Social Transformations in Chinese Societies

Cheung, Siu Keung

2017 Social Transformations in Chinese Societies

doi: 10.1108/STICS-04-2017-0009

PurposeThis paper aims to challenge the longstanding cosmopolitan interpretation of Hong Kong, particularly why this global city fails to absorb China equally through its great inclusiveness and flexibility as before. On the contrary, rising tensions, conflicts and resistance could be founded between Hong Kong and China these days.Design/methodology/approachBy using Hong Kong cinema as an analytical lens, this paper seeks to throw light on the cinematic landscape of post-1997 Hong Kong and, by implications, the overall destiny of postcolonial Hong Kong under Chinese rule.FindingsThe postcolonial Hong Kong, although lacking a symmetric status and equal weight, remains an active player with Chinese hegemony that appeals to the newfound market power to consolidate their systemic control on the city. By acting upon itself with the subjectivity and reflexivity from itself, postcolonial Hong Kong takes many actions to do justice that criticizes the political and ideological correctness and challenges the contemporary national authority from one-party rule.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates a new in-betweenness in the relation to the making of postcolonial Hong Kong. This paper advances insights into a postcolonial reinvention of the politics of disappearance that remains underexplored.

Ka Ming, Chan

2017 Social Transformations in Chinese Societies

doi: 10.1108/STICS-04-2017-0008

PurposeSince the launch of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) in 2003, Hong Kong cinema is believed to have confronted drastic changes. Hong Kong cinema is described to be dying, lacking creative space and losing local distinctiveness. A decade later, the rise of Hong Kong – China coproduction cinema under CEPA has been normalized and changed the once pessimism in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Hong Kong cinema adjusted its production and creation in the first 10 years of CEPA.Design/methodology/approachBeginning with a review of the overall development, three paradigmatic cases are examined for reflecting upon what the major industrial and commercial concerns on the Hong Kong – China coproduction model are, and how such a coproduction model is not developed as smooth as what the Hong Kong filmmakers expected.FindingsCollectively, this paper singles out the difficulties in operation and the limit of transnationality that occur in the Chinese context for the development of Hong Kong cinema under the Hong Kong – China coproduction model.Originality/valueThis is the author’s research in his five-year study of Hong Kong cinema and it contributes a lot to the field of cinema studies with relevant industrial and policy concern.

Cheung, Siu Keung

2017 Social Transformations in Chinese Societies

doi: 10.1108/STICS-04-2017-0006

PurposeDuring the centennial anniversary of Xinhai Revolution in 2011, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television supported the production of 1911 for celebrating such an important event that lead to the rise of the Republic of China in the contemporary Chinese history. This paper aims to reflect upon this film in relation to China’s propagation of “Greater China” for the Empire-building project.Design/methodology/approachBy scrutinizing the film text and following the strait controversies over the film, this paper demonstrates how the Chinese Communist agents employed the coproduction model with Hong Kong for globalizing a cinematic discourse of Greater China in part of their Empire-building project.FindingsThe study challenges how contemporary Chinese history is ideologically and politically manipulated for advancing the Chinese Communist propaganda over Taiwan. The overall objective is to reflect upon the longstanding historical divergences that stand on the current geopolitical envision and strategy of China for reunification.Originality/valueThis paper provides an interdisciplinary reflection upon the intricate post-Cold War politics in part of the contemporary Chinese cinema under the China–Hong Kong coproduction model. The findings advance novel and timely insights into China’s current envision and strategy for reunification.

Lok, Peter

2017 Social Transformations in Chinese Societies

doi: 10.1108/STICS-04-2017-0011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how a neo-liberal nationalist discourse of China imagines the spatial identity of the post-1997 Hong Kong with reference to Lost in Hong Kong, a new Chinese middle-class film in 2015 with successful box office sales.Design/methodology/approachTextual analysis with the aid of psychoanalysis, postcolonial studies and semiotics is used to interpret the meaning of the film in this study. The study also utilizes the previous literature reviews about the formation of the Chinese national identity to help analyze the distinct identity of the Chinese middle class today.FindingsThe discussion pinpoints how the new Chinese middle class as neo-liberal nationalists take Hong Kong as a “bizarre national redemptive space”. While Hong Kong is cinematically constructed as such a national other, this paper argues that the Hong Kong in question stands not for itself but in a form of “reverse hallucination” for pacifying the new Chinese middle class’ trauma under the rapid neo-liberalization of China in the 1990s.Originality/valueThis paper shows the new of formation of the Chinese nationalist’s discourse, especially the new Chinese middle-class discourse on Hong Kong after 1997.

Cheung, Siu Keung; Law, Wing Sang

2017 Social Transformations in Chinese Societies

doi: 10.1108/STICS-04-2017-0007

PurposeThe majority of Hong Kong filmmakers have pursued co-production with China filmmakers for having the Mainland market at the expense of local styles and sensitivities. To many critics, the two-part series of Ip Man and Ip Man II provide a paradigmatic case of film co-production that sell the tricks of Chinese kung fu, regurgitating the overblown Chinese nationalism against Japanese and kwai-lo. The purpose of this study is to rectify such observation of the Ip Man series.Design/methodology/approachThe authors read the series deconstructively as a postcolonial text in which Hong Kong identity is inscribed in the negotiated space in between different versions of Chinese nationalism.FindingsThe analysis points to the varying subversive features in the series from which Hong Kong’s colonial experiences are tacitly displayed, endorsed and rewritten into the Chinese nationalistic discourse whose dominance is questioned, if not debased.Originality/valueThis paper advances new research insights into the postcolonial reinvention of kung fu film and, by implication, the Hong Kong cinema in general.

Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei

2017 Social Transformations in Chinese Societies

doi: 10.1108/STICS-04-2017-0010

PurposeThe goal of this article is to examine the current trends of political cinema in postcolonial Hong Kong. Many leaders of the Hong Kong mainstream cinema have accepted the Chinese authoritarian rule as a precondition for expanding into the ever-expanding Mainland film market, but a handful of conscientious filmmakers choose to make political cinema under the shadow of a wealthy and descendant industry, expressing their desire for democracy and justice and critiquing the unequal power relations between Hong Kong and China.Design/methodology/approachThis paper consults relevant documentary materials and cinematic texts to contextualize the latest development of political cinema in Hong Kong. It presents an in-depth analysis of the works of two local independent filmmakers Herman Yau and Vincent Chui.FindingsThis study reveals a glimpse of hope in the current films of Herman Yau and Vincent Chui, which suggests that a reconfiguration of local identity and communal relationship may turn around the collective despair caused by the oppressive measures of the Chinese authoritarian state and the end of the Umbrella Movement in late 2014.Research limitations/implicationsDespite the small sample size, this paper highlights the rise of cinematic localism through a closer look at the works of Hong Kong independent filmmakers.Practical implicationsThis study reveals an ambivalent mentality in the Hong Kong film industry where critical filmmakers strive to assert their creativity and agency against the externally imposed Chinese hegemonic power.Originality/valueThis investigation is an original scholarly study of film and politics in postcolonial Hong Kong.