Hong Kong 97 is an unlicensed shoot 'em up video game developed and published by HappySoft, a doujin game developer, for the Super Famicom. It was released in Japan in 1995, being sold as cartridges and floppy disks. Designed by the Japanese game journalist Kowloon Kurosawa, who said the game is a satire of the video game industry, Hong Kong 97 was made in two days with the help of his friend.
The game takes place in China in 1997, during the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom. Facing increased crime rate due to immigration from Mainland China, the Hong Kong government hires Chin, a super-powerful relative of Bruce Lee, to kill the entire population of China. At the same time, the deceased Tong Shau Ping is resurrected by a secret project conducted by the Chinese government as an "ultimate weapon". After defeating Tong Shau Ping, the game is repeated indefinitely until Chin dies. Hong Kong 97 sold around 30 copies due to its underground bootleg release, and it has since gained a cult following for its notoriously poor quality. In retrospect, it is considered by critics and journalists to be among the worst games ever made.
Gameplay
The player controls Chin, who must shoot and evade the Chinese populace and police officers moving downwards from the top of the screen. When shot, the enemies explode in mushroom clouds, leaving behind a flashing corpse and items for instant death or temporary invincibility. After a while, cars start appearing from the sides, moving horizontally across the screen as obstacles. After thirty enemies have been defeated by the player, the final boss, the "ultimate weapon" Tong Shau Ping appears. Once he is defeated, the game repeats itself. The game shows static photos as the background, which alternate between pictures of Maoist propaganda, Guilin, the logo for Asia Television, the logo for Chinese Coca-Cola or Mao Zedong in monochrome.
Sporadically, a syringe appears as a power-up, which grants Chin temporary invincibility. The player has no health points: if Chin is hit by anything other than an item, the game is immediately over, unless Chin is under invincibility. The game over screen contains the superimposed words "Chin IS DEAD!!" in English and grammatically incorrect Chinese "" () over a still graphic image of an unknown corpse, dated to 1992. The game then goes to the credits (listing the Embassy of Canada as a cooperation partner) and back to the title screen.
Upon turning on the game, the first three measures of the chorus of an upbeat rock-style rendition of "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" can be heard, which loops indefinitely throughout the game. The game has no other music or sound effects. It can be played in English, Japanese or traditional Chinese.
Plot
Hong Kong 97 begins with a short cutscene which places the game around the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. People from Mainland China (described in the English script as "fuckin' ugly reds" and in the Japanese script as "dirty people spitting sputum") started immigrating to Hong Kong, causing a large increase in the crime rate. As a countermeasure, the Hong Kong government (represented in-game by Governor Chris Patten) hires Chin (portrayed by Jackie Chan), an unspecified relative of Bruce Lee, to "wipe out" all 1.2 billion of the "red communists" in China. Meanwhile, a secret project in Mainland China has succeeded in resurrecting Tong Shau Ping as the "ultimate weapon".
The Chinese translation of the game refers to Chin as "Mister Chan" (), alluding to the fact that a picture of Jackie Chan, taken from the 1984 film Wheels on Meals, was used to depict the character. The back of the insert of the game notes that Chin is a heroin addict.
Development
In January 2018, Yoshihisa "Kowloon" Kurosawa finally broke his silence on the development of the game to the South China Morning Post. He stated that his goal was to make the worst game possible as a mockery of the game industry. Since Kurosawa did not have much programming skill, he had an Enix employee help him out, with the game being made in two days. He later asked a friend with basic knowledge of English to translate the story into this language, as well as an exchange student from Hong Kong to translate it into Chinese. Kurosawa took the music, an audio clip from "I Love Beijing Tiananmen", from a second-hand LaserDisc he got in Shanghai Street, and the main character sprite, depicting Jackie Chan, was taken from a movie poster of Wheels on Meals, a 1984 Hong Kong martial arts film.