Paris has romance and New York has the skyline. Hong Kong has heartache, mystery — and Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and a wealth of stylised, site-specific, vastly influential action and crime movies. Film-industry history and real life both played a role in that. A longtime liking for martial arts crowd-pleasers among the city’s producers was turbocharged by Lee — until, in the 1980s, spikes in the crime rate inspired local film-makers to make underworld thrillers that outdid Hollywood.
巴黎擁有浪漫,紐約擁有天際線。而香港擁有的則是悲傷、神秘——還有李小龍、成龍以及大量風格化、因地制宜且影響深遠的動作片和犯罪片。電影工業的歷史以及現實的生活都在其中發揮著作用。長期以來,這座城市里的制片人們一向鐘愛能取悅觀眾的功夫電影,而李小龍的出現更是讓這種熱情進一步強化——這股熱潮一直持續到了20世紀80年代,當時犯罪率的急升,又促使本地電影人著手制作出超越好萊塢的黑幫驚悚片。