Vivian Lee - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Vivian Lee
Ghost Movies in Southeast Asia and Beyond, 2016
Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2010
ABSTRACT
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 2013
Deepening integration of Hong Kong's commercial film production with Mainland China and the appar... more Deepening integration of Hong Kong's commercial film production with Mainland China and the apparently inevitable marginalization of local-content films in the last ten years or so call for closer attention to the role and significance of independent films. As a critical art form, independent cinema in Hong Kong constitutes an alternative cultural space where artistic experimentation and sociopolitical critique generally avoided in mainstream productions are still actively pursued. Drawing upon recent writings on the Hong Kong independent film scene, this article explores the way in which independent films critically engage with the double hegemony of the national and the colonial in the postcolonial present. It argues that coloniality in Hong Kong is the result of the dual processes of British colonialism and decolonization in the name of 'one country, two systems', which effectively brings together the utilitarian aspirations and institutional excesses of colonial capitalism and socialist capitalism. Against this background, selected works by film-makers at different stages of their creative careers will be examined to shed light on the way in which decolonial visual thinking operates in the film text to intervene in the colonial/ national discourse of history and identity in the post-handover era. Despite the recent upsurge of interest in Chinese independent and documentary films, Hong Kong's independent cinema remains a relatively under-explored
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2016
Abstract This paper seeks to unpack the politics of heritage preservation in post-1997 Hong Kong.... more Abstract This paper seeks to unpack the politics of heritage preservation in post-1997 Hong Kong. Referring to international frameworks on heritage preservation, it seeks to position Hong Kong’s cultural resource management on par with international discourses for the advancement of heritage governance. Debates surrounding heritage are indeed a part of the wider picture of Hong Kong’s cultural and identity politics and the Hong Kong-China relationship. By examining various contested cases of heritage conservation, and by linking those debates back to the government’s responses within the context of cultural governance, we suggest that heritage management has become a hot stove for cultural politics in post-colonial Hong Kong with deep repercussions in the political, social and economic spheres. The paper examines the rising social debates concerning the removal and conservation of built heritage, and the various government attempts to address these debates. It argues that the current heritage governance mechanism has failed to meet social needs and provide an articulated heritage policy. We propose that a coherent organisational structure is required to better accommodate diverse and contradictory views and discourses surrounding heritage and cultural governance and to tackle the various cultural challenges in postcolonial Hong Kong.
The Chinese Cinema Book, 2011
Chinese Films in Focus II, 2008
The Post-2000 Film Western, 2015
As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabri... more As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabric of American life” (Langford 75), the Western has been adapted, revised and transplanted along its multiple historical and geocultural trajectories. From cinematic projections of the American frontier and Spaghetti Westerns to more self-reflective revisionist renditions and postmodern parody within and outside Hollywood, the Western’s global appeal bespeaks the genre’s inherent mobility and continued transmutations despite the apparent decline in production output and popular reception. Critical interest, on the other hand, seems to be waxing just as the Western as a mainstream genre is on the wane (Nachbar 179). While the box-office failure of Heaven’s Gate (1980) might have sealed the fate of the genre, film scholars have observed signs of its revival, albeit in augmented and hybridized forms in the global mediascape, noting in particular the intertwined processes of generic crossbreeding in postmodern film cultures and cross-cultural critical reception.1 If post-centennial Westerns are struggling for a place in popular cinema in the twenty-first century, the question why the genre continues to inspire the cinematic imaginations of filmmakers working in, and across, different cultural contexts through adaptation and subversion is more complex than a desire to imitate or mimic a long-standing Hollywood paradigm.
East Asian Cinemas, 2011
Writings on East Asian cinemas, or non-Western cinemas in general, have tended to focus on the re... more Writings on East Asian cinemas, or non-Western cinemas in general, have tended to focus on the representation or contestation of the nation, and the negotiation between indigenous traditions and what were considered “modern” cinematic codes in the evolution of film art. Chinese cinema scholarship has produced a fascinating account of how these various positions are argued, debated, rethought and revised, particularly the controversy over the exact meaning of the “nation” and the “national” when applied to Chinese or any non-Western cinema in today’s globalized world (e.g. Zhang 2004; Berry and Farquhar 2006; Lu and Yeh 2005).1 In the early 1990s, the “New Korean cinema” came into being against a long history of political repression and state interference. This history, Julian Stringer (2005) notes, is also a narrative that “encompass[es] the experience of successive national traumas.” Beginning with the political democratization in 1992, the massive program of commercialization and globalization orchestrated by the state and large multinational corporations (chaebols in Korean) has given rise to the phenomenon of “record-breakers” or Korean blockbusters,2 a number of which have gained arthouse respectability.
