Examples of “A”-level, high quality homework assignments:
1. Week 1 Assignment (A+/A range)
Example 1:
Peter Brunette’s “As Tears Go By” explores Wong Kar-wai’s first film and how this work exemplifies the unique styles and themes that have come to be representative of Wong’s work. While some critics have denounced this film as a generic feature that too obviously draws from other well-known movies, Brunette clearly shares opposite views. After hailing the film as a new kind of film that paved the way for others in Hong Kong cinema, Brunette goes on to justify the counter generic claim by talking about the fact that movies of this kind were popular for the time. However, he explains that while Wong initially draws from other sources, he simultaneously proposes counterintuitive qualities that depart from the traditional genre audiences were used to seeing in theaters. Brunette further explores this departure by talking about some striking qualities that were not usually seen in these gangster movies, such as the stress and emphasis on romantic images and the inner emotions of the protagonist or even the blunt, almost pessimistic representation of Hong Kong.
In “The Carnal Hand and Fetishism in Wong Kar-wai’s The Hand,” Nicholas Wong talks about the sexuality of the film and ultimately attempts to determine what particularly represents the hand that is suggested by the title. First, Nicholas briefly explains the significance of this film relevant to the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, and how this film was captivating in a time where physical contact was largely discouraged. Then, he goes on to talk about depiction of desire throughout the piece. Nicholas describes how desire is expressed through touch, rather than speech. The intimate moments shared between Ms. Hua and Zhang either during masturbation or the moments where he takes her measurements radiate a strong sense of lust for one another. Furthermore, Nicholas states that there are multiple fetishes in the film. First, is the tailor’s hand, which is fetishized when Ms. Hua erotically caresses Zhang’s hand during their first encounter. This fetish is furthered with the use of the gloves, which represent the warmth of being enveloped and embraced during intercourse. The cheongsam is another example of how clothing is fetishized. Nicholas explains that the cheongsam is sexualized because it is so form-fitting and can be seen as a representation of a woman’s figure. However, ultimately, Nicholas argues that Ms. Hua’s hand is the hand in the title of the film because Hua uses her hand to form her intimate relationship with Zhang.
My main critique of “A Better Tomorrow” would be to have more development of the familial dynamic among Ho, Kit and their father during the exposition. I would have liked to know more about what led Ho and Kit to lead such different lives as a cop and criminal. I feel this would help underscore the rift between the two brothers upon their father’s passing. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the overall movie. You could truly see the romanticism that is described in Brunette’s article when you see the vulnerability of both brothers, with Ho’s later desire to turn over a new leaf and prove to his brother that his can change and Kit’s desperation to become a good police officer. Furthermore, the development of their relationship through the mutual desire to bring down the syndicate beautifully culminates in the scene when Ho hands his brother a gun, and Kit momentarily points it at Ho before raising it to attack the gangsters. Ultimately, I believe this movie does a great job at balancing action and comedy with the a gripping narrative.
Example 2:
In the Brunette reading, the author’s main idea revolves around Wong Kar-wai’s film As Times Go By. By suggesting that the use of themes such as food and love, contrasting color schemes, and kinetic versus static shots, some of which can also be found in his subsequent works, the author emphasizes his perspective of the film, which was that Wong intended to give a unique representation of “young gangsters”. The plotline focuses on troubled youths who are in search of a sense of security through a mix of love and violence. Wah and Fly represent the troubled youths and Ngor, the security Wah searches for. The use of slow- motion and hints of playfulness in the film also gives insight of Wong’s perspective as a filmmaker. To further understand the story of this film better, one exam question I would come up with is: What do the motifs food and love, contrasting colors, darkness and light represent symbolically as well as literally in the film, and how do they contribute to the representation of the “troubled young gangster”? In Nicolas Wong’s reading about the fetishism of the hand, the author’s suggests that hands are the motif of desire and connectivity. The author attempts to demonstrate the relationship of the tailor and the call girl in relation to their hands and how they use them, emphasizing that Ms. Hua uses one hand despite her job to satisfy multiple men, in contrast to Tailor Zhang dedicated to measuring Ms. Hua’s body only. By further mentioning that there is no explicit sexual contact between the two characters, their hands are further fetishized because while they may not talk about or acknowledge their lustful, intimate encounters, “their hands remember it all” (Wong, 55). According to the author, the cheongsam is also an important motif in the film, as it serves the role of the women’s second skin, and is explicitly tailored to her body shape so she can flaunt it. The tailor is dedicated to only making cheongsams for Ms. Hua, and the scene of him caressing the cheongsam from inside out also suggests that it is a symbol of desire, yet it is also a barrier. To me, the most memorable scenes in the movie A Better Tomorrow are when Mark reads the newspaper article about Ho’s arrest and promptly engages in the shooting scene with the man who had set up Ho and Shing, and when Mark turns the boat around to engage in yet another gun fight with Shing’s men who are shooting at Ho. They reveal Mark’s loyal and deep friendship with Ho, which makes him the most respectable in the movie despite his pitiful scenes and downfall following Ho’s arrest. It appears that their pure friendship balances out the darkness and chaos that they have to face in the world. Furthermore, Mark even became slightly crippled in the first shootout, but because he believed that he was doing it to avenge his best friend, he even told Ho at the end that “You don’t owe me anything.” (A Better Tomorrow). I believe the director’s use of Mark’s character in the film is to portray an underdog who has genuine, respectable values despite his appearance. He appears to be a bad guy because of his profession, but his self-respect and loyal characteristics are revealed when he stays strong and waits for a chance to retrieve what’s his, as well as him supporting Ho and trying to help Kit find the strength in him to forgive his brother. Although his character dies, I found his scenes very memorable, and it added some emotions into the otherwise, violent and action sequences.
