The year 2022 will mark the 25th Anniversary of the "Transfer of Sovereignty Over Hong Kong", when the United Kingdom gave control over the island of Hong Kong back to the People's Republic of China, as per the extension agreement made in 1898, when the Qing dynasty was still around; while it's often referred to as "99 years of British rule", the actual full reign was 156 years. If you are hoping for a look into the intricacies of life in Hong Kong during the past quarter century & how China has treated the island & its populace ever since, then I must apologize. Besides, I'm sure there will be people doing just that when the actual anniversary of the transfer comes to pass on July 1. However, this was a very notable moment in world history, so naturally there were a variety of movies, books, & stories that based themselves around this moment, to some extent. Some, like 2014's The Midnight After, looked at things from the perspective of those living in Hong Kong itself, while others, like Rush Hour, Chinese Box, & James Bond novel Zero Minus Ten, make the handover itself a notable part of their plots.
However, two productions (a movie & a video game) made the then-future 1997 transfer of Hong Kong from Britain to China the focus of their actual titles! I mean... how can I NOT pit them against each other?!
Released straight-to-video on November 9, 1994, Hong Kong '97 was a ~91-minute movie directed by Albert Pyun (Captain America ['90], Cyborg), written by Randall Fontana (who'd reunite with Pyun for 2010's Bulletface), & starred Robert Patrick, Ming-Na Wen, Brion James, & Tim Thomerson. It went on to receive a mixed reception & more or less would be forgotten with time after Trimark Pictures (Warlock, Leprechaun) released it on VHS & laserdisc; it's since never seen an official re-release of any sort. The following year then saw something of almost exactly the same name see unofficial release in Japan... barely. Released whenever-the-hell in 1995, Hong Kong 97 (note the lack of an apostrophe, because that is essential in differentiating between the two), or "HONGKONG 1997" on the cover, was produced by Happy Software Ltd., or HappySoft for short. This was a company based out of Shinjuku & run by Yoshihisa "Kowloon" Kurosawa, a notorious Japanese writer who has made a small name for himself in certain circles for traveling to various "underground" regions within Pacific Asia & writing travel journals about all of the seedy, illegal, & just messed up stuff he saw. Kurosawa, however, was also a fan of video games, and would hire people he knew to program satirical & cheap PC games for unofficial release, like a strategy game that parodied Aleph (formerly Aum Shinrikyo). After finding out about various backup devices that can rip video game cartridges to 3.5" floppy disks, Kurosawa decided that he'd give releasing a game for the Super Famicom a try.
So, after hiring a programmer friend who worked at Enix to help him, Hong Kong 97 was completed in just two days, and after hiring someone else to translate the on-screen text (so the player can choose between Japanese, traditional Chinese, & English), he sold the game via mail order for ~$20 (or $37.23, in 2022), allegedly on both floppy disk & cartridge (though no one can confirm the latter)… and Kurosawa wound up selling around 30 copies, before simply forgetting that he ever made it. However, unlike Albert Pyun's movie, Kowloon Kurosawa's game would eventually find itself notoriety online during the 00s, as someone wound up ripping the rom & distributed it online. Then, in 2015, YouTube video pioneer James Rolfe covered Hong Kong 97 as Episode 134 of Angry Video Game Nerd, during which Rolfe also brought up Pyun's movie, due to their nearly-matching titles; Rolfe's video has since been viewed over 9.7 million times. Later, much smaller channel Ultra Healthy Video Game Nerd wound up getting hold of the floppy disk release itself in 2018 & even did an in-person interview with Kurosawa himself in 2020 (following Kurosawa's 2018 interview with the South China Morning Post), and today the full story of Hong Kong 97 is readily available for anyone to find out.
However, one question remains left to be answered:
WHICH HONG KONG (')97 IS BETTER?!?!?!?!?!?!
