Ghosts of Chinas Past and Present

Chapter 4 Ghosts of Chinas Past and Present The previous two chapters have illustrated how remakes can be shaped both by notions of socio-cultural difference, and by cinematic cultural difference in the form of different generic standards and directorial styles. From consid- ering the questions involved with remaking in a cross-cultural context, the following two chapters will now shift the analysis and discussion to the intercultural remake. In doing so, changes between source film and remake can be looked at from different perspectives, with a view to understanding how remakes manifest cultural change across genres, different times of production, and different loca- tions of production within the region currently known as “China”. This chapter will begin where the previous chapter left off; extending the focus on gender, genre and remakes to the intracultural remake, through the analysis of the Hong Kong film from 1987, A Chinese Ghost Story (倩女幽魂), and its 2011 remake of the same name. What factors may have influenced the very clear dif- ferences observable between these two films, and what are the implications for the study of Chinese-language remakes? Furthermore, what possible perspectives could this pair of films bring to bear on the question of how remakes might reflect greater concerns of disputed or fractured notions of social and political identities, particularly in reference to the precarious relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong? The following chapter will endeavour to answer these questions through a comparative analysis of source film and remake. The 1987 Hong Kong original, directed by Ching Siu-tung, and produced by Tsui Hark, follows the relationship between a young tax collector, Ning Caichen, and a female ghost, Nie Xiaoqian. The film is considered to be a clas- sic of Hong Kong New Wave cinema, with its hybrid blend of Hollywood-style special effects and Chinese ghost story plot, along with Hong Kong Kung-fu and comedy (Teo, 1997). The remake, created in 2011, is a co-production between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong production companies, directed by Wilson Yip, and retained the same Chinese title (倩女幽魂). Both the original film and the remake find their inspiration in the Pu Songling short story ‘Nie Xiaoqian’ (聂小倩) from his work Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, and thus draw on a long tradition of ghost tales in historical China featuring female ghosts and living men. The following analysis will compare and contrast the two films, focusing on five dimensions. Firstly, the two films’ generic categorisations and plots, with consideration for how the remake and source film address the same source © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004363304_005 Ghosts of Chinas Past and Present 79 text. Following this, an analysis of representations of masculinity, including how the star persona of Leslie Cheung influenced the male image in the original film. The gender-oriented analysis will then turn to femininity, investigat- ing the changing representation of the monstrous-feminine across both films. The psychoanalytic concept of the gaze will be drawn upon to discuss how sexuality is realigned in the remake, before the final section addresses how the remake’s metaphor of memory loss might come to represent a broader allegory for the relationship between Hong Kong and China. Locating A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) in Hong Kong Cinema At the time cinema was introduced to Hong Kong, the region was colonised by the British (from 1841–1997), and with Hong Kong and mainland China sepa- rated, the different conditions in the two regions affected the development of their respective cinemas. Hong Kong cinema of the “first period, from the introduction of cinema in 1897 to the geopolitical division of several competing Chinas in 1949 is seen as an offshoot of mainland Chinese cinema … marginal and secondary to the cinematic centre of mainland China, Shanghai” (R. Chi, 2012, p. 77). During this period, cinematic talent and ideas were exchanged between mainland China and Hong Kong, as Hong Kong served as “a source of labour and technology, a branch office for expanding business operations, or a refuge from political instability” for mainland Chinese artists and directors (R. Chi, 2012, p. 77). Hong Kong’s cinema industry developed through the incorporation and adaptation of a variety of cultural influences, and Hong Kong’s position as an “open port” meant that there was a free flow of techniques, ideas and styles from Hollywood, Europe, Japan, Korea and mainland China, as well as local pioneers, that all played a role in shaping Hong Kong’s cinematic productions. After the Communist Party victory in 1949, the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese cinema changed, and separate “Chinese cinemas” were emphasised, as mainland Chinese film production became more intro- spective and state-controlled up until the 1980s reform period, while Hong Kong cinema turned towards other markets in South-East Asia to support its industry (R. Chi, 2012). The cinema of Hong Kong, like the city itself, came to be considered part of the Chinese “diaspora” (Ma, 2010), where cultural displace- ment created “new modes of expression and exchange” as well as “anxieties over identity and belonging” (Yue, 2010, pp. 8–9). During the 1980s and 1990s in particular, Hong Kong cinema represented “one of the success stories of film history” (Bordwell, 2000, p. 1), with a vibrant .

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