Hong Kong Documentary Film

Ian Aitken was a chair professor, and is now an Emeritus Professor, affiliated to Hong Kong Baptist University. His areas of expertise lie in British documentary film studies, the British official film in South-East Asia, and theories of cinematic realism. His most recent book publications include Cinematic Realism (2020), The Major Realist Film Theorists (ed.), The British Official Film in South-East Asia (2016), and The Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia (2016). Associate Professor in the Department of English at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

• Introduction; 1. Hong Kong, Britain China; the documentary film (1896-1941), A Page of History (1941) and The Battle of Shanghai (1937); 2. Hong Kong, Britain China; the documentary film (1947-69), the ‘picturesque’ committed film and Water comes over the Hills from the East (1965); 3. Colonial film: The development of official film-making in Hong Kong (1945-73), the Hong Kong Film Unit (1959-73) and This is Hong Kong (1961); 4. ‘Under Siege’. Public-service broadcasting in an authoritarian setting: The case of Radio Television Hong Kong, and the development of television documentary film in Hong Kong; 5. The documentary films of Radio Television Hong Kong and The Hong Kong Case (1989); 6. Aesthetics and radicalism: An overview of independent documentary film in Hong Kong (1973-2013); 7. A critical analysis of significant independent documentary films of the past three decades: Ed Kong’s Rising Sun (1980); Evans Chan’s Journey to Beijing (1998); Tammy Cheung’s Rice Distribution (2003); Anson Mak’s One Way Street on a Turntable (2007); Cheung King-wai’s KJ: Life and Music (2008) and Louisa Wei’s Storm under the Sun (2011); Conclusions; Bibliography; Index