As usual, we start with the general plot of each production, if only to see which one had the overall better concept behind it; execution of said plot (among other things) will come at the end. For Hong Kong '97, it takes place throughout the entirety of June 30, 1997, the last day before China regained Hong Kong, & stars Reginald Cameron, a hired assassin who moonlights as a consultant at a local financial bank. Reg is hired to assassinate General Woo (I'm sure it's meant to be "Wu", but the credits say otherwise), a high ranking PRC official, before the handover happens. However, Reg is immediately given a $10 billion bounty after the hit, so now he has to find a way out of Hong Kong alive. He's assisted by Simon Alexander, his hitman partner & bank coworker; Jack McGraw, another bank coworker who never knew the truth about Jack & Simon until now; Katie Chun, Reg's ex-girlfriend who gives him some temporary shelter; & Master Chun, Katie's grandfather who is planning to leave Hong Kong with Katie later that night, as he escaped China during the Cold War & would be killed once the PRC gets control of the island.
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As for Hong Kong 97, it's best to just quote directly (apologies in advance for the language used):
"The year 1997 has arrived. A herd of fuckin' ugly reds [or "dirty people spitting sputum", in the Japanese text]. are rushing from the mainland. Crime rate skyrockeded! Hongkong is ruined! Therefore, the Hongkong government called Bruce Lee's relative 'Chin' for the massacre of the reds. Chin is a killer machine. Wipe out all 1.2 billion of the red communists! However, in mainland China there was a secret project in progress! A project to transform the deceased Tong Shau Ping into an ultimate weapon!"
Winner: Game
Look, it doesn't matter what the plot of Hong Kong '97 really is (even though it is a solid enough concept for a movie), because there's absolutely no way anything can top the pure, unadulterated insanity that is Hong Kong 97's concept of "Bruce Lee's relative is hired to protect Hong Kong from the entirety of China's population and an ultimate weapon made from the dead body of its 'paramount leader' during the 80s". The craziest thing? The game actually was shockingly accurate to its 1997 predictions, as China's population that year was ~1.262 billion, while Deng Xiaoping himself would pass away on February 19, mere months before the handover!
Characters:
Interestingly enough, both Hong Kong '97 & Hong Kong 97 feature real people playing roles, so that makes this category easier to compare, in some regards. Hong Kong '97 is primarily about Reginald, played by Robert Patrick (Koga Shuko in Double Dragon, which came out in theaters just five days before this movie's release), who at first tries to keep his personal emotions out of his killing, but as the story continues on & he's constantly trying to escape people trying to kill him (& friends of his literally die to protect him), he slowly opens his heart more, especially to Katie & Master Chun, who both still care deeply for him. Backing him up mainly is Simon, played by the late Brion James (General Munro in The Fifth Element), a self-assured & experienced man when it comes to killing people, but also has managed to avoid locking out being a genuine & decent person when in public. This comes into play with Jack McGraw, played by Tim Thomerson (Jack Deth in Trancers), who is literally just a regular-old banker & friends with Reg & Simon, only to be left with no choice but to find out the truth after an attempted hit on Reg that Jack just happened to be around for. However, even when given the chance to leave by Simon, Jack decides to stick around & do whatever he can to help, because he does feel that Reg's friendship has never been fake. Finally, there's Katie, played by Ming-Na Wen (Chun-Li in Street Fighter, which debuted a little over a month after this film's release), & Master Chun, played by Ming-Yang "Michael Lee" Li, who are probably the best characters of all. Katie is shown to take no crap from Reg from the start, but when things get bad is instantly there to help him, which makes her instantly endearing; Wen, however, is utterly inconsistent on whether she has a British accent or not. Meanwhile, her grandfather is such a badass old man that when he's caught in the crossfire during a later attempted hit on Reg & is left no choice but to get treated on a PRC military-owned ship, he assures Reg & Katie that he'll find a way to sneak off the ship so that he can meet up the them at the end... And he does just that.
Why this movie doesn't show Master Chun managing to sneak his way off a military-operated ship & escape, like he's Hitman's Agent 47, is easily the biggest flaw of all. I mean, he's literally shown wearing an officer's uniform at the end, so he likely killed someone to get it.
