Wuxia in the Golden Age of HK Cinema (1979-1999)
by BZ-Choy | Public
Movies past the golden age of the genre (late 60s-70s, Shaw Brother).
This era started when younger directors such as John Woo, Tsui Hark, Yuen Woo-Ping, Patrick Tam, Johnnie To and Ching Siu-Tung started making their own wuxia movies with turbo-speed wireworks and choregraphies and modern sensibilities, with Tsui Hark's The Butterfly Murders and John Woo's Last Hurrah for Chivalry being the first ones.
In 1990, the success of the first Swordsman movie started its own wave of 90s wuxia films that lasted until the middle of the decade. That was the peak of popularity of modern wuxia.
And then the 1997 Hong Kong handover and economic crisis happened. This put the whole HK cinema industry into shaky grounds.
In 2000, the global success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon showed the world that wuxia was still alive as a genre and that wuxia films could also be "artsy".
This era started when younger directors such as John Woo, Tsui Hark, Yuen Woo-Ping, Patrick Tam, Johnnie To and Ching Siu-Tung started making their own wuxia movies with turbo-speed wireworks and choregraphies and modern sensibilities, with Tsui Hark's The Butterfly Murders and John Woo's Last Hurrah for Chivalry being the first ones.
In 1990, the success of the first Swordsman movie started its own wave of 90s wuxia films that lasted until the middle of the decade. That was the peak of popularity of modern wuxia.
And then the 1997 Hong Kong handover and economic crisis happened. This put the whole HK cinema industry into shaky grounds.
In 2000, the global success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon showed the world that wuxia was still alive as a genre and that wuxia films could also be "artsy".
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