Sometime in last May, I reached out to Kevin Ma, who is involved in film festival boards and contributes to various publications, with the idea of bringing back the simple, casual conversations between film geeks through an email exchange. These are the kinds of conversations where you let yourself ramble, reminisce, share what you know about films, get contradicted, and sometimes nod approvingly in response to someone else's enthusiasm or insight. I also wanted to get closer to the person behind the work I’ve been reading online, who, for various reasons, seemed like an unreachable avatar deep within the internet, much as we all might appear to others. At first, I had second thoughts about my ability to keep up with these short electronic letters - something I had never done before - not to mention openly chatting about an industry that I was and still am only familiar with through my chaotic, unorthodox study. However, Kevin and I quickly dove into discussing our shared passions: the Hong Kong film industry, martial arts films, film archives, guilty pleasure commercial films and more. It turns out that even in today's digital age, the charm of long-distance correspondence remains, contrary to what I had believed.

Bucharest, May 23

Dalesia Cozorici: Thank you for being so nice and equally excited about this exchange. From where are you writing?

Kevin Ma: Hi, Dalesia, I am writing from Hong Kong, where I’m based.

Dalesia Cozorici:  I've been following your online presence without realizing, whether through reviews or in connection with a few beloved festivals of mine, such as the Udine Far East Film Festival, the Polish Five Flavours Film Festival, which I discovered last year when I attended the Warsaw Film Festival, and of course, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, whose annual film catalog I've been reading, browsing, and relying on for some time now. I'm curious, how did you get into writing about films and cinema? And what drew you to be involved in the festival circuit that primarily promotes films from Asian countries?

Kevin Ma: I was a teenager when the internet became popular, and being a film geek, I was actively using the internet to read as much discourse about films as possible. That also meant I was active on message boards and debating (or arguing, as one does on the internet) about films with people. By the time I was in university, I was very active on the message board of a website called LoveHKFilm, run by a Taiwanese-American film writer named Ross Chen. There weren’t many people in California that I could chat about Hong Kong cinema with, so I turned to the internet. There, not only did I get to talk about Hong Kong cinema, I also learned so much about the history of Hong Kong cinema, especially since I hadn’t been formally educated on that at the time.

Thanks to the website, Ross was headhunted by an e-commerce website called YesAsia to head up the editorial department around 2003 or 2004 (I forgot the exact year). When I met him in Hong Kong in 2005, I asked if I could write reviews for his site and for YesAsia, and he graciously said yes. I wasn’t really paid much for the writing (I was paid in free discs instead), but that was really the beginning of me being paid to write about film professionally. Because YesAsia sells Asian films, I had the opportunity to write about Japanese films, Taiwanese films and Korean films. And having to write about them meant I also had to do proper research.

When I moved to Hong Kong in 2007 for film school, I joined Ross’ weekly movie group, which involved going to see new Hong Kong movies in cinemas every week. There, I met Tim Youngs, who has been the Hong Kong consultant for the Udine Far East Film Festival pretty much since the very beginning (Ross had also began contributing to Udine’s writing work at the time, too). Him and Ross and the others all taught me so much about Hong Kong cinema. Thanks to some of the film writing I did (including a blog that does Asian cinema news aggregation), I began to get some referrals and offers to write more about films.

During film school, I was also referred to do some English-language film-related writing work, such as reviews and feature articles, thanks to my bilingual abilities. So that started my career here in Hong Kong. After graduation, I joined YesAsia as a full-time editor, where I worked under Ross, followed by the Cathay Pacific inflight magazine five years later. The latter put me in contact with the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and I began writing freelance for them after that (I also worked as a translator/writer for one of the programmers at the Asian Film Awards before she joined the festival, so she knew me already then).

This is already a very long story, so I’ll stop here. But this is the gist of how my career began. It’s been a very long journey to get here.

Dalesia Cozorici:  Obviously, we lived in very different cultural contexts, far away from each other, but the internet also introduced me to a lot of films back in high school, which I accessed through websites (I believe they still exist to this day) that heavily pirated foreign content. I think I spent more time watching films than anything else, without really slotting them into any specific category or framework, or without really understanding the seriousness of piracy. Honestly, the only frame of reference was that they were films, and I could spend hours watching Japanese, Korean, Indian, Hungarian and Hong Kong films, until the point where their language became quite familiar to me. This was before I moved to Bucharest and long before I started going to the cinematheque on a regular basis to watch films from their monthly schedule, although those screenings weren't always very satisfying. In a way, I wish I could go back to my old unbiased way of watching films - minus those piracy-ridden websites that I don't miss.

