第二次世界大戰結束後，香港的戲曲與電影等流行娛樂事業逐漸復甦。戰時許多影人、伶人及音樂家從上海南下，同時把上海的摩登文化及先進技術帶來香港，令當時仍屬落後的香港迅速發展，漸次取代上海成為「東方荷李活」。隨着都巿發展，西方電影及文化不僅影響香港電影工業，同時大規模滲入粵劇創作，出現了「東方遇上西方」及「現代╱古代穿越」等橋段，如《甘地會西施》及《希特拉夢會藺相如》等粵劇作品。同時，五十年代初日本經濟及科技水平起飛成為「現代化」的象徵，香港粵劇創作亦相繼兼採日本及西方文化元素，產生如《蝴蝶夫人》等改編粵劇版本。本文旨在探討戰後香港在回應都巿發展以及物質文化遽變時，粵劇創作如何以「復古」與「更新」兩大方向發展：「復古」是指承襲二、三十年代粵劇盛行取材西方荷李活電影的做法，恢復創作時髦粵劇；「更新」則是回應都巿觀眾的文化提升，在粵劇創作上進一步着重劇本的內涵水平，包括取材中國古典文學、雕琢詞藻等，促使不少至今常演的名劇如《牡丹亭驚夢》及《紫釵記》的誕生。

The history of modern Hong Kong, especially the development of Hong Kong cinema into the ＂Hollywood of the East,＂ is understood to begin after the Second World War. Despite the fact that most of the population of Hong Kong are Chinese people who share a common ethnicity, the cultural and political development of Hong Kong is substantially different from that of Mainland China, and so are their Chinese opera productions. Population flow, town planning policy, diasporic consciousness, and freedom of creativity are closely associated with the creation of experimental Cantonese operas in the 1950s. This paper focuses on the impact of colonial modernity on the urban development of Hong Kong from the early 1950s, and the various cultural influences brought from the cosmopolitan Shanghai, Guangzhou, Japan, as well as the Western film and culture available under the British colonial rule. Following the modernisation of this little colony, the local Cantonese opera productions created at the time could be categorised as ＂restoring＂ old practice of the 1920s and 1930s and ＂enhancing＂ the existing repertoire and performance practice, which in turn vividly demonstrates the hybrid identity of Hong Kong.