East Asian cinema and cultural heritage : from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan to Japan and South Korea, 2011
In March 2010, riding on the international success of their latest film, Echoes of the Rainbow, s... more In March 2010, riding on the international success of their latest film, Echoes of the Rainbow, set in 1960s Hong Kong, filmmakers Mabel Cheung and Alex Law called on the Hong Kong government to exempt the historic Wing Lee Street neighborhood in Central from its urban renewal blueprint. An unprecedented, and swift, about-turn on the part of the Urban Renewal Authority followed, and a revised proposal to preserve the old tenement buildings was tabled. Cheung and Law’s vocal support of the local conservation movement makes a difference to the long-time struggle of heritage activists in Hong Kong by giving a high-profile, cinematically enhanced and internationalized visual identity to the endangered local space. Public controversies over the demolition of tenement buildings and old neighborhoods have been escalating since the 1997 handover, and the Wing Lee Street incident is only one recent addition to these contestations. Yet, the sudden change of heart of the urban planners was less a concession to persistent public challenges than a hasty compromise to minimize potential damage to the international image of Hong Kong, thanks to the timely appearance of Cheung and Law’s film. Once again we are reminded of the inter-twinement of popular culture and politics.
A Companion to Wong Kar-wai, 2015
This chapter revisits the recurrent motifs – time, memory, and nostalgia – in Wong Kar-wai's film... more This chapter revisits the recurrent motifs – time, memory, and nostalgia – in Wong Kar-wai's films from his earlier works to his latest, The Grandmaster (2013). It pays attention to how nostalgic invocations of time past are schematically aestheticized in Wong's films, and argues that nostalgia is a self-reflexive lens and a means to critique the nature of cinematic representation of history. It will further explore the intertextual connections between nostalgia and infidelity: understood in its broader implications of “want of faith”, “incredulity,” and “disbelief”, infidelity has deeper and more complex resonances in Wong's nostalgic universe. While nostalgia is a complex mode of cinematic engagement with history, infidelity is both a function of the narrative and a condition of historical representation.
A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, 2015
This chapter is concerned with Hong Kong's screen memories as a form of “moving-image text.” It d... more This chapter is concerned with Hong Kong's screen memories as a form of “moving-image text.” It discusses the context of the city's (post)colonial condition and the compressed cultural space where local history disappears into fragments of memories, anecdotes, sentiments, and images, and reappears in popular cultural texts. History in Hong Kong cinema therefore can be construed as a history of lightness, understood in the dual sense of “making light of ” and “grappling with lightness.” The chapter analyses the connection between screen memory and the visual codes and strategies that make it “visible,” and how this visibility gains weight as it engages with the “lightness” of its subject matter. History is anything but light in the Chinese experience. The younger filmmakers’ vision of the “here and now” is infused with a sense of incredulity toward official history.
The Post-2000 Film Western, 2015
As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabri... more As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabric of American life” (Langford 75), the Western has been adapted, revised and transplanted along its multiple historical and geocultural trajectories. From cinematic projections of the American frontier and Spaghetti Westerns to more self-reflective revisionist renditions and postmodern parody within and outside Hollywood, the Western’s global appeal bespeaks the genre’s inherent mobility and continued transmutations despite the apparent decline in production output and popular reception. Critical interest, on the other hand, seems to be waxing just as the Western as a mainstream genre is on the wane (Nachbar 179). While the box-office failure of Heaven’s Gate (1980) might have sealed the fate of the genre, film scholars have observed signs of its revival, albeit in augmented and hybridized forms in the global mediascape, noting in particular the intertwined processes of generic crossbreeding in postmodern film cultures and cross-cultural critical reception.
