The Study On The Mandarin Modern Films Made By MP&GI In Hong Kong

MP&GI was a film company that was founded by a Singapore businessman Loke Wan Tho in1956in Hong Kong. It belonged to the Singapore commercial organizations "Cathay" In the1950s and1960s, this company produced a series of high-quality films, in which the mandarin modern films were in the majority. The genres of these mandarin modern films included family melodrama, romantic comedy, with musical elements fused. There were some differences between MP&GI and the other companies in the same period:most of the senior managers and the artists of the MP&GI had the background of studying abroad in Europe or the United States; they introduced the Hollywood production route as "vertical integration" and the systematic management mode as "studio system" to MP&GI's film production; and it pioneered the practice of transnational production mode of operation; they made films with distinctive modern cultural characteristics as urbanization and fashion; these had played far-reaching impacts in the fifties, sixties, and even the subsequent years in Hong Kong film industry and artistic style.As the study of the MP&GI company and the mandarin modern films it produced, there are four aspects discussed in this paper, including the industrial background, the overall cultural characteristics, the artistic style of the important screenwriters and directors, and its influence to Hong Kong film industry and urban culture, in order to excavate the historical significance and the valuable experience from this unique "studios system " mandarin film company in the fields as production, operation, creation and culture. The thesis consists of five parts as the introduction, the body (with four chapters), the conclusion, the bibliography and the appendix.In the introduction part, the reason of the selection of the subject, the overseas and domestic research status, and the content and the research methods of this paper will be presented and elaborated.In the first chapter, the industrial history of Hong Kong MP&GI company will be briefly introduced. The focus of the chapter is to find the background factors driving the company flourished and declined. These factors include the inevitability of the era, the contingency of the founder of MP&GI Loke Wan Tho of his unique fate, and also the special geographical advantage of Hong Kong during the Cold War and the change of its local culture.In the second chapter, the overall cultural characteristics of the MP&GI will be analysed in detail with the methodology of identity. The literati emigrated from the mainland to Hong Kong. They experienced the breakage of identity in reality. There were portrayals of the anxiety of identity of emigrant intellectuals in their works. But the more remarkable characteristics in their films were the modernistic features as positiveness, liveliness and fashion. Specifically represented in films, these features included the distinct urbanity, the modern women with the sense of independence, and the imagination of transnational experience. Through the imaginative construction, the filmmakers of MP&GI, most of whom were emigrant intellectuals, created an ideal city in Hong Kong, and they obtained their identity from the image space.In the third chapter, the classic theory of "auteur" will be meticulously used to analyse the films made by the representative screenwriters and directors of MP&GI, in order to further establish the indelible artistic value and the industrial status of the works made by MP&GI in Hong Kong and even the mandarin film history.The fourth chapter discusses the impacts the mandarin modern films made by MP&GI exerted on Hong Kong film of its industry, talents, culture, and aesthetic style.The conclusion summarizes the cultural characteristics that through the creation of mandarin modern films, the filmmakers of MP&GI had kept seeking, imagining and constructing their identification, and shaping Hong Kong urban space. This part also concludes the artistic styles by the screenwriters and directors, and restates the important position the MP&GI company has in mandarin film history.The appendix is the catalogue of mandarin films produced from1956to1975by MP&GI, its predecessor company "International Films", and its reorganized company "COHL"(Cathay Organization Hong Kong Ltd.), in which there are both mandarin modern films and the mandarin films in ancient costume.