Kong identity meant that China played a far more dominant role in that triangle than it was to later. As a result, Hong Kong cinema in the early period can be seen essentially, if ambivalently, as part of Chinese national cinema.