If post-centennial Westerns are struggling for a place in popular cinema in the twenty-first century, the question why the genre continues to inspire the cinematic imaginations of filmmakers working in, and across, different cultural contexts through adaptation and subversion is more complex than a desire to imitate or mimic a long-standing Hollywood paradigm.
Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 2005
What does it mean to be on the “left” of the Hong Kong film industry during the Cold War era? How... more What does it mean to be on the “left” of the Hong Kong film industry during the Cold War era?
How did the left-wing studios balance their artistic, ideological, and commercial agendas in their production and exhibition strategies?
What makes a film “left-wing” or “right-wing”?
How did national, colonial, and international politics intervene in the ‘making of’ the popular left-wing cinema in Hong Kong?
How did the left-wing film establishment in Hong Kong reinvent itself in the post-Cold War, post-Cultural Revolution era?
What are the nuanced legacies of the classical left-wing in Hong Kong cinema today?
Since its inception more than a century ago, Hong Kong cinema has been a pre-eminent form of local entertainment and a site of ideological contentions propelled by colonial, national and international politics at different historical junctures. The Other Side of Glamour is a study of the historical development of the left-wing film establishment in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Horror Cinema, 2018
This chapter examines the trend towards Hong Kong-China co-productions, during which Hong Kong ho... more This chapter examines the trend towards Hong Kong-China co-productions, during which Hong Kong horror films have been in decline due to censorship restrictions in Mainland China. While this mega-market direction is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, Hong Kong filmmakers have made fresh attempts to revitalize this popular genre and inject it with new meanings in the changed and changing context of cultural production and cultural politics in the city. Between 2012-2014, several low to medium budget horror films were released. Local audiences responded enthusiastically and many saw these as a sign of the resilience of the local popular culture to counter or at least deflate the hegemony of the Mainland market. This chapter traces the trajectory of Hong Kong horror through the pre- and post-handover decades, situating horror within the evolving discourse of identity and the issues of local histories and collective memory. It also elaborates on the politics of horror as seem from horror films produced and released in the midst of escalating social and political tensions attributable to a popular/populist “anti-China localism”. The chapter further reflects on the cultural politics of delocalization and relocalization in the context of “re-occupying Hong Kong screens.”
Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2006
The international success of contemporary martial arts films has stimulated critical debates and ... more The international success of contemporary martial arts films has stimulated critical debates and reflections on the aesthetics, politics, and economics of local/national Chinese cinemas, as well as the ideological implications of reinventing a ‘traditional’ genre for international audiences, against the backdrop of increasingly interpenetrable national and cultural borders brought on by the forces of globalization. This article attempts to delineate an ‘extra’ dimension of the martial arts film in the global context — the creation of a ‘digital imaginary’ that not only reinforces and supplements the more conventional modes of representation, but also enables a ‘universal’ frame of reference that contributes to the global currency of martial arts films. Drawing upon Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004), it will illustrate how this digital imaginary displaces the exotic (Chinese) tradition into the familiar realm of digital media, resulting in a hybrid, multiply coded, culturally ambiguous, and therefore transnational visual medium for global consumption.
Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2010
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 2013
Deepening integration of Hong Kong’s commercial film production with Mainland China and the appar... more Deepening integration of Hong Kong’s commercial film production with Mainland China and the apparently inevitable marginalization of local-content films in the last ten years or so call for closer attention to the role and significance of independent films. As a critical art form, independent cinema in Hong Kong constitutes an alternative cultural space where artistic experimentation and sociopolitical critique generally avoided in mainstream productions are still actively pursued. Drawing upon recent writings on the Hong Kong independent film scene, this article explores the way in which independent films critically engage with the double hegemony of the national and the colonial in the postcolonial present. It argues that coloniality in Hong Kong is the result of the dual processes of British colonialism and decolonization in the name of ‘one country, two systems’, which effectively brings together the utilitarian aspirations and institutional excesses of colonial capitalism and socialist capitalism. Against this background, selected works by film-makers at different stages of their creative careers will be examined to shed light on the way in which decolonial visual thinking operates in the film text to intervene in the colonial/national discourse of history and identity in the post-handover era.
