現代中國可說是一個劇烈的磨合世代，在傳統信念面臨崩潰的時刻，各種不同的觀念，新與舊、中與西、甚至西與西，在中國經歷了不同程度的吸收、抗拒及調節。改變了香港電影歷史的中聯，正是這種磨合的結果。該公司的成立的原因相當複雜，其中牽涉商業與藝術中尋求突破的努力，其作品亦反映了中國人在上世紀前半期所經歷的各種意念上的磨合。中聯在1956年拍的《西廂記》及其後的三部粵劇電影，代表了公司本身在創作上的演變，也代表了粵劇與電影兩種媒介的磨合。此後，粵劇電影經歷了多種發展，在1959出現了《紫釵記》與《蝶影紅梨記》兩部出色作品，為各種藝術、工業、文化因素磨合的成果。

Modern China can be read as an age of mutation and negotiation. In the face of traditions falling apart, different beliefs – the New and the Old, East and West, and contesting imported Western cultures – are recuperated, repudiated and negotiated in modern China. The Union Film Enterprise, which played a critical role in the history of Hong Kong cinema, is exactly the product of such mutation. The founding of the company can be attributed to a good number of reasons of great complexity, including the practitioners’ yearning for a breakthrough to negotiate the commercial and the aesthetic. The Union productions also incarnate the negotiation of different beliefs the Chinese experienced in the first half of the 20th century. Romance at the West Chamber the Union produced in 1956 and the following three Cantonese opera movies epitomize the creative transformation of the Union, and best exemplify the border-crossing of Cantonese opera and cinema. The Cantonese opera cinema thereafter experienced diverse developments, which were punctuated by the quality production of The Legend of Purple Hairpin and Red Pear Blossoms in 1959 as an enblematic synthesis of aesthetic and production concerns as well as different cultural beliefs.