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As for Hong Kong 97, there are really only four characters of note, which is nice. Leading everything is our hero, Chin, who is portrayed here by none other than legendary Jackie Chan, and in fact the original Japanese text literally just calls our hero "Mr. Chan", while the back of the cover/insert also calls him a "heroin addict". Naturally, Chin's relative Bruce Lee is portrayed by the man himself, which is nice; Kowloon Kurosawa knew better than to go down the Bruceploitation route & use a fake. Meanwhile, as brought up before, Tong Shau Ping is portrayed by Deng Xiaoping, with the difference in romanized spelling likely just being a case of how his name is technically pronounced in Japan. Also... Tong Shau Ping is literally nothing more than a giant floating head, which is amazing. Finally, representing the "Hongkong Government", in its single image shown during the intro, is The Right Honourable The Lord Patten of Barnes Companion of Honour Privy Council, a.k.a. Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong.
Winner: Draw
In all honesty, this entire round comes down to just two characters: Master Chun & Tong Shau Ping. Hong Kong '97 has a cast of admittedly likable & relatable characters, with Reg himself having a nice character arc, while Hong Kong 97 has what could be considered an "all-star cast", of sorts, though they have next to no real identity behind them, outside of who's playing each of them. Therefore, I have to choose between a old man (he's got to be in his 70s, at least) who knows that he's so badass that not even the Chinese military can contain him... and the giant head of Deng Xioaping, who would die in 1997 at the age of 92.
I don't want to have to choose between them, so it's a tie.
Visuals:
This is a rather straightforward category, since it simply asks "How does each production look from a purely visual aesthetic?", and I must say that neither are exactly striking. Hong Kong '97 was made with a budget of just $500,000 dollars (or just over $957,000, today), & I imagine a lot of that went towards simply filming in Hong Kong itself, so it's very much in the B-movie category when it comes to overall production. However, that's not to say that it looks bad. The film does do a decent job showing off how this location is one of the most densely populated places in the world at points, and there definitely is a focus on showing the seedier underbelly of it, namely in regards to places like strip clubs & the like (i.e. there are a lot of bare-chested women, mainly in the first half). There's also this amusing bit when Simon contacts his cyberhacker friend who's also a monk (because it was the mid-90s), and the monk is shown in a quartet of TV screens, as shown above; it makes absolutely no sense, but it's at least something unique in the film. It definitely shows its straight-to-video nature all throughout, but the movie doesn't look like crap, at least.
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As for Hong Kong 97... well, it's certainly "a look". The introductory cutscene is made up of nothing but digitized images taken from all variety of sources (Chin's main image is ripped wholesale from 1984's Wheels on Meals, for example), while the main game itself is certainly something to behold, to put it lightly. Chin & the Chinese people look to be digitized sprites, though not well done ones, and whenever an enemy is killed the game simply plasters a postage stamp-sized video clip of a mushroom cloud over the sprite, before switching over to a digitized image of a corpse & then disappearing completely. However, should Chin be the one who dies, everything cuts straight to the Game Over screen... which is a digitized image of a home video of a person who just died. Kurosawa took the image from one of the various collections of footage he acquired in his travels, though before that confirmation it was believed to be footage of Polish boxer Leszek Błażyński, who had committed suicide on the same day as what's shown in the image. Meanwhile, when you encounter Tong Shau Ping himself he's literally nothing more than a digitized image of Deng Xiaoping's head... complete with what's meant to be blood coming out of the bottom, indicating that he was decapitated in order to be turned into an "ultimate weapon". Combine all of that with a puke green score tally (done in Chinese hanzi, naturally) & a randomized background for each playthrough (featuring stuff like Maoist propaganda, the city of Guilin, the logo for Asia Television, the logo for Chinese Coca-Cola, or Mao Zedong himself), and the game isn't really something you want to look at for long periods of time.
Winner: Movie
Just like with Story, there's really no contest to be seen here, though this time it's in the opposite direction. While Hong Kong '97 admittedly isn't anything special from a visual standpoint ("It looks perfectly fine" is an apt descriptor), it's at least something that doesn't simultaneously make you confused & want to reach for the power button as soon as you see it, like Hong Kong 97 does.