Example 3:
In the reading from Brunette Peter, he mainly suggests that the film As Tears Go By, although is somehow suggested by some scholars as another gangster film following A Better Tomorrow, is a special film that marks the beginning of Wong Kar-wai's influences in the entire film industry with Wong Kar-wai's use of liquid atmosphere, special colors, disjunction in cuts, exciting fighting scene, surprising scene of the play and so on so forth. In another reading from Wong, Nicholas Y. B, he basically discusses about the portrayal of hands in the movie The Hand, with a specific focus on the relationship between the representations of hands and sexual desire. He specifically suggests details like the desire of touch in five senses, the pulairty and singularity of hand descriptions between male and female, caressing, fetishism of hands, gloves and cheongsam, claiming that hands could be considered as the sexual desire that speaks the language of lust and caressing.
For the reading The Carnal Hand and Fetishism in Wong Kar-wai's The hand, questions that I would like to ask could be "What are the roles that the hands play in the movie the Hand, and what do they represent?", "Compare the descriptions of hands for the tailor and the sex worker, what are the differences and similarities?", "What is special about Cheongsam in this film?", "What is the beginning and the ending tells about the film?". For the reading As Tears Go By by Brunette Peter, "What is liquid atmosphere, and how is it used by Wong Kar- wai?", "What makes Ah Wah a contradictory person?", "How is the using of color in the film As Tears Go By?"
The most striking scene in the movie A Better Tomorrow to me is around 35:00 when Ho finishes his three-year sentence. He is waiting there for Kit, and when Kit sees him, he gets super angry and begins to punch him. First of all, Kit is in a very contradictory condition, in which he loves his brother while who disappoints him so much. He is raged but sad. Secondly, as Kit smashes Ho's body, Ho never fights back, indicating that Ho is very regretful and how little he could do to reconcile their brother relationship. This scene strikes my heartstring. The anger of Kit and the sadness of Ho splashes, embodying the conflict in this movie. Plus, in this scene, there is very heavy rain that makes the fight more vivid and touching.
If I could write my final paper based on the above readings and film, I would write about the comparison between "A Better Tomorrow" and "As Tears Go By". In specific, I would compare how they are in common and how they differ from each other to discuss about the gangster films in the golden age of Hong Kong Film history.
