Hokkien media is the

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...

produced in

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

. Taiwan is by far the largest producer of Hokkien-language media. The "golden age" of both Hokkien popular music and film in Asia was the mid-1950s through to the mid-1960s.

Films

Many films in Taiwan are produced in Hokkien. Many other films that are primarily in Mandarin or some other language may also have some Taiwanese dialogue. The first Hokkien films shown in Taiwan were shot in Hong Kong and featured dialogue in the

Amoy dialect The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the souther ...

. The increasing popularity of Amoy films in Taiwan drew audiences away from

Taiwanese opera Taiwanese opera () commonly known as Ke-Tse opera or Hokkien opera, is a form of traditional drama originating in Taiwan. Taiwanese opera uses a stylised combination of both the literary and colloquial registers of Taiwanese Hokkien. Its earliest ...

performances, so some troupe leaders began making films in

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...

. Over 1,000 Hokkien-language films were made in Taiwan between 1956 and 1961. The popularity of Amoy films, established in the early 1950s, then fell, and was overtaken by Taiwanese Hokkien films. By 1981, the number of Taiwanese Hokkien films made numbered 2,000. However, censorship during Taiwan's White Terror period heavily affected Hokkien pop and film. Cited in: As a result, approximately 160 Hokken-language films from this period survive, all held by the

Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute The Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI; ), formerly Taiwan Film Institute (TFI; ), is a foundation in Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan, that aims to preserve Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese films. At its establishment in 1979, the foun ...

(TFAI). When Ray Jing became leader of the National Film Archive, a predecessor organization to the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, he began focusing the organization's efforts on the preservation of Hokkien-language films. The Taiwan Cinema Digital Restoration Project was launched in 2013 by the TFAI. The project sought to archive and restore Hokkien-language films. Besides Taiwan, some Hokkien films have also been produced in

Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

and

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Television

There are a variety of

television drama In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

s, news broadcasts, variety shows, etc. that are produced in Hokkien. There were restrictions on the broadcasting of Hokkien in Taiwan, but they were lifted in the 1980s. Taiwanese dubs of

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...

shows feature some Taiwanese-language dialogue.

Music

The recording of Hokkien opera and songs in Taiwan and China can be traced back to the 1920s. During the middle stage of

Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan The island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu Islands, became a dependency of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. The sho ...

, there was an industry of recorded Hokkien popular music. This was funded mainly by American record companies such as

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the A ...

and

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

. Although significant, this industry was largely ended with the start of the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific T ...

in 1937 and the subsequent restrictions on cultural production in Taiwanese and Hakka.

References

{{reflist

Films

Television

Music

References

See also