A leader’s role is to translate a vision into reality. Vision is the art of seeing possibility out of impossibility.
The movie mogul in Hong Kong Bill Kong (William Kong 江志強) has more than 60 years of experience in film business. He once said, “I still believe that people do need entertainment and enlightenment. A film can fulfill such a need. While Netflix threatens cinemas and YouTube challenges Netflix, I still believe that films of good quality, whatever form that they may take, will remain as a part of our life. I look at the movie industry as a long-term investment and am ready to go through the high and low tides!”
In the 60s and 70s, almost every district in Hong Kong had a movie theatre and some presented opera performances. In the 1980s, property value in Hong Kong sharply increased and the trend of demolishing movie theatres in surrender to high-rise buildings started.
In the 1990s, government regulations were relaxed to allow shopping malls to contain “mini-cinemas”. Before the change, movie theatres had to be at ground level for the reason of fire escape. At that time, Hong Kong still maintained almost 100 cinemas. Watching a movie as a weekly entertainment continued to be a common time of leisure in spite of the gradual disappearance of big theatres.
Since 2000s, locally produced films, due to its diminishing competitiveness, became a disadvantage to the box office performance of cinemas in Hong Kong. The number of local films decreased sadly from the peak of about 234 per year to fewer than 10 in the year of 2025. Hollywood films, especially those “VFX films” (special visual effects), rose to prominence. For instance, the share of American movies in the box office of Hong Kong in 2023 is roughly 72%. Some thought the decline of Hong Kong films was only cyclical. The depressing reality is that our movie industry has been in adversity for more than 20 years!
We used to have more than 6 cinema chains in Hong Kong. It dawns upon some of them that cinema is no longer a profitable business, and so they recently closed down their cinemas one after another. The heartbreaking finality is yet to be seen. Luckily, Broadway Circuit at present works very hard to sustain itself at the centre of all cinemas. It even moves forward in large strides to acquire other cinemas which had been shut down. Its Yaumatei Broadway Cinematheque is a popular arthouse cinema in which most art lovers and film buffs can savour great alternative films.
I am a loyal supporter of movie houses in Hong Kong. I watch 2 to 3 films every week. Going to Yaumatei Broadway Cinematheque has been my frequent routine. Art films can send light into the darkness of men’s hearts. It is my interesting observation now that in this cinema and generally other cinemas that about 20 to 30% of the audience are evidently tourists, particularly from the Chinese Mainland. A lot of them speak Cantonese which carries an accent. Apparently, if they are not new immigrants, they should be visitors from the Greater Bay Area (GBA) (大灣區) of Guangdong Province (廣東省). They usually watch films which cannot be allowed in the Mainland, like films with a political, morally-sensitive, violent or anti-social story. In Hong Kong, under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems”, such films are publicly permitted. Examples include the famous Korean film The Handmaiden (下女誘罪) (the story about the sexual struggles among a rich girl, a maid and a scoundrel). Another is Demon Slayer (鬼滅之刃) which is a brutal animation movie about killing devils. A recently well-known one is No Other Choice (選擇有罪) that is about an unemployed man murdering 3 job competitors in order to rebound to the same industry. I noticed in the cinema a large crowd of curious audience were from GBA.
I was told that in the pop concerts of Hong Kong nowadays, more than 30 to 40% of the audience are from GBA since there is very little restriction against them from coming to visit Hong Kong. The speedy public transport network under the present concept of “one-hour living circle” (一小時生活圈) also facilitates more GBA visitors to come to Hong Kong for activities of daily living like casual shopping and watching a movie. BBC News reported that some GBA tourists came to Hong Kong just to see a movie.
These days, it is not a happy thing to see more and more cinema chains in Hong Kong stop operating or discontinue some of their cinemas. They are such as Golden Princess Cinemas chain (金公主院線), UA Cinemas, Golden Harvest Cinemas (嘉禾院線)，Cinema City chain and MCL Cinemas.
Mr Bill Kong of Broadway Circuit, despite the economic downturn and decline of cinemas, took over a lot of abandoned movie houses. Mr Kong deeply loves films and that gives him the strength to act in the opposite direction. It takes a great deal of bravery to spend money like that. He holds fast to his movie dreams and has the determination to pursue them. A big salute to him!
Let us pray that his good efforts will reshape those cinemas being on the slide in Hong Kong. Mr Bill Kong is definitely a hero in spurring the uncertain cultural economy of Hong Kong.
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