Example of “A-/B+”-level homework assignments:
Example 1:
First, in Peter Brunette’s passage “As Tears Go By,” he argues that Wong Kar-wai’s subversions of classic Hong Kong film tropes proves he is a talented director cut apart from his contemporaries. While Wong’s film As Tears Go By has caused a debate between critics on Wong’s talent, Peter states that Wong’s cinematic techniques such as voice overs, color saturation, and visual style all contribute to Wong’s greatness as a director. Next, in Wong Nicholas’ article “The Carnal Hand and Fetishism in Wong Kar-Wai’s The Hand,” he argues that the hand in the film represents the repressed sexualized desires of humans. In The Hand, the hands of the two main characters touch the most intimate places of each other and Nicholas states that this represents the sexualization of a typically non-sexualized part of the human body. My exam questions based off of the reading and viewing material would probably be: How is Sung Tse-Ho’s relationship with his brother in John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow similar to Zhang’s relationship with Hua in The Hand. More specifically, how do the ways the two main characters deal with separation from their loved ones imply a similarity between the two relationships. For me, the most striking scene in A Better Tomorrow, was when Kit attacked his brother in the rain after 3 years of not seeing each other. Ho’s clear love for his brother and the suddenness of the attack made the scene even more memorable. While I did not expect their reunion to hospitable, the abruptness between the scene change of Kit in the car to his assault towards his brother really caught me off guard. If my final paper was based off of this reading and viewing, my topic would most likely relate to gangster comradery. While Brunette’s description of As Tears Go By and the scenes from A Better Tomorrow implies that trust between gangsters, even within the same group, is fickle and unreliable, the relationships between the main characters and their closest gangster friends reveals the unbreakable bonds they share. In A Better Tomorrow, Ho is betrayed by his temporary partner Shing which causes him to lose the trust of his brother and be put in prison. Furthermore, throughout the movie, betrayal within triad members is consistently shown. While in As Tears Go By, this betrayal seems to not be as apparent, conflict between gang members still seems to play a role in the movie. However, despite hostilities between gang members playing a role in both movies, the friendship between the protagonists and another gang member also plays a major role in both movies. Ho’s entire conflict to go back to gang life after “being on the straight” hinges on his friendship with Mark. Meanwhile, Wah is willing to die because of his friendship with Fly. Clearly, the duality between the fragility of gangster trust and the strength between gangster close bonds would be an interesting topic to write about.
Examples of lower quality homework assignments for comparison (B- range):
Example 1:
A. In the “Chungking Express essay”, Tsung-Yi Huang presented that Individuals try to create more physical or imaginary space, commercial or social space, temporary or lasting space in the space of constant double compression between global flow and local concentration. In the “How We Became Posthuman”, Hayles defined central to the posthuman as making acknowledging intellectual and practical contributions to this project an inevitability as well as a pleasure. In the essay “The Pan-Asian Outlook of The Eye”, author thought that what they tried is not only to expand market base with films appealing to audiences beyond Hong Kong, but also to expand creative personnel to include those from other Asian countries. B. How does Chungking express the loneliness of the characters and arouse the resonance of the audience? C. For me, the most memorable moment is when Mark says he doesn't believe in god. He would give me a different kind of thinking. The director showed the scene with simple shots and dialogue. This is similar to some of the scenes from the “Godfather”. The “Godfather” did influence later films. D. It is well known that Oriental literature does not like to end in tragedy. Why is this film still loved by Asians even though it ends in tragedy?
Example 2:
When Wong released his film As Tears Go By, there were a lot of mixed reviews about his style of action. This was, I’m assuming, one of the first films of its kind with this kind of theatrical violence and many people did not like. Eventually though, this would become something very popular.
If you had to compose an exam question based on this weeks readings and viewing material (but also linking to other materials we read and view this quarter), what would the question be? (The question can consist of multiple sentences.)
Modern Kung Fu
The most striking scene in the movie to me was when Jackie was walking back home and left the door wide open, I began to think it was going to become a horror film. This scene was extremely frustrating to watch and I think that was the intent from the director. I think this scene was intended to give the movie another action scene, one that is no so typical since it involved Jackie, Kit’s girlfriend. This scene is also an essential scene in the movie because it leads into the next portion of the movie where Kit tries to avenge his now murdered father by catching Ho and that entire money forging gang.
If I were a movie reviewer I would say that this movie is pretty interesting. There is love, there is humor, and there is action. I like that they pitted the two brothers against each other but the movie is also a bit cliche, especially when blame is put on Ho for the death of their father. I would categorize this movie as a classic family betrayal movie that has a happy ending (since Ho and Kit reconcile when Kit is injured and passes Ho the gun to kill Shing).
Example of lower quality homework assignments for comparison (C/C- range): Example 1:
This week’s reading talk about Hong Kong is global city, so our character walk in the that business street. It’s also representative freedom and globalization. Hong Kong has many building, so it looks very hybrid, congested and pigeonholed. This film shows conflicting spaces. Our character living in melancholy and frustration environment. This film has four walkers, two policemen and two women. These four walkers walk in different streets, and it shows their desire and dreams. We can feel they are unceasing to explore their living space, but they are very lonely and confused. It also means many people losing in the big city. The first walker is desire and frustration. She builds center of transnational heroin smug-gling. She has streetwalker, so people do not think she is drug trafficker. People also think she is hooker rather than drug trafficker. She wants to make more money in the Hong Kong. There are two police. First one cop is undercover police, and other one is a low-rank patrol officer. Undercover police is 233.