Music:
This is, without a doubt, easily the most bizarre comparison I've ever had to do for a "Vs. Battle", as it's literally pitting a proper film score composed by one man against... a small portion of a Chinese propaganda song aimed at children. Hong Kong '97's score was composed by Michael McCarty (Dangerously Close, Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human), who's actually more known for his work in anime & video game voice overs, primarily as an ADR engineer, mixer, & tracker, but also has at least one notable voice acting role, that of Ishikawa in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex & most recently SAC_2045 (also GITS 2: Innocence). He's also the stepson of Ed Wood (yes, THAT Ed Wood), due to his mother Norma marrying Wood in 1956, though they only stayed together for a month; they never legally divorced, however. Anyway, McCarty's score to this movie is best described as "fine". There's really nothing terrible about it, but at the same time there's really nothing all that memorable about it, though he does at least add in a few moments of sound that one would almost stereotypically expect from a movie taking place in Hong Kong, & I mean that in a nice way. Still, I can't say that Michael McCarty is a terrible musician, because the music here isn't bad; it just isn't memorable in any way once you're done watching the movie.
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As for Hong Kong 97, literally the only audio you hear throughout the entire game is a never-ending repeat of the first three measures of the song "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" from 1970, with lyrics written by a 12-year old 5th grader named Jin Guolin, while it was composed by Jin Yueling, a 19-year-old apprentice from the Shanghai Sixth Glass Factory; Kurosawa ripped the song from a laserdisc he owned. This was a propaganda song meant to espouse the glory of "Chairman Mao", and was actually required to be sung by primary/elementary school students every day during class at some point, alongside "The Internationale" & "The East is Red". Because the game never stops repeating the same three measures throughout the entire game (the only way to end it is to turn the game off), you are hit with a nonstop barrage of repeating Chinese lyrics, and since it's a propaganda song it's actually just catchy enough that it will never leave your mind. There are no sound effects at all and the looping is pretty much executed perfectly, so the end result is nothing but sheer Cultural Revolution madness.
"I love Beijing Tiananmen, the sun rises above Tiananmen."
Winner: None
When you think about it, what truly is worse: A mediocre film score or a never-ending repetition of a small portion of a Communist China propaganda song? On the one hand, I honestly would rather take a middling film score over a mind-numbing 5-second loop that never ends. On the other hand, said mind-numbing 5-second loop that never ends is way more memorable than a middling film score that leaves your mind after you're done watching the film. That being said, I also don't feel like awarding a point to something just because it's the better of two underwhelming things, so for the first time in all of the various "Vs. Battles" I've done...
I award them no points, and may God have mercy on their souls.
Execution:
Finally, we end with what's arguably the most important factor of all: How is the movie as a movie, and how is the game as a game? In other words, we're essentially pitting Albert Pyun against Kowloon Kurosawa, which is actually really interesting. You see, Pyun has often been derided as a modern-day Ed Wood, which is amusing considering that Wood's own stepson composed the scores to some of Pyun's movies, including this very one. However, Pyun was actually chosen by Toshiro Mifune himself to be his intern early on, and he even worked under cinematographer Takao Saito, who worked on many of Akira Kurosawa's films; Ed Wood, in comparison, was 100% self-taught. Still, there's no doubt that, regardless of who taught him, Pyun's forte is in B-movies, and to this day looks to completely embrace that fact, which has resulted in there being a following for his films by those who just want good, oftentimes cheesy fun; I personally legit love his Captain America movie. In that regard, Hong Kong '97 almost feels like Pyun going against type, as while there is certainly action to be found, it's primarily a character drama with a touch of thriller/mystery. As mentioned before, Reg does have a bit of a character arc, going from stating that he throws away his emotions for his hits to realizing that he does in fact care for those close to him. The rest of the cast are also fun or memorable in their own rights, like Simon being a 50-year old hacker or Jack being willing to risk his life to protect Reg when things get really bad; also, as mentioned before, Master Chun is awesome. There's even little touches of a larger world that I wish could have been explored more, like a bit where Reg is held up by a fellow assassin, only for the guy to not only let Reg escape but even help him fight off some new assailants, solely because of "professional courtesy".
That said, Pyun does have a habit of relying too much on slow motion for some moments, & there is one blatant breaking of the 180-degree rule early on that surprised me for a second. Beyond those, though, there's really nothing here to show that Albert Pyun is a modern-day Ed Wood, and instead it almost made me wish that this film was just a little bit longer, if only to help flesh out the world more.
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As for Hong Kong 97, it's an overhead, single-screen shoot-em-up. You control Chin as he shoots any & all "enemies" (i.e. the population of mainland China) that come on screen; your only controls are the D-pad for movement & mashing Y for shooting. You are allowed the entire screen for movement, which is nice, and both you & your foes die in a single hit. Said foes come in black suits that simply march forward & red shirts that weave around & occasionally fire shots of their own. Sometimes, defeated enemies will drop a syringe, and grabbing that will give Chin invincibility for a short period of time... because heroin's a hell of a drug; there's also a green object that enemies can drop, which instantly kills Chin. Eventually, cars will drive from one side to the other to act as barriers, and after killing 30 enemies Tong Shau Ping appears. Tong Shau Ping's only mean of attack is to try to crush Chin whenever you move underneath him, so keep moving & getting a few shots in at a time, and after about 30 hits or so he'll will explode like crazy... Only for the game to then repeat this gameplay loop infinitely. I guess China not only turned "Xixian" into an "ultimate weapon", but also cloned him (or his head, at least) infinitely. Simply put, Hong Kong 97 is a game that works on a very basic level, but is so unforgiving (you literally only have one life, nothing more) that actually trying to play this for anything beyond the first Tong Shau Ping fight is a repetitive chore.
Winner: Movie
The main thing to remember when comparing Hong Kong '97 to Hong Kong 97 is that the movie that Albert Pyun directed was produced as a serious film production & is meant to be watched like any old movie would, while the video game that Kowloon Kurosawa made was produced as a farce, a literal parody of the video game industry itself, & was designed to be a terrible game from the start, both in terms of play mechanics & non-playable content. That's why the English translation for the game drops an F-bomb during the intro, & why a still image of a literal corpse is used as the Game Over screen; Kurosawa wanted to make players both angry & disgusted.
Regardless, however, the movie is just the better product, hands down. The game is effectively a troll post, and while one can certainly revel in the absurdity of it all, I can at least recommend the movie in some way that is meant to be taken seriously.
And the winner of "Best Hong Kong (')97", with a final score of 3-2, is... The Movie!
I mean, is it really a surprise? While the game is by far the more well known production, has the more interesting behind-the-scenes story, & a plot concept that's so utterly ridiculous & absurd that it's actually kind of amazing, it's also something that was always intended to not be taken seriously. It is literally a game made in just a couple of days that was purposefully meant to be terrible & in poor taste, because that's just the kind of guy Kowloon Kurosawa is. The movie, while nothing spectacular, is still a more-than-decent enough way to spend 90 minutes or so, with a really good cast & a neat concept that goes against what you'd normally expect from a director like Albert Pyun; i.e. it's more of a character drama than a wild action flick. Make no mistake, it's still a B-movie through & through, but it's by no means something to be compared to the likes of Plan 9 from Outer Space. If you're curious, someone did upload what's likely a (strechted) VHS rip over on YouTube, while an aspect ratio-correct capture from the laserdisc I bought (just for this piece!) is up over at the Internet Archive. If the movie was to ever get a new official release, I'd honestly get it.
However, there's no doubt that the game will be what is forever associated with the phrase "Hong Kong 97", and that's perfectly fine. April Fools!
Hong Kong '97 © MCMXCIV Trimark Pictures, Inc. (now Lionsgate)
Hong Kong 97 © 1995 HappySoft
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