Hong Kong made more films per head than anywhere on earth for about twenty-five years and exported nearly all of them. Two companies ran the industry — Shaw Brothers with contract players and a walled studio city, Golden Harvest by offering the star a share of the profits — and between them they produced the martial arts film as the world now understands it. The other half of this shelf is what a television-trained generation did with the same money after 1979, which is how a city with no patience for art cinema ended up with Wong Kar-wai.