Ghost Movies in Southeast Asia and Beyond, 2016
Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2010
ABSTRACT
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 2013
Deepening integration of Hong Kong's commercial film production with Mainland China and the appar... more Deepening integration of Hong Kong's commercial film production with Mainland China and the apparently inevitable marginalization of local-content films in the last ten years or so call for closer attention to the role and significance of independent films. As a critical art form, independent cinema in Hong Kong constitutes an alternative cultural space where artistic experimentation and sociopolitical critique generally avoided in mainstream productions are still actively pursued. Drawing upon recent writings on the Hong Kong independent film scene, this article explores the way in which independent films critically engage with the double hegemony of the national and the colonial in the postcolonial present. It argues that coloniality in Hong Kong is the result of the dual processes of British colonialism and decolonization in the name of 'one country, two systems', which effectively brings together the utilitarian aspirations and institutional excesses of colonial capitalism and socialist capitalism. Against this background, selected works by film-makers at different stages of their creative careers will be examined to shed light on the way in which decolonial visual thinking operates in the film text to intervene in the colonial/ national discourse of history and identity in the post-handover era. Despite the recent upsurge of interest in Chinese independent and documentary films, Hong Kong's independent cinema remains a relatively under-explored
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2016
Abstract This paper seeks to unpack the politics of heritage preservation in post-1997 Hong Kong.... more Abstract This paper seeks to unpack the politics of heritage preservation in post-1997 Hong Kong. Referring to international frameworks on heritage preservation, it seeks to position Hong Kong’s cultural resource management on par with international discourses for the advancement of heritage governance. Debates surrounding heritage are indeed a part of the wider picture of Hong Kong’s cultural and identity politics and the Hong Kong-China relationship. By examining various contested cases of heritage conservation, and by linking those debates back to the government’s responses within the context of cultural governance, we suggest that heritage management has become a hot stove for cultural politics in post-colonial Hong Kong with deep repercussions in the political, social and economic spheres. The paper examines the rising social debates concerning the removal and conservation of built heritage, and the various government attempts to address these debates. It argues that the current heritage governance mechanism has failed to meet social needs and provide an articulated heritage policy. We propose that a coherent organisational structure is required to better accommodate diverse and contradictory views and discourses surrounding heritage and cultural governance and to tackle the various cultural challenges in postcolonial Hong Kong.
The Chinese Cinema Book, 2011
Chinese Films in Focus II, 2008
The Post-2000 Film Western, 2015
As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabri... more As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabric of American life” (Langford 75), the Western has been adapted, revised and transplanted along its multiple historical and geocultural trajectories. From cinematic projections of the American frontier and Spaghetti Westerns to more self-reflective revisionist renditions and postmodern parody within and outside Hollywood, the Western’s global appeal bespeaks the genre’s inherent mobility and continued transmutations despite the apparent decline in production output and popular reception. Critical interest, on the other hand, seems to be waxing just as the Western as a mainstream genre is on the wane (Nachbar 179). While the box-office failure of Heaven’s Gate (1980) might have sealed the fate of the genre, film scholars have observed signs of its revival, albeit in augmented and hybridized forms in the global mediascape, noting in particular the intertwined processes of generic crossbreeding in postmodern film cultures and cross-cultural critical reception.1 If post-centennial Westerns are struggling for a place in popular cinema in the twenty-first century, the question why the genre continues to inspire the cinematic imaginations of filmmakers working in, and across, different cultural contexts through adaptation and subversion is more complex than a desire to imitate or mimic a long-standing Hollywood paradigm.
East Asian Cinemas, 2011
Writings on East Asian cinemas, or non-Western cinemas in general, have tended to focus on the re... more Writings on East Asian cinemas, or non-Western cinemas in general, have tended to focus on the representation or contestation of the nation, and the negotiation between indigenous traditions and what were considered “modern” cinematic codes in the evolution of film art. Chinese cinema scholarship has produced a fascinating account of how these various positions are argued, debated, rethought and revised, particularly the controversy over the exact meaning of the “nation” and the “national” when applied to Chinese or any non-Western cinema in today’s globalized world (e.g. Zhang 2004; Berry and Farquhar 2006; Lu and Yeh 2005).1 In the early 1990s, the “New Korean cinema” came into being against a long history of political repression and state interference. This history, Julian Stringer (2005) notes, is also a narrative that “encompass[es] the experience of successive national traumas.” Beginning with the political democratization in 1992, the massive program of commercialization and globalization orchestrated by the state and large multinational corporations (chaebols in Korean) has given rise to the phenomenon of “record-breakers” or Korean blockbusters,2 a number of which have gained arthouse respectability.
