The Jane Bond films are a uniquely Hong Kong genre. It is likely the only genre in the history of world cinema in which women are the primary dispenser of violence and that the violence is readily embraced by a predominately female audience.

The genre, the female version of the James Bond films, came into being in the mid-1960s and was the amalgam of a diversity of historical and cultural factors: the Jade Girl tradition of Chinese cinema, the post-war youth culture, a rising feminist sensibility, trendy Western lifestyle and traditional Chinese values, to name a few.

After enjoying a short-lived popularity, Jane Bond films had quickly disappeared in a few years’ time. Despite its brief tenure, it is the last genre Cantonese cinema was able to meaningfully produce before its unceremonious collapse in the 1970s.

1960s was an important transition period in the development of Hong Kong cinema. To coincide with the publications of the Hong Kong Filmography Vol. VI (1965 - 1969) and the Oral History Series: 1960s by the HKFA, we are presenting throughout the year 2008 a series of programs on 1960s cinema.