ABSTRACT
Colonial Hong Kong was a transregional hub of Cold War ideological confrontation where the United States and its Chinese ally, Chiang Kai-shek’s Taiwan, struggled with Beijing for the hearts of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and around the world. Pro-Communist émigré cinema in the mid-twentieth century was a prime cultural manifestation of this Cold War contest. After an initial period of radicalization and antagonism, the pro-Communist studios in Hong Kong gradually shifted to a moderate approach whose goal was not to undermine British colonial rule or espouse explicit revolutionary ideologies, but to maintain a strategic presence in the local film industry and serve as a point of contact for overseas Chinese. Later, with the rise of two pro-Free China giant studios, Motion Pictures & General Investment Co., Ltd. and Shaw Brothers, the cinematic ecosystem in Hong Kong was significantly changed. In order to hold on to their market presence in an increasingly more competitive environment, pro-Communist film companies embraced a more entertainment-oriented ethos that adhered to popular genre trends, while struggling to remain truthful to their political commitment. With in-depth analysis of two popular films by Zhu Shilin, The Dividing Wall (Yiban zhi ge 1952) and Sweet as Honey (Tiantian mimi 1959), the authors seek to historicize the cultural politics of the Beijing-sponsored film establishment in 1950s Hong Kong, focusing in particular on its ambivalent relationships toward entertainment and the colony’s postwar cityscape as it negotiated and balanced a changing set of political, ideological, and commercial interests in pursuit of its strategic mission.
