Beyond Martial Arts in Hong Kong Films

人文地理第56巻第6号 (2004) Beyond Martial Arts in Hong Kong Films: Agents, Place and Culture in Socio-Spatial Context OKUNO Sill Hong Kong Trade Development Council1) reports that approximately 2,800 business establish- ments, with an employment of 20,000 persons, operated motion pictures and other entertainment services in Hong Kong, in March 20032). In the same year, 77 films were produced in Hong Kong, contributing box office receipts of US $47 million, compared to a total of US $101 million when foreign films were included. In the export sector, audio-visual production and related services ac- counted for US $53 million, and contributed annually a share of 0.1%-0.2% to services exports in recent years. Hong Kong films or their related agents have often been invited to exhibit at Film Festivals abroad, and have won several prestigious awards including those from the Oscars in Los Angeles and film festivals in Berlin and Cannes3). Before examining the Hong Kong film industry in-depth a theoretical context is provided. I Theoretical Context Allen Scott, a geographer, analyzes the film industry in Los Angeles according to the division of labor. In particular, he highlights the proximity of skilled and socialized cultural workers in the image-production system and milieu to attain cultural agglomeration or synergy4) Scottthen extends his field of interest to Paris and the French cinema5) He also underlines that film production forms an integral part of the United States cultural-products industry, and the cultural inno- vative and creative aspects of film culture in representing and making propaganda of US capital- ist culture to the rest of the world6). After examining the theory of film expressed by Easthope7), Aitken and Zonn8), and David 1) Hong Kong Trade Development Council, http://www.tdctrade.com/main/si/spfilm.html; sources from MPIA and Annual Reports. Report updated on June 11, 2004. 2) In August 2004, Ng See Yuen, President of Federation of Hong Kong Film Workers estimated there were 4,000 workers, and an extra 1,000 workers are needed to meet the demand of an improving economy and a higher export quota under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement with China. Source: South China Morning Post, August 4, 2004. 3) Some examples are: Peter Pau and Tim Yip (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) won the Oscars in 2000 for cinematog- raphy and art direction respectively. Maggie Cheung won the Cannes for Best Actress for the French movie Green in 2004, and the Berlin Golden Bear 1992 in Center Stage (or Ruan Lingyu: The Actress). Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together (1997) won him Best Director at Cannes. At the Cannes Film Festival 2004, Wong Kar-Wai's 2046, and Johnnie To's Breaking News were played with positive feedbacks. 4) Scott, A. J., Metropolis: From the Division of Labor to Urban Form, University of California Press, 1988. 5) Scott, A. J., The Cultural Economy of Cities: Essays on Image-producing Industries, Sage, 2000. 6) Scott, A. J., The craft, fashion, and cultural-products industries of Los Angeles: competitive dynamics and policy di- lemmas in a multisectoral image-producing complex, AAAG, 86, 1996, pp. 306-323. 7) Easthope, A., ed. Contemporary Film Theory. Longman, 1993. 8) Aitken, S. C. and Zonn, L. E., eds. Place, Power, Situation, and Spectacle: A Geography of Film, Rowman & Littlefield. 1994. -57- 616 人文地理第56巻第6号 (2004) Figure 1. A Theory of Filmspace Source: Modified from Michael Dear, The Postmodern Urban Condition, Blackwell, 2000, p. 190. Clarke9), Michael Dear, another geographer in his study of the postmodern city-Los Angeles10) fo- cuses on the importance of place and space. Dear then outlines his theory of "filmspace" in four different, but sequential, components: the place of production, the production place, film text, and consumption in space. Then he discusses their respective attributes and characteristics. Here- by film includes movies and documentaries. Mark Shiel, an academic specializing in film studies, when discussing the aims of his new edition on cinema and the city outlines six sections: (1) the relationship between film studies and sociology11); (2)cinema and urban society; (3) space and spatiality; (4) geographical description and uneven development; (5) describing history; and (6) globalization. He admits that cinema is a peculiarly spatial form of culture, and that "cinema operates and is best understood in terms of the organization of space: both space in films-the space of the shot, the space of the narra- tive setting, the geographical relationship of various settings in sequence in a film, the mapping of a lived environment on film; and films in space, the shaping of lived urban spaces by cinema as a cultural practice, the spatial organization of its industry at the levels of production, distribu- tion, and exhibition; the role of cinema in globalization12)." Another academic in film studies, Esther Yau, examines the "New Wave" of film production Hong Kong cinema after 1990s and is impressed by the speed of the local film production process and its interaction between local agents and those in Hollywood, and the rest of the world13). 