But I would like to take our conversation a bit further back in time, especially considering our focus. Over time, I've noticed a few key observations, namely that Hong Kong is not just a market known for producing and offering run-of-the-mill films during certain periods, like some consider the 70s and the 80s-90s. In fact, its film industry produced thousands of films that could be considered as successful right after the introduction of sound. Martial arts films, which later gained even more acclaim, were leading the way right from the beginning of the genre's development, and they didn't just start in the 50s with films like the Fire Red Lotus Temple (which I should rewatch). The fact that the industry flourished both in and out of sight just a few decades after the birth of cinema itself, while other film industries were still grappling with technological changes, is perhaps not as well known.

More and more investors were attracted to Hong Kong in those early years, as many communities and technicians were welcome (from Shanghai especially), it almost made the industry self-sufficient in its own unique way for a period of time. Hong Kong cinema was never trailing behind, nor was it a rebel without a cause; it has always been pragmatic even surrounded by strong dominants (which nonetheless provided help). Of course, the Japanese occupation brought a significant setback. The industry suffered a major blow when films were melted down and four decades' worth of local film heritage were lost. Have you ever come into contact with early Hong Kong films at the Hong Kong Film Archive?

K: First of all, I think a lot of credit has to be given to that Shanghai film industry for building the Hong Kong film industry. The Hong Kong film industry technically began before the Civil War, of course, but the Shanghaiese filmmakers brought a lot of know-how when they came down to Hong Kong. Before the war, when Shanghai really flourished as a commercial city, it was the home of the Chinese film industry, and it gave birth to quite a few stars (Stanley Kwan’s Centre Stage is a tribute to that era).

(I should also mention that Cantonese cinema didn’t become the mainstream language of local films until the 70s. Before that, Mandarin was actually the dominant language of Hong Kong films, partly because of Hong Kong’s identity as an immigrant society.)

As for early films, I got to write a lot about the old black-and-white films that the HKFA screens on weekday mornings, but no, I have not been able to see anything older than that. Like you said, so many of those prints are lost, and the HKFA doesn’t have enough resource to uncover many of them (They do have quite a lot old prints, thanks to past donors), to restore all of them, nor to distribute them properly. The HKFA really is underfunded and underappreciated here in Hong Kong.

Dalesia Cozorici:  Given that the HKFA is still young compared to other archives, how does it operate?

K: For funding, they are purely funded by the government, if I remember correctly, and from box office revenue for their screenings. I’m not sure if they are even allowed to accept monetary donations. As for their materials, lots of old film prints come from donors. For example, a huge pile of prints were uncovered in San Francisco randomly because they were from a shuttered Chinatown cinema. However, even if they have a print, they may not be able to release them because of the tricky rights involved, especially if the company has already shut down without passing the right onto a proper copyright holder. So even if the HKFA has a print of something, clearing the rights is extremely tricky, and I don’t think they have enough resource to do that for every film they have.

But HKFA isn’t the first stop for most major companies that are still active today. For some companies, these catalog titles are their only source of revenue, and they charge quite a high price for screening them (this is a very prominent company that I won’t name). Producers and directors don’t hold prints, unless they are the financier and copyright holder.

Dalesia Cozorici: I remember you mentioning before that that martial arts films aren't necessarily your main area of interest, as your focus lies elsewhere, but because when we discuss Hong Kong cinema, this genre, which has deep roots in both East Asian styles and identities and in its own Hong Kong flair, is often brought up in conversations. One that I have fresh in mind is the discussion surrounding Hong Kong's legacy in relation to the film Everything Everywhere All at Once. Not only because the film merges fight scenes but also because actress Michelle Yeoh frequently mentions the influence of kung fu films and the Hong Kong directors she's worked with since the 80s, up to the release of Master Z: Ip Man Legacy directed by Woo-ping Yuen, with whom she has collaborated several times. The Ip Man film series, in particular, deserves its own study, as there has been a sustained interest in exploring the story of this martial arts master over time, from director Wilson Yip's initial 2008 film, which prominently featured Ip, to its influence on past films, and subsequent contributions from filmmakers like Herman Yau, Woo-ping Yuen, and Wong Kar Wai. But it's not just Everything Everywhere All at Once that has reignited interest; Jonathan Entwistle, the film director, along with Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan, announced casting for the new Karate Kid film set to be released in 2025. Olivier Assayas credits the culture a lot in Irma Vep, and Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which involved Jackie Chan's team in creating the fight scenes, does the same, as more well-known examples among other recent buzzes.

