Localization of Globally Branded Film

 

 

 

 

 

Similar to the East Asian local broadcasters, the producers of Hong Kong film industries also instill the Hollywood and regional elements to sustain its development in the global competition. To re-grasp the potential market from China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan, Hong Kong screen industries tried to re-write or adopt the themes from other countries yet local advantages like action features were added. Connected will be the focus of this part.

 

Connected is directed by Benny Chan and it is a remake of the Hollywood film Cellular by Chris Morgan. It is claimed that the first Hong Kong movie rewrited from the Hollywood film and even better than the original one in terms of the stunt team. As film production is quite different from the reality shows and formatted game shows, it would be hard to just simply copy the story from the West and reproduce the Asian one since there would be some cultural differences between the West and the East. Hence, to increase the locailty of the film, it is a must for the directors to redesign some plots or even change some settings of his or her work. Moreover, since it is the first time Hong Kong adopt such strategy, this film can be seen as the experiments for combining action, horror and drama in one work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cross-over with other stretagies

Indeed, Connected not only rented the first strategy, but also part of the fourth strategy because this is also a co-operation movie production, especially in terms of investment perspective[1]. On the contrary, the production crew to a large extent is rooted in Hong Kong, for example, the Action Choreographer and Film Editor are also the local Hong Kongese (Emperor Motion Pictures, 2008). With the marketing concern, it is reasonable that the stars in the film Louis Koo, Barbie Hsu and Liu Ye are actually come from Hong Kong, China as well as Taiwan respectively in order to mobilize people from these three places to buy tickets. This fits with what Lim stated as using icon of East Asian popular culture can be a smart tactic to draw attentions from the audiences (Lim, 2008). Barbie Hsu (aka “Big S”) is a popular celebrity since she acted as the main actress in Meteor Garden. Though the focus of this TV drama seemed gradually shift from the drama itself to F4-merchandising and advertising empire, it is wrong to neglect that four members of F4 were interacted with Hsu and the audience would definitely recognize how she is. Liu Ye, the Best actor of Golden Horse Awards in 2001 Golden Rooster Awards in 2004, needed not to explain his popularity in China and Taiwan.

 

[1] Emperor Motion Picture (International) Ltd., China Film Group Corporation. Warner China Film HG Corporation and BNJ Armor Entertainment Limited are the investors of the movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reference:

 

鄭敬恆(2009) 。《2008香港電影回顧》，香港，香港電影評論學會。

 

Emperor Motion Pictures. (2008) http://connected.emp.hk/title.php?film_id=59&category=1&language=en

Lim, T. (2008). Renting East Asian Popular Culture for Local Television: Regional Networks of Cultural Production. In Chau, B. H. & Iwabuchi, K. (Ed.), East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.