Tang Yingnian, chairman of the West Kowloon Group, publicly pointed out that M+ is world-class.
What is world class?
How is the world class of M+ determined?
This issue is originally an academic issue, which needs to be assessed from the perspectives of history, art history, social sciences and humanities.
The original intention of M+ was to be a museum of visual culture.
Why Visual Culture?
Because Hong Kong's visual culture has a world-class influence.
What is a world-class impact?
For example, John Woo's films have world-class influence.
John Woo's work, of course, the most important is "A Better Tomorrow", which has family feelings, gangsters, and more importantly, very comic-style shooting and action scenes.
This film has a very profound influence on Asian cinema, on Asian popular culture, especially South Korea.
"The Color of Heroes" is referenced in Korean pop culture and remade many times.
The series "True Colors of Heroes" fully represents the characteristics of Hong Kong movies: the rhythm is lively, there are emotional scenes, there are action, there are gunfights, there are funny, everything is integrated.
On top of that it has a very unique visual style and cinematic rhythm.
A feature of John Woo is to modernize the martial arts films directed by Shaw Brothers Chang Cheh and turn them into shootout films.
He has many classic works - "The Detective", "Blood on the Street", "Across the Four Seas", etc., turning guns into swords, using the method of martial arts films to shoot shootout films, and combining the heroic morality of martial arts films, between men The loyalty became a modern story.
This is John Woo's achievement.
John Woo is also one of the few Hong Kong directors invited to Hollywood to make mainstream Western blockbusters, shooting a Western action classic - "Face/Off" starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage.
This film was very successful, and the influence of John Woo's works also permeated the entire Hollywood film system, and many Hollywood shootout films were influenced by him.
For example, the gunfights and action scenes in "22nd Century Killing Network" (Matrix) have traces of John Woo.
The rise of Hong Kong movies has also attracted Hollywood to invest in Hong Kong to make films, and since the 1990s, it has attracted many talents from Hong Kong.
What talent does Hollywood attract?
It is a dragon and tiger martial artist.
Yuan Heping and many dragon and tiger martial artists were the first generation to be absorbed by Hollywood.
The Hollywood method is institutionalized, that is, integrating Yuan Heping's kung fu and the entire system into the Hollywood system.
To this day, the movies shot in Hollywood and many shootout movies shot in South Korea are more or less variants of Woo.
The most classic American film is "John Wick" (Kill God), starring Keanu Reeves of "22nd Century Killing Network".
The plot is very simple and direct, adapted from the comics, and it is about a series of revenge actions due to love, which caused the entire underground world to fight.
The whole story is like a Chinese martial arts movie.
John wick played by Keanu Reeves is a knight who uses guns and martial arts to compete with everyone.
This movie actually doesn't have any special plot, it just keeps fighting, but it basically brings John Woo's movie spirit to the extreme. fantasy, the killer concept has also been advanced as a new underground organization.
John Wick's success is more or less influenced by video games and the dominance of the senses.
In fact, John Woo has long pushed the violent aesthetics of Shaw Brothers films to a new level, and John Wick can be said to be a tribute to John Woo, because the screenwriter and director and other behind-the-scenes people are all John Woo fans, and they are also "22" The team directing the action, shooting, and car shooting in The Killing Network of the Century.
John Wick reflects the influence of Hong Kong films on the world, and also shows that today's Hollywood visual culture has actually absorbed Hong Kong's genes and integrated Hong Kong's characteristic style.
This is Hong Kong's world-class visual cultural influence.
John Woo's films have a very strong visual style and storytelling style.
He turned the traditional Chinese martial arts novels of chivalrous warriors into the stories around him today.
However, the epic blockbusters he later developed in the mainland and shot in other places seem to have failed to regain the style of the past-with a simple story and wonderful action scenes, creating an atmosphere of heroic end.
Another feature of John Wick is that Keanu Reeves is like a "substitute" for Chow Yun-Fat.
Chow Yun-fat is a frequently used actor by John Woo, and many of the roles played by Chow Yun-fat are tragic heroes.
Starting from "The True Color of Heroes", all the way to "The Hot Detective", he played the role of a tragic hero.
Keanu Reeves also uses this concept.
John Wick is a kind of Chow Yun-Fat transformation, played by Keanu Reeves, which adds a deeper level of sadness and depression.
We must understand the changes in the world's cultural power structure in the past 50 years, and the contemporary art of the traditional establishment elite has become a collector's game and a cultural symbol.
In essence, pop culture is the cultural core of our age.
Hong Kong's visual culture has influenced the world unconsciously. What Hong Kong needs to do now is to review and rediscover, and build cultural confidence from here.
To build cultural self-confidence, you need to know John Woo, Shaw Brothers films, Zhang Che's martial arts hero films and the various influences he has had on the world.
M+ Museum should have systematically established a Hong Kong-based visual culture style through academic research and analysis.
For example, the influence of John Woo's films on Korean films is a big topic that can be analyzed as a paper.
"The True Color of Heroes" has been remade by South Korea many times, and Chow Yun-fat's "Brother Mark" spirit is also presented in different Korean dramas and Korean movies.
These are real world-class influences in Hong Kong.
We must know it and understand it.
Confidence comes from knowledge.
Ignorance will only lead to more misunderstandings and unnecessary inferiority.
The saddest part of Hong Kong's cultural policy today is that some people who don't know Hong Kong decide what is and isn't world-class in Hong Kong.
Hu Enwei
is a member of the National Hong Kong and Macao Research Association, a member of the Jiangsu Provincial Political Consultative Conference, and Zuni.
Icosahedron United Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer
