The Transforming Cultural Identity of Hong Kong as Reflected in Jackie Chan’s Police Story Series

Abstract

Filmic texts embody the discussion of issues like identity and self-determination. Many films of Jackie Chan who is a well-known international film star, set the story in Hong Kong, thus inevitably presenting various cultural aspects of the city. Being an especially important historical event, the return of Hong Kong to China affects every aspect of people’s lives, which are consciously or unconsciously recorded in filmic texts. Seeking recourse to Stuart Hall’s concept of cultural identity and Wang Yuechuan’s theory of identity recognition, this paper analyzes Jackie Chan’s three filmic texts from the Police Story series, hoping to probe into the conflicts and changes of Hong Kong’s transforming cultural identity at three time periods before and after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region upon the reunification with China, so as to prove both the complexity and importance of the identity issues. The paper will approach the three filmic texts from the following aspects: changed names of the main characters and their symbolic meanings, differences in plot and dialogue designs, and cultural meaning of urban space and architecture. Finally, the paper also invites the readers to reflect on the issues of representation on differences and identity recognition in general.