Building upon the momentum of protests, Hong Kong independent documentarians have made efforts to record the past decade’s social movements. From the 2014 Umbrella Movement to the 2019–20 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, more than a dozen feature-length and short documentaries of different social movements were produced. As political pressure has grown increasingly intense in recent years, the media landscape has been changing rapidly. This article applies the Foucauldian concept of dispositif to analyse these changes. If dispositif can be understood as pertaining to the regulation of power relations, then the dispositif of recent Hong Kong independent political documentaries can illuminate a crucial aspect of the changes: Mainland China and Hong Kong’s closer relationship as a regulating dispositif. Through the case of Inside the Red Brick Wall () and the implementation of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law, the article shows how this regulating dispositif has recently pushed the deterritorialization of Hong Kong independent political documentary.
{"title":"Hong Kong independent political documentary under the regulating dispositif: Inside the Red Brick Wall and beyond","authors":"Enoch Yee-Lok Tam","doi":"10.1386/ac_00054_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00054_1","url":null,"abstract":"Building upon the momentum of protests, Hong Kong independent documentarians have made efforts to record the past decade’s social movements. From the 2014 Umbrella Movement to the 2019–20 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, more than a dozen feature-length and short documentaries of different social movements were produced. As political pressure has grown increasingly intense in recent years, the media landscape has been changing rapidly. This article applies the Foucauldian concept of dispositif to analyse these changes. If dispositif can be understood as pertaining to the regulation of power relations, then the dispositif of recent Hong Kong independent political documentaries can illuminate a crucial aspect of the changes: Mainland China and Hong Kong’s closer relationship as a regulating dispositif. Through the case of Inside the Red Brick Wall () and the implementation of the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law, the article shows how this regulating dispositif has recently pushed the deterritorialization of Hong Kong independent political documentary.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41936528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article is an ethnographic and historical study that focuses on the ‘plebeian public sphere’ – a democratic sphere opened up by the community screening of independent documentary films. My article argues that this innovative public screening establishes a mode of communication that connects audiences with the neighbourhood where people gather together and form local communities by sharing experience and emotion based on history, story and memory. This process evokes a source of affective energy that is capable of catalysing social change. It challenges not only previous theoretical approaches to the public sphere, but also the stereotypical understanding of ‘the public’ in the Hong Kong context.
{"title":"Going to the people: Community screening, documentary and the plebeian public sphere in Hong Kong","authors":"Kit Fung Henry Chiu","doi":"10.1386/ac_00056_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00056_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article is an ethnographic and historical study that focuses on the ‘plebeian public sphere’ – a democratic sphere opened up by the community screening of independent documentary films. My article argues that this innovative public screening establishes a mode of communication that connects audiences with the neighbourhood where people gather together and form local communities by sharing experience and emotion based on history, story and memory. This process evokes a source of affective energy that is capable of catalysing social change. It challenges not only previous theoretical approaches to the public sphere, but also the stereotypical understanding of ‘the public’ in the Hong Kong context.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48631761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In their general introduction to the present Special Issue the authors trace the origins of and motivation behind much of the independent documentary filmmaking produced in the city during a period of great sociopolitical turbulence, leading up to the tight censorship protocols put in place after the mainland government’s promulgation of the repressive National Security Law in 2020. With reference to the individual essays that comprise this volume, they chart the sudden and unprecedented rise of documentary filmmaking in Hong Kong following many decades of public indifference to the genre. Limited public and underground screenings that took place before absolute censorship measures were implemented in 2021 showed huge box-office demand for these topical films, reflecting images of ordinary Hong Kong people and their struggle for political representation. This opening essay introduces a range of essays and one interview, mostly in relation to specific films, dealing with the now-contentious coupling of documentary films or television broadcasts and democracy. As the essays indicate, some directors and producers of these observational and participatory documentaries are still active overseas and many of the films discussed can now only be screened outside Hong Kong. Nevertheless, they bear witness to a spirit of resilience and resistance as well as a deep-seated desire for a genuine democracy based on universal suffrage constantly reneged on by the city’s various rulers, from the colonial era until now.
{"title":"Introduction: Hong Kong independent documentaries and their visibility","authors":"M. Ingham, K. K. Ng","doi":"10.1386/ac_00050_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00050_2","url":null,"abstract":"In their general introduction to the present Special Issue the authors trace the origins of and motivation behind much of the independent documentary filmmaking produced in the city during a period of great sociopolitical turbulence, leading up to the tight censorship protocols put in place after the mainland government’s promulgation of the repressive National Security Law in 2020. With reference to the individual essays that comprise this volume, they chart the sudden and unprecedented rise of documentary filmmaking in Hong Kong following many decades of public indifference to the genre. Limited public and underground screenings that took place before absolute censorship measures were implemented in 2021 showed huge box-office demand for these topical films, reflecting images of ordinary Hong Kong people and their struggle for political representation. This opening essay introduces a range of essays and one interview, mostly in relation to specific films, dealing with the now-contentious coupling of documentary films or television broadcasts and democracy. As the essays indicate, some directors and producers of these observational and participatory documentaries are still active overseas and many of the films discussed can now only be screened outside Hong Kong. Nevertheless, they bear witness to a spirit of resilience and resistance as well as a deep-seated desire for a genuine democracy based on universal suffrage constantly reneged on by the city’s various rulers, from the colonial era until now.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46065594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
With the decline of Chinese independent cinema, art cinema has grown at a fast pace since the mid-2010s in China. There has been a convergence as well as a divergence of independent cinema and art cinema facilitated by institutional reforms of the Chinese film industry. This article examines how small- to medium-sized film production companies work as market actors as well as intermediaries between independent filmmakers, the state and the market to co-opt independent cinema into an officially approved art cinema and activate the market potential of art cinema through engaging with the cultural economy. This officially approved art cinema is not construed as an alternative to, and a form of resistance to, the mainstream but as a booster for the industry. This article offers new insights into the interrelation of artistic, commercial and political interests and demonstrates how these interests shape meanings and modes of ‘independence’ and ‘art’ in contemporary global film industries.