East Asian cinema and cultural heritage : from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan to Japan and South Korea, 2011
In March 2010, riding on the international success of their latest film, Echoes of the Rainbow, s... more In March 2010, riding on the international success of their latest film, Echoes of the Rainbow, set in 1960s Hong Kong, filmmakers Mabel Cheung and Alex Law called on the Hong Kong government to exempt the historic Wing Lee Street neighborhood in Central from its urban renewal blueprint. An unprecedented, and swift, about-turn on the part of the Urban Renewal Authority followed, and a revised proposal to preserve the old tenement buildings was tabled. Cheung and Law’s vocal support of the local conservation movement makes a difference to the long-time struggle of heritage activists in Hong Kong by giving a high-profile, cinematically enhanced and internationalized visual identity to the endangered local space. Public controversies over the demolition of tenement buildings and old neighborhoods have been escalating since the 1997 handover, and the Wing Lee Street incident is only one recent addition to these contestations. Yet, the sudden change of heart of the urban planners was less a concession to persistent public challenges than a hasty compromise to minimize potential damage to the international image of Hong Kong, thanks to the timely appearance of Cheung and Law’s film. Once again we are reminded of the inter-twinement of popular culture and politics.
A Companion to Wong Kar-wai, 2015
This chapter revisits the recurrent motifs – time, memory, and nostalgia – in Wong Kar-wai's film... more This chapter revisits the recurrent motifs – time, memory, and nostalgia – in Wong Kar-wai's films from his earlier works to his latest, The Grandmaster (2013). It pays attention to how nostalgic invocations of time past are schematically aestheticized in Wong's films, and argues that nostalgia is a self-reflexive lens and a means to critique the nature of cinematic representation of history. It will further explore the intertextual connections between nostalgia and infidelity: understood in its broader implications of “want of faith”, “incredulity,” and “disbelief”, infidelity has deeper and more complex resonances in Wong's nostalgic universe. While nostalgia is a complex mode of cinematic engagement with history, infidelity is both a function of the narrative and a condition of historical representation.
A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, 2015
This chapter is concerned with Hong Kong's screen memories as a form of “moving-image text.” It d... more This chapter is concerned with Hong Kong's screen memories as a form of “moving-image text.” It discusses the context of the city's (post)colonial condition and the compressed cultural space where local history disappears into fragments of memories, anecdotes, sentiments, and images, and reappears in popular cultural texts. History in Hong Kong cinema therefore can be construed as a history of lightness, understood in the dual sense of “making light of ” and “grappling with lightness.” The chapter analyses the connection between screen memory and the visual codes and strategies that make it “visible,” and how this visibility gains weight as it engages with the “lightness” of its subject matter. History is anything but light in the Chinese experience. The younger filmmakers’ vision of the “here and now” is infused with a sense of incredulity toward official history.
The Post-2000 Film Western, 2015
As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabri... more As the oldest film genre in American cinema that is “intimately… woven into the imaginative fabric of American life” (Langford 75), the Western has been adapted, revised and transplanted along its multiple historical and geocultural trajectories. From cinematic projections of the American frontier and Spaghetti Westerns to more self-reflective revisionist renditions and postmodern parody within and outside Hollywood, the Western’s global appeal bespeaks the genre’s inherent mobility and continued transmutations despite the apparent decline in production output and popular reception. Critical interest, on the other hand, seems to be waxing just as the Western as a mainstream genre is on the wane (Nachbar 179). While the box-office failure of Heaven’s Gate (1980) might have sealed the fate of the genre, film scholars have observed signs of its revival, albeit in augmented and hybridized forms in the global mediascape, noting in particular the intertwined processes of generic crossbreeding in postmodern film cultures and cross-cultural critical reception.
If post-centennial Westerns are struggling for a place in popular cinema in the twenty-first century, the question why the genre continues to inspire the cinematic imaginations of filmmakers working in, and across, different cultural contexts through adaptation and subversion is more complex than a desire to imitate or mimic a long-standing Hollywood paradigm.
Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 2005
What does it mean to be on the “left” of the Hong Kong film industry during the Cold War era? How... more What does it mean to be on the “left” of the Hong Kong film industry during the Cold War era?
How did the left-wing studios balance their artistic, ideological, and commercial agendas in their production and exhibition strategies?
What makes a film “left-wing” or “right-wing”?
How did national, colonial, and international politics intervene in the ‘making of’ the popular left-wing cinema in Hong Kong?
How did the left-wing film establishment in Hong Kong reinvent itself in the post-Cold War, post-Cultural Revolution era?
What are the nuanced legacies of the classical left-wing in Hong Kong cinema today?
Since its inception more than a century ago, Hong Kong cinema has been a pre-eminent form of local entertainment and a site of ideological contentions propelled by colonial, national and international politics at different historical junctures. The Other Side of Glamour is a study of the historical development of the left-wing film establishment in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Horror Cinema, 2018
This chapter examines the trend towards Hong Kong-China co-productions, during which Hong Kong ho... more This chapter examines the trend towards Hong Kong-China co-productions, during which Hong Kong horror films have been in decline due to censorship restrictions in Mainland China. While this mega-market direction is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, Hong Kong filmmakers have made fresh attempts to revitalize this popular genre and inject it with new meanings in the changed and changing context of cultural production and cultural politics in the city. Between 2012-2014, several low to medium budget horror films were released. Local audiences responded enthusiastically and many saw these as a sign of the resilience of the local popular culture to counter or at least deflate the hegemony of the Mainland market. This chapter traces the trajectory of Hong Kong horror through the pre- and post-handover decades, situating horror within the evolving discourse of identity and the issues of local histories and collective memory. It also elaborates on the politics of horror as seem from horror films produced and released in the midst of escalating social and political tensions attributable to a popular/populist “anti-China localism”. The chapter further reflects on the cultural politics of delocalization and relocalization in the context of “re-occupying Hong Kong screens.”
Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2006
The international success of contemporary martial arts films has stimulated critical debates and ... more The international success of contemporary martial arts films has stimulated critical debates and reflections on the aesthetics, politics, and economics of local/national Chinese cinemas, as well as the ideological implications of reinventing a ‘traditional’ genre for international audiences, against the backdrop of increasingly interpenetrable national and cultural borders brought on by the forces of globalization. This article attempts to delineate an ‘extra’ dimension of the martial arts film in the global context — the creation of a ‘digital imaginary’ that not only reinforces and supplements the more conventional modes of representation, but also enables a ‘universal’ frame of reference that contributes to the global currency of martial arts films. Drawing upon Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004), it will illustrate how this digital imaginary displaces the exotic (Chinese) tradition into the familiar realm of digital media, resulting in a hybrid, multiply coded, culturally ambiguous, and therefore transnational visual medium for global consumption.
Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2010
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 2013
Deepening integration of Hong Kong’s commercial film production with Mainland China and the appar... more Deepening integration of Hong Kong’s commercial film production with Mainland China and the apparently inevitable marginalization of local-content films in the last ten years or so call for closer attention to the role and significance of independent films. As a critical art form, independent cinema in Hong Kong constitutes an alternative cultural space where artistic experimentation and sociopolitical critique generally avoided in mainstream productions are still actively pursued. Drawing upon recent writings on the Hong Kong independent film scene, this article explores the way in which independent films critically engage with the double hegemony of the national and the colonial in the postcolonial present. It argues that coloniality in Hong Kong is the result of the dual processes of British colonialism and decolonization in the name of ‘one country, two systems’, which effectively brings together the utilitarian aspirations and institutional excesses of colonial capitalism and socialist capitalism. Against this background, selected works by film-makers at different stages of their creative careers will be examined to shed light on the way in which decolonial visual thinking operates in the film text to intervene in the colonial/national discourse of history and identity in the post-handover era.
Hong Kong Cinema Since 1997: The Post nostalgic imagination, 2007
This book is a critical study of the developments of Hong Kong cinema after the transfer of sover... more This book is a critical study of the developments of Hong Kong cinema after the transfer of sovereignty from Britain to the People’s Republic of China in 1997.