9) Clarke, D. B., ed. The Cinematic City, 1997. 10) Dear, M. J. The Postmodern Urban Condition, Blackwell, 2000, p. 190. 11) Shiel, M. & Fitzmaurice, T., eds. Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Blackwell, 2001. He mentions the usefulness of the disciplines of geography, cultural studies, urban studies in understanding films in their cultural and social context. 12) Shiel, Mark, Cinema and the city in history and theory, in M. Shiel and T. Fitzmaurice, eds., Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Blackwell, 2001, p. 5. 13) Yau, Ester. C. M., ed. At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World, University of Minnesota Press, 2001. -58- Beyond Martial Arts in Hong Kong Films (OKUNO) 617 Law Karr, in the same edition, introduces the concept of "cultural field" where intellectuals and artists work to: (1) define and defend various criteria of cultural legitimacy; (2) play out their emotional investment in the idea of culture; (3) elaborate and address their implied audi- ence; and (4) establish their moral and aesthetic authority. He continues, "The result of these ef- forts was a practice of criticism and a set of enduring public institutions where that practice could unfold…At stake in these activities were the mission of the film critic, the relationship between culture and society, and the identity of Hong Kong14)." There are many other studies relating the city, urban space and urban life, to films, including Stephen Teo15) and David Bordwell16) on Hong Kong, Guneratne17) on Singapore, and Sugimoto18) on In- dia. In particular, Tobari19) and Fujii20) take a broader perspective to comparing several Chinese films, including those produced in Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to their locality, aesthetics, political and cultural emphases. The author is interested in studying the film culture, and its path of change and relationship to the socio-economic and political history of the place. He also pays attention to the film as an industry and culture undergoing local-global and then global-local processes, transnational in na- ture, and produce impacts on the core, the periphery, and immediate region. In this light, this study aims to: (1) give a profile of the image-making of the place through the films screened there; (2) explain the boom and later globalizing of its films since early 1970s by plotting the paths of some actors, directors, action choreographers active in the process; (3) explain the utilization of embedded Chinese culture of the place and its people, the new hybrid cultural formation and transformation in the film-making process with some examples, and last but not least; (4) draw comments on the role of Hong Kong in cultural-political context within China, Asia, and the world. II Images of Hong Kong on the Silver Screen The exhibition of Hong Kong Film Archive, April 2001, revealed that the earliest film of Hong Kong was made in 1898, when an Edison Company (US) documentary covered images of Chi- nese coolies carrying bamboo levers on their shoulders. This contrasted with a street scene where a European gentleman was being carried on a sedan chair. Images of the 1930s and 1940s, like the Governor's House, Supreme Court, Star Ferry, trams, low-rise shophouses, and parades were shot in the film Ten Thousand Li Ahead (1941), recording the early days of modernization and colonial governance. Story-telling activity on the street, once a popular entertainment form 14) Law Karr,“An overview of Hong Kong's New Wave Cinema,”in Esther C. M. Yau, ditto., pp. 31-52. 15) Teo, Stephen. Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions, British Film Institute, 1997. 16) Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema, Harvard University Press, 2000. 17) Guneratne, A. R.,‘The Urban and the Urbane: Modernization, Modernism and the Rebirth of Singaporean Cinema,’ In Goh, R. B. H. & Yeoh, Brenda, S. A., Theorizing the Southeast Asian City as Text, World Scientific, 2003, pp. 159-190. 18) Sugimoto,Yoshio. An Invitationto Indian Cinema (Indo Eiga he no Shotaijo),Seikyusha, 2002. 19) Tobari, Haruo. China, Taiwanand Hong Kong on the Screen (Sukurin no naka no Chugoku,Taiwan, Honkon), Maruzen, 1996. 20) Fujii, Shojo. Exploration into Contemporary China: A Tale of Four Cities (Gendai Chugoku Bunka Tanken-Yottsu no Toshi monogatari), Iwanami, 1999. -59- 618 人文地理第56巻第6号 (2004) for the masses, was screened in the movie Roar of People (1941) to capture people's protests against Japanese militarism. The turmoil in China caused large influx of migrants to Hong Kong during the 1950s.

Load more