I have definitely wandered from the original topic, but I am curious to know if martial arts, kung fu, and wuxia films have been somehow important to you over the years. Recently, thanks to my university professor, Andrei Gorzo, I rewatched the Police Story series with Jackie Chan, and I was immediately overcome by the excitement I had when I first saw the films in high school. They seemed so distant, understandably so given they were created in a different time and setting from my own upbringing, yet they had a universal humor and were superior in technique and storytelling compared to other action films I watched, which others around me often praised. I have always wondered what it would be like if everyone could experience them. I am aware that mainstream media, rigid norms, and longstanding canons all play a huge role to perpetuating either interest or disinterest in certain film industries, often influenced by a form of cultural bias, often subjected to a form of cultural racism, to put it another way.

K: Most people who write about Hong Kong cinema in the West came by it through education or as hobbies, but Hong Kong cinema was never a hobby for me; it was something that naturally existed in my life because I was born in Hong Kong. So, watching Hong Kong films for me is as natural as someone in America growing up with Hollywood films.

As a cinephile even at a young age, of course I tried to watch as much as possible. Of course, Jackie Chan films were a huge part during my formative years, while we watched wuxia TV series (like the adaptations of Louis Cha’s novels). However, my family, like most Hong Kong families, is more into the comedies of Stephen Chow and the versatile films that starred Chow Yun Fat and Andy Lau. As a result, action and martial arts cinema were simply one of the many Hong Kong film genres I watched, but not one that I paid special attention to. I believe that would be the case for mainstream Hong Kong audiences. But of course, I am aware of Donnie Yen’s films and the history of the genre before him.

Dalesia Cozorici:  Rethinking my previous intervention, it is interesting to observe the evolution of this genre, especially in the context of the ongoing interchange between Cantonese and Mandarin language, when it seemed like this genre found success in Mandarin, yet Hong Kong continued to use Cantonese and vice versa. But that's not the only intriguing aspect. I discovered quite late that action films, those with fight scenes and female protagonists, existed even before the golden age of wuxia in the 70s, and these didn't always adhere to the male protagonist-dominated canon. For me, it's always surprising to juxtapose these early films that use authentic fighting styles with female protagonists against the later male-centric films that followed. When it comes to the canon, it's likely that everything that has been reassessed, everything that has succeeded and been frequently mentioned, mostly consists of films from the 60s and 70s. The traditional style, perhaps too theatrical but well understood because it came from southern culture (I'm thinking of Crippled Avengers and Fist of Fury), was eventually replaced by a more brutal yet calculated style, pioneered by Jackie Chan, Gordon Liu - who later worked with Tarantino in the 2000s - and Ken Lo. Following this evolution, the 90s saw the rise of Big Timer films, which grouped series of films built around a criminal or troubled character inspired by real-life events, similar to themes found in Western films, similar to the cloak-and-dagger thriller approach.

I believe that during this period, something began to dilute in Hong Kong cinema, to change, and perhaps it's more glaring for those who follow the industry from afar and have access to different films over different spans of time compared to locals. Can you tell me if the situation is actually seen and understood differently from the inside? Could this change be attributed solely to the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) and the fact that almost all productions in Hong Kong became co-productions with China in the early 2000s?

And this applies to any genre, not just martial arts. And I don't mean that the themes or subjects were not fresh or important, nor that the stylistic aspects were lacking, but I've noticed a loss of something that felt very Hong Kong-esque, which had been abundant until then. From an outsider's perspective, I think this situation fluctuated throughout the entire industry of this country, but I believe that most of the countries in Asia (the ones that became powerhouses for the film industry) have experienced a loss of pressure for local representation in film during this period (just to name the Japanese industry and J-horror wave, whose end was similarly felt).

K: I don’t agree with the idea that Hong Kong films lost their flavor around the 90s, because filmmakers in Hong Kong are not so savvy about foreign film traditions that they can do anything that’s not Hong Kong. If it’s made in Hong Kong and by Hongkongers, then it’s a Hong Kong film, right? If there’s a generation of Hong Kong filmmakers that are the “least Hong Kong”, theoretically, it would be those of the Hong Kong New Wave because so many of them were educated in the West. However, that is certainly not the case when you watch HK New Wave films. What these filmmakers did was brought know-how and techniques back, but their films are still uniquely and unabashedly Hong Kong.

