The history of the Hong Kong-based film production company Milkyway Image from its inception in 1996 to present day examplifies the metamorphosis of the contemporary Hong Kong film industry to an era characterised by Hong Kong’s integration into a Chinese national context and the transnationalisation of world cinema. Drawing upon literature that studies film companies, this thesis adopts an integrative research framework that primarily combines industrial and discourse analysis to investigate Milkyway from a range of perspectives. It looks into the company’s ownership and organisational structure and the constitution of its creative team, comparing its similarities and differences to previous Hong Kong film companies and discussing how Milkyway bases itself on contemporary industry and its production models, business experiences and human resources from established studios such as the Shaw Brothers. Secondly, I explore Milkyway’s business and production practices in Hong Kong and mainland China by examining its genre films, including crime thrillers and romantic comedies, illustrating the Hong Kong film industry’s cooperation, negotiation and resistance in the process of Hong Kong cinema’s mainlandisation post-transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty from Britain to China. I then examine the discourse regarding Milkyway both inside and outside of Hong Kong, focussing on how the company and its work are received by various players in the film industry and community. The Hong Kong cultural community’s interpretations of Milkyway’s films represent an effort to maintain local cinema’s independence and local culture’s autonomy. International cultural bodies, such as film festivals, distributors and critics, receive Milkyway’s productions against the background of the increased globalisation of cinema and the development of the film industry and film institutions. Milkyway’s image changes as the company’s films travel across contexts and as various cultural forces provide multiple understandings of contemporary Hong Kong cinema. In shaping the discourse about Milkyway and its work, the company plays an active role by taking advantage of transnational platforms, such as film festivals, and interacting with film journalism and academia.

This thesis was instigated through a consideration of the views held by many film scholars who predicted that the political handover that took place on the July 1 1997, whereby Hong Kong was returned to the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from British colonial rule, would result in the “end” of Hong Kong cinema. From that day onwards, Hong Kong cinema would no longer enjoy its previously unfettered and uninhibited revolutionary creativity and the Hong Kong film industry could thereby be perceived as being “in crisis”. In considering whether these predictions have actually come to pass, this thesis sets out to focus on exploring representative Hong Kong filmmakers’ activities and performances following Hong Kong becoming a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1997 onwards. The exploration of the chosen filmmakers’ activities and performances includes examining the filmmaking practices that they have embraced and analysing the exhibition and distribution patterns adopted by the films that they have produced. The intention is to examine to what extent the political transition has shaped these filmmakers’ filmmaking practices and to observe the characteristics exhibited by the distribution and exhibition aspects of the films since the handover in order to specify any connection they may have with the momentous political handover. This thesis intends to show how Hong Kong cinema has responded to the challenges of an age of transition and globalisation through in-depth analyses of the activities of these key industry personnel that have elevated Hong Kong cinema’s position of regional and global popularity, and the commercially and critically significant films that they have made, covering the wider spectrum of genre, including those of action, comedy, realistic, horror and romantic drama. It is the aim of this thesis to present a new perspective that contributes to the study of post-colonial Hong Kong cinema.