{"title":"From Chinese independent cinema to art cinema: Convergence and divergence","authors":"Lydia Wu","doi":"10.1386/ac_00044_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00044_1","url":null,"abstract":"With the decline of Chinese independent cinema, art cinema has grown at a fast pace since the mid-2010s in China. There has been a convergence as well as a divergence of independent cinema and art cinema facilitated by institutional reforms of the Chinese film industry. This article examines how small- to medium-sized film production companies work as market actors as well as intermediaries between independent filmmakers, the state and the market to co-opt independent cinema into an officially approved art cinema and activate the market potential of art cinema through engaging with the cultural economy. This officially approved art cinema is not construed as an alternative to, and a form of resistance to, the mainstream but as a booster for the industry. This article offers new insights into the interrelation of artistic, commercial and political interests and demonstrates how these interests shape meanings and modes of ‘independence’ and ‘art’ in contemporary global film industries.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46282431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chinese-language film studies have paid scant attention to the intersection of feminism and postmodernism. This article argues that Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage (1991), a film with a female protagonist and a postmodern narrative format, is demonstrably a feminist film. The parodic representation of protagonist Ruan Lingyu and the film’s scripted re-enactments of scenes from Hong Kong cinema are revealed as postmodern aesthetic processes, through which traditional gender norms can be explored and questioned. Finally, the article examines Kwan’s unique, self-reflexive narrative practice, which constructs an alternative female celebrity biopic and situates the film firmly as feminist historiographic metafiction.
{"title":"Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage: A feminist film in a postmodern frame","authors":"Yiran Ai","doi":"10.1386/ac_00045_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00045_1","url":null,"abstract":"Chinese-language film studies have paid scant attention to the intersection of feminism and postmodernism. This article argues that Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage (1991), a film with a female protagonist and a postmodern narrative format, is demonstrably a feminist film. The parodic representation of protagonist Ruan Lingyu and the film’s scripted re-enactments of scenes from Hong Kong cinema are revealed as postmodern aesthetic processes, through which traditional gender norms can be explored and questioned. Finally, the article examines Kwan’s unique, self-reflexive narrative practice, which constructs an alternative female celebrity biopic and situates the film firmly as feminist historiographic metafiction.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46949383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Hegemonic Mimicry: Korean Popular Culture of the Twenty-First Century, Kyung Hyun Kim (2021) Durham and London: Duke University Press, 328 pp., ISBN 978-1-47801-449-2, p/bk, $27.95 and e-book, $15.37
{"title":"Hegemonic Mimicry: Korean Popular Culture of the Twenty-First Century, Kyung Hyun Kim (2021)","authors":"R. Hyland","doi":"10.1386/ac_00049_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00049_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Hegemonic Mimicry: Korean Popular Culture of the Twenty-First Century, Kyung Hyun Kim (2021)\u0000Durham and London: Duke University Press, 328 pp.,\u0000ISBN 978-1-47801-449-2, p/bk, $27.95 and e-book, $15.37","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49232478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The FIRST International Film Festival is an annual grand event for young Chinese film professionals who have just started their careers as film directors. Its current development situation highlights the festival’s importance in the pandemic context. This article is comprised of interviews with attendees at the festival, especially the competitors, and provides a lens through which to interrogate how Chinese young film professionals as neophytes adapt to the post-pandemic environment of the Chinese film industry. By seeking their views on film production, distribution and the festival, this article aims to reveal the state of the film industry during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic period, the current living situation of young Chinese film professionals, how these film professionals connect with the industry and market and how these connections impact on their filmmaking practices.
{"title":"A report on FIRST International Film Festival and an interview with young filmmakers","authors":"Qi Ai","doi":"10.1386/ac_00048_7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00048_7","url":null,"abstract":"The FIRST International Film Festival is an annual grand event for young Chinese film professionals who have just started their careers as film directors. Its current development situation highlights the festival’s importance in the pandemic context. This article is comprised of interviews with attendees at the festival, especially the competitors, and provides a lens through which to interrogate how Chinese young film professionals as neophytes adapt to the post-pandemic environment of the Chinese film industry. By seeking their views on film production, distribution and the festival, this article aims to reveal the state of the film industry during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic period, the current living situation of young Chinese film professionals, how these film professionals connect with the industry and market and how these connections impact on their filmmaking practices.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46805092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The legacy of Akira Kurosawa has become ‘fertile land’, beckoning a plethora of intercultural and intermedia adaptations. Rashōmon (1950), which is adapted from two short stories by the great Japanese writer Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927), namely, ‘Rashōmon’ (1915) and ‘In a Grove’ (1922), surprised Hollywood by refusing the dominant traditional narrative techniques of the period. Although this masterpiece was created over half a century ago, it has been reproduced continually through multimediated practices. Rashōmon was a cognitive explosion that revolutionized western perceptions of the creative and imaginative potential of eastern cinema. Since its release, this cinematic masterpiece has been rewritten and recontextualized into a slew of film, stage and musical productions. Adaptation is the process of reinterpreting and negotiating a target text for new cultural and sign biospheres. This work analyses the transformation process of Rashōmon into the movie adaptations The Outrage (Ritt 1964) (United States) and อุโมงค์ผาเมือง (The Outrage, also known as At the Gate of the Ghost) (Devakula 2011