Hokkien media is the

mass media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...

produced in

Hokkien Hokkien ( , ) is a Varieties of Chinese, variety of the Southern Min group of Chinese language, Chinese languages. Native to and originating from the Minnan region in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern China, it is also referred ...

. 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 Amoyese, 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 ...

. The increasing popularity of Amoy films in Taiwan drew audiences away from Taiwanese opera performances, so some troupe leaders began making films in

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...

. 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 Hokkien pop, also known as Taiwanese Hokkien popular music, Taiwanese pop (), T-pop (), Tai-pop, Minnan Pop and Taiwanese folk (), is a popular music genre sung in Hokkien, especially Taiwanese Hokkien and produced mainly in Taiwan and sometimes ...

and film. Cited in: and As a result, approximately 160 Hokken-language films from this period survive, all held by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (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", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

and

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Television

There are a variety of

television drama In film and television show, television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or docudrama, semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humour, humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional te ...

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 (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

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, 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 reco ...

and

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

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

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

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

References

{{reflist

Films

Television

Music

References

See also