Blazing Passions takes the temperature of one of the world"s most vibrant film cultures, exploring Hong Kong cinema from the late 1970s to the present day. Julian Stringer"s fourteen insightful essays -- eight influential previously published pieces plus six new essays for this collection -- cover the little-known "new wave" cinema of the early 1980s, Hong Kong cinema"s pivotal juncture of 1997, and explore new approaches to the region"s cinema in the current boom era of Asian cinema. The volume argues the need to understand its particular pleasures and attractions, while discussing the work of directors such as Wong Kar-Wai, John Woo and Ann Hui. It also analyses Hong Kong cinema"s distinctive approach to the action movie, horror genre and queer film, and examines the Hollywood success of Hong Kong icons such as Maggie Cheung, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Films discussed include Boat People (1982), A Better Tomorrow (1986), An Autumn Tale (1987), The Killer (1989), Rumble in the Bronx (1995) and Bishonen (1998).