Hong Kong Made: 20 Years of Hong Kong TV Drama Treasures Edition

Author: Zeng Zihang, Editor-in-Chief / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: Preface: For anyone who has lived through the 1980s, there are personal memories unique to each individual, as well as shared collective memories. For a long time, audiences in the mainland could only watch eight model operas, but they were drawn to the basic human stories and the rich and diverse human world depicted in Hong Kong dramas. The enigmatic Shanghai, the free-spirited grasslands of Mongolia, or the moral power of good and evil clashing, as portrayed in A Fierce Love, left a profound emotional impact on people from that era. Hong Kong dramas provided us with the opportunity to see more of the world. In my view, the 1980s was also an era that gave everyone a chance. British writer John Ellis said, "Television is the private life of a nation and a people," and I believe this is the most precise statement I have ever seen that reveals the essence of popular culture. In Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan, as well as Singapore, within the Chinese-speaking world in Asia, people share common cultural roots and similar ethical values. In Hong Kong dramas, we see the unique spiritual world of Easterners. At the same time, as "viewers," we also see ourselves and our time, our private spaces and public spaces. To document these Hong Kong dramas that deeply influenced the spiritual lives of the Chinese people in a book is a historically significant endeavor. Such discovery, summarization, and organization are timely. Editor-in-Chief Zeng Zihang is the host of Movie Time on China Film Channel. He studied at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and has been watching a great deal of Hong Kong dramas since his university days. He has also been carefully collecting "everything about Hong Kong dramas." Today, what he and his friends have done is not just driven by nostalgia but also provides us with a comprehensive and detailed document. Something like this has not yet been done by anyone in Hong Kong, the birthplace of Hong Kong dramas. The author specializes in popular culture studies but avoids pretentious theoretical language. With a blend of documentary and entertainment, they complete a profound journey into the memories of us and our time through biographies of figures and genre studies, making for an engaging read. Of course, Hong Kong dramas were just one of the most important forms of cultural consumption for mainland Chinese in the 1980s, alongside the songs of Teresa Teng, the novels of Qiong Yao, the essays of Sanmao, the novels of Jin Yong, the dramas from Taiwan and Singapore, and other popular culture products created in mainland China. Through the thrilling Hong Kong dramas and the dazzling Hong Kong stars in the book, the authors attempt to outline the basic contours of popular culture in mainland China from the late 1980s to the 1990s. They have successfully completed this depiction, and this is where the significance lies. March 7, 2003, written in Panchengju.