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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
language. Well over 200 feature films were produced (217 being submitted for local exhibition to the Panel of Film Censors). Of this output some 20% were made with Mandarin sound tracks; the remainder were mainly in Cantonese, with a few films in other dialects. About a dozen Hong Kong- financed films were partly produced in other Asian countries such as Taiwan, Singapore and Japan. There are eight major producing studios as well as a large number of small produc- tion companies which rent studio space as required.
Hong Kong's film industry is bedevilled by financial problems which spring largely from both the nature and size of the available market. China does not import Hong Kong films and so, apart from local audiences, Hong Kong pro- ductions are shown mainly to the Overseas Chinese of South-East Asia and in Taiwan. A few are exported for Chinese audiences in the United States.
The demand of Overseas Chinese cinema audiences for films of Chinese theme told in their own language is insati- able, but the total possible market is not numerically large enough to guarantee an economic return unless production costs are kept at a minimum. This results in the majority of Hong Kong films being produced on what is by Western standards a ‘shoe-string budget', and quantity rather than quality is the general trend of Hong Kong production.
The popularity of film-going as a social recreation among the local population may be gauged by the number of cinemas in Hong Kong. There are now 68 theatres in the Colony-27 on the Island, 28 in Kowloon and 13 in the New Territories-the majority of them being modern, air- conditioned buildings. Nearly all are equipped to show wide-screen productions.
Other than Chinese films of local manufacture, the pro- ductions of the United States industry predominate. Records of the Panel of Film Censors--which must approve all films prior to public exhibition-show that 283 American feature films were submitted to the Panel during 1957. British films
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