But I think I do understand what you mean. In the 80s and 90s, Hong Kong film companies saw their appeal abroad (they were huge across Asia) and wanted to do bigger things that would sell overseas. This resulted in a series of blockbusters that had much bigger production values (with Jackie Chan leading the way, of course) and bigger spectacle. I don’t think there’s any major commercial filmmaker who would not want to do bigger productions. However, that international success never panned out, and with the industry suffering a significant drop starting in the mid-90s, Hong Kong film producers needed to find a way to keep the industry going. When the HK and the Mainland governments signed CEPA in the early 2000s, that included a clause that allowed films co-produced in HK and the Mainland to be released in the Mainland as a local film. That essentially saved the Hong Kong film industry, because when the city went from making nearly 200 films a year to only 50, that means a lot of people became unemployed.

But yes, the price to pay for that is that co-productions have to go through Mainland censorship, which meant a lot of creative compromises. But the promise of having this billion-people market potentially see their films is too tempting for many filmmakers (you can see this when European filmmakers go to Hollywood, too), and that would likely be the reason behind what you saw was the “diluting” of Hong Kong films. I don’t disagree that things changed for Hong Kong cinema (though there has been a bounce back to “pure local production” in the past 10 years, which is too much to go into here), but as long as it kept Hong Kong filmmakers and crews working, it’s hard to justify NOT making those compromises, especially since Hong Kong audiences who turned to piracy and stopped watching local films in cinemas was a major factor in the need for Hong Kong filmmakers to rely on the China market. 

Dalesia Cozorici:  Some might argue that in the case of fight films, this happened much earlier, after Bruce Lee's success, almost in the 80s, when ironically the films were back in favor with worldwide film critics, who initially criticized them harshly, when they made the breakthrough in the West. The film directors indeed began to break away from old southern martial arts traditions, making the fight scenes bold and immaculate, but repetitive. This also happened because other countries were trying to emulate and understand the fighting style, so that when martial arts films returned to the circuit, they were finally more appreciated than those from the 70s because of the accessibility, but this accessibility also led them to have a shorter lifespan.

K: The accessibility has also led to producers trying to pander to the foreign audiences as well, especially in genre films (like action and horror). And this doesn’t just happen in Hong Kong. The Raid, for one, was very much a film that saw a Western filmmaker exploiting Asian resources to make something for Western audiences.

Dalesia Cozorici:  Speaking of critical receptions and changes, you were curious about the Romanian film industry. What you won't see at festivals are the blockbuster films and film series that are so popular here. These productions are designed for mass appeal, often funded by social media personalities targeting a specific audience for entertainment. It is a new trend for us. Some critics turn their backs on these films, while others are curious to watch them, but no one knows where this trend is heading - whether it will form a lasting tradition or just a series of titles.

The timeline of the Romanian film industry has several periods that may be more or less familiar to the outside world. Some films from the communist era were more accessible internationally than others, such as those by Pintilie, but the peak of recognition for our local tradition came with The New Romanian Wave (The New Romanian Cinema). To this day, the industry remains under its shadow, still drawing references from that era. Whenever something feels familiar, our consciousness, shaped by those films, refers back to moments, scenes, and characters from that period. Some still try to praise the New Wave, while others reject it in an attempt to steer the industry in a different direction, but everyone pulls in their own way, which actually fragments the market instead of expanding it. I think my taste in local films is quite scattered and ever-changing because of that. How do you maintain a clear focus when working on festival programming?

K: It sounds like Romanian cinema shares some similarities to Taiwanese cinema (not exactly my expertise, but I touch on it when I work for Udine because I have to write the reviews in the catalogue and host the seminars). During Taiwan New Cinema, the films that the foreign audiences saw at film festival were not films that local audiences saw. And while the dichotomy between commercial and arthouse cinema isn’t so serious anymore in Taiwan (it’s almost like Taiwanese filmmakers don’t know how to do pure genre films anymore – except for horror), the shadow of New Taiwan Cinema always looms large when Taiwanese films play overseas, especially in how easy it is to dismiss a Taiwanese film if it does not involve the Holy Trinity – Hou, Tsai and Yang. This doesn’t affect Hong Kong so much because Hong Kong is a hyper-commercial film industry where 90% of the output is meant for a mainstream audience (even the serious dramas).

