HK Cinema - 1933
Many films were produced during the silent age, but with the end of the silent era there came a complication which still exists to this day to some degree. With the number of different dialects spoken in China, what language were movies to have?

The films being produced in Shanghai were in Mandarin, but in 1933 a company in Shanghai called Tianyi made the first Cantonese talkie – White Gold Dragon. White Gold Dragon was an opera film and it’s success led to many more such films being made during the 30’s. This and other Cantonese films became so popular in southern China that soon Tianyi moved to HK.  Some four hundred films were made in HK between 1933 and 1941. In 1936 the Kuomintang government issued a decree banning Cantonese films. This led to other Cantonese filmmakers moving to British controlled HK.

HK between the World Wars