The First Generation of Hong Kong Cinephiles: Yinguang

In this paper, we aim to trace the first generation of Hong Kong cinephile culture, which was established in the earliest local film magazine Yinguang (1926–1927). This magazine was funded by local novelist, critic and newspaper reporter Wei Chun-qiu (1906–1963). The magazine was a platform for local cinephiles to exchange their ideas about film and the arts. It provided the material background for a group of young local film lovers to practice film criticism and propagate their ideas about film. In their conceptualization of cinema, this group of Hong Kong cinephiles differentiated themselves from their Shanghai counterparts by adopting the Christian vocabulary of personality. Perceiving film through the lens of this idea marks a discursive space of what we call “secular modernism.” Contrasting with our usual understanding of cinema as vernacular modernism, this secular modernism, as part of religious modernity, created a space to secularize the supposedly sacred idea of personality as “being-as-the-image-of-God,” making it a cinematic concept for a unique understanding of actor and performance.