As for how I curate films – I’m very lucky that I work for a festival that curates commercial films. Lots of film festivals look for serious fare, and Hong Kong filmmakers are slow to adapt Western-style storytelling for many reasons. I am therefore driven to try to recommend commercial films that balance art and commerce. You can say that is easy in a hyper-commercial industry, and considering that my boss has a special attachment to Hong Kong cinema (Far East Film began as a HK cinema showcase, after all) and there are only about 50 films a year, it makes my curation work a lot easier. That said, as someone who grew up in the United States and spent a majority of my life in Hong Kong, it’s hard to predict what the European audiences want, as much as I make pleasing the audience part of my mission.

Dalesia Cozorici:  In the same direction, I'm unsure if I miss arthouse films or if I genuinely enjoy the newer Romanian commercial films (which might differ from other commercial films you have in mind, just a heads-up). Let me know if you want to note some recommendations, though I can't guarantee they'll perfectly translate to your viewing experience without a local to fill in all the insider references and jokes, which we might sometimes miss. I think even the humor gets reinvented along with the state of our cinema.

K: We get to watch quite of few of the Romanian New Cinema names, but I’m always interested in seeing different country’s commercial films to see what their audiences like. So, please, I would love some recommendations – I have many streaming services around the world, but not sure how easy it would be for me to find them. But I would still love a list anyway, if possible.

Dalesia Cozorici:  Considering that many people have gone to see these films and helped at the box office, I would recommend some of those first: Taximetriști (Bogdan Theodor Olteanu), Mirciulică (Cristian Ilișuan), Teambuilding (Matei Dima, Alex Coteț, Cosmin Nedelcu) and Nuntă pe bani (Cristian Ilișuan).

Dalesia Cozorici:  What is your own canon of Hong Kong films, since I've mentioned it so many times?

K: As I mentioned above, Hong Kong films are something that I grew up with, so I like a wide variety of Hong Kong films. I love the comedies of Stephen Chow, just as I love action cinema. I can’t even possibly begin to imagine what my top 10 Hong Kong films would be – there are just too many I have loved, and also too many I missed during my childhood.

Dalesia Cozorici:  I want to trouble you a bit nonetheless, not that I haven’t done that already through my notes (but I hope not). Could you then make a list of films that you always find yourself going back to for whatever reason you choose, and a list that brings back nostalgic memories?

K: This isn’t going to be a quintessential list of HK films, but these are the films I love for one reason or define my HK cinema fandom, though I don’t always necessarily go back to them:

An Autumn’s Tale (Mabel Cheung) – As a fan of non-action Chow Yun-fat, I think this is hands-down his greatest role (OK, fine, second to A Better Tomorrow). And as immigrants who moved to the US in the early 90s, I think this film is comfort food for my family – It’s probably the only film I can remember we rewatched as a family.

A Better Tomorrow (John Woo) – For obvious reasons

God of Cookery and Fight Back to School (Stephen Chow and Lee Lik-chi/Gordon Chan) – I am not kidding when I say most HKers in my generation can quote Stephen Chow films by heart. These are my two favorites.

Young and Dangerous (Andrew Lau) – Every generation has a quintessential pop culture phenomenon film that defined it, and this one is mine. I think the 3rd film is better, though.

Days of Being Wild, Happy Together and Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai) – I tell people that the first time watching any Wong Kar-wai films is the toughest, because those films are clearly work so much better on repeated viewings. Anyway, these are my three favorites of WKW.

Tempting Heart and Twelve Nights (Sylvia Chang/Aubrey Lam) – I’ve been mocked for listing the latter, but it really instilled the love of structure when I write a screenplay. I watched these films in my teens, and along with Korean film One Fine Spring Day, they formulated my view on love, for better or worse.

Ah Ying (Allen Fong) – I don’t think we’ll ever see a HK filmmaker as fascinating as Allen Fong again. The way he played with fiction and reality is so striking, but he never calls attention to this blur – something that contemporary indie filmmakers can’t seem to do anymore. In this age where everybody is always on some kind of camera, you can’t find another Hui So-ying or make a film this raw anymore.  

Police Story (Jackie Chan) – The ultimate Jackie Chan action film. No explanation needed.

This isn’t a complete list, but it’s the one I can come up with right now. I hope these help!

Dalesia Cozorici:  I've noted down all of them to rewatch! Thank you, Kevin.

Volume 29, Issue 3-5 / May 2025 Interviews   cinephilia   hong kong cinema   romanian cinema