Film Society BuyTickets membership Sponsorship about search  
  Walter Reade Theater
  Film Comment
  Scanners Film Fetival
  New Director New Films
  Special Events
   
 
Currently On Sale
On Sale: 2010 Archive
On Sale: 2009 Archive
On Sale: 2008 Archive
On Sale: 2007 Archive
All That Fosse
GS: Clara Bow
Met: Roméo et Juliette
Val Lewton
Spanish Cinema Now
Pilar Miró
La Guerra Filmada
YFF: ...Dollhouse
Accattone in Jazz
GS: Battling Butler
Pasolini
The Iron Horse
Freewheelin’: Music Docs
David Fincher
Whole Shootin' Match
Rolex Art Weekend
NYWIFT: Attica
YFF: Murmur...
Beyond Boundaries
IN: Greensboro
10 Years HK
Leo Awards 07
Chinese Modern
Program Overview
The Battle of Love
June Bride
Mambo Girl
Our Dream Car
Sister Long Legs
Sun, Moon and Star
The Wild, Wild Rose
Avant-Garde
De Andrade
For Goodis Sake
YFF: Run Fatboy...
Zeki Demirkubuz
FCS: The Last Winter
Latinbeat 07
Latinbeat 07 Sidebar
Gerard Depardieu
IN: Life on the Mesa
YFF: Bullets over B'way
FCS: Executioner’s Song
FCS: Them
Green Screens: 11th Hour
Polanski
Scanners: NY Video Fest
Woodfall Studios
FCS: Norman Mailer
SFP: Way Down East
SE: After This...
YFF: King of New York
SE: Talk To Me
Kino
Live Earth
FCS: Joshua
Next Gen.: Scorsese
Human Rights Watch
IN: Banished
SE: Evening
New Italian Cinema
YFF: The Story of Qiu Ju
Magnum
Barry Lyndon
4 from Schlesinger
Lee Marvin
Wide Awake
White Nights
Paul Mazursky
Duke Ellington
SE: Il Trittico
YFF: Waitress
SFP: Toons, Tunes...
Carlos Saura
China's Independents
FCS: Electra
FCS: Hot Fuzz
African Film Festival
Daniel Barenboim
ND/NF Classics
Tian Zhuangzhuang
Offside
Rendez-Vous
FCS: P. Verhoeven
IN: A Dream in Doubt
Film Comment Selects
YFF: In the Soup
Donald Cammell
SE: Days of Glory
Farmanara Retro
NY Jewish Film Festival
Whitaker Films
SE: Forest Whitaker
SE: For Goodis Sakepostponed
Dance on Camera 2007
On Sale: 2006 Archive
On Sale: 2005 Archive
Archive 2005 - To April
Archive 2004 - WRT
Archive 2003 - WRT
Archive 2002 - WRT
Archive 2001 - WRT
Archive 2000 - WRT
Archive 1999 - WRT
Archive 1998 - WRT
Archive 1997 - WRT
Archive 1996 - WRT


Chinese Modern: A Tribute to Cathay Studios
A Special Showcase of the 45th New York Film Festival
October 10 - 16, 2007

Sponsored by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York and organized by the Film Society, in collaboration with the Hong Kong Film Archive.

Like the film industries in the U.S. and Japan, the Hong Kong film industry was dominated by a few large companies that did everything from make films to own and run the movie theaters where they played. By the mid-1950s, two studios moved to the front of the pack: the legendary Shaw Brothers and Motion Picture and General Investment Ltd. (MP & GI), or as it was universally known, Cathay. Each made dozens of films a year, had stars and directors under contract, and operated large studios that ran practically 24 hours a day. Competition was cutthroat, and more than once an announced film by one of the studios would be scooped by the early release of a film on the same subject by the other. Although both studios made broad selections of films each year, the Shaws became internationally known for their huangmei (opera) and later wuxia (martial arts) films, while Cathay was best known for its decidedly contemporary comedies, musicals and melodramas. If the Shaws hoped to transport their audiences to an imaginary Chinese past, Cathay productions such as Mambo Girl and Our Dream Car asked those audiences to imagine a different kind of Chinese future.

Most historians cite the overwhelming influence of Cathay's chairman, Loke Wan Tho, as the reason for Cathay's distinctive style. By all reports a worldly, highly sophisticated gentleman with a passion for bird watching, Loke oversaw the creation of a "modern" vision of Chinese life that embraced not only Western ideas and technology but also lifestyles and attitudes. Stars such as Grace Chang and Linda Lin Dai were new kinds of Chinese women, not only strong, but also independent. Even in some of their more formulaic films, the emphasis is on making up one's own mind, on deciding things for oneself. Chairman Loke died tragically in a plane crash in 1964, and sadly the fortunes of Cathay went down soon after; the company ceased production in the mid-'70s. Yet Cathay films remain popular with audiences and filmmakers alike. Tsai Ming-liang used the songs from The Wild, Wild Rose for The Hole, and several critics have pointed out the influence of several Cathay films on Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love. Chinese Modern: A Tribute to Cathay Studios offers a brief introduction to this most important element in Hong Kong cinema.

For a listing of films in the series go to Program Overview.

Click on Calendar to view the schedule, film descriptions and, to purchase tickets online.

Special thanks to Cathay-Keris Films Pte. Ltd., Cathay Organization Holdings, especially Violet Kwan and Jennifer Wee, and also to Sandi Tan, Norman Wang, Sam Ho, Hazel Chang, Wong Ai-ling and Shu Kei for their help in making this series possible.