Personality and Morality in Screen Performance: Hong Kong Film Criticism and Social Reform of the 1920s

Early film criticism from Hong Kong can be found in Yinguang (Silver Light), one of the earliest Hong Kong film magazines, published between 1926 and 1927. Silver Light’s core concern of actors and their performances was crucial to understanding and evaluating motion pictures. By adopting the idea of renge (personality), the Silver Light writers viewed the screen actor who had high-quality acting as a bridge between real life and the portrayal of reality on screen. Good acting must be supported by authentic expressions in tandem with an actor’s good personality. Through the case study of Silver Light, this chapter outlines the creation of the cinema as a socially productive space for alleviating social ills, changing manners, and reshaping culture. Meanwhile, it traces Hong Kong critics’ preoccupation with acting and personality to the long philosophical and political interrogations of the national crisis in late Qing and early Republican China. As argued, this space to inscribe personality, self-cultivation, social education, and reform within film spectators is created by the authentic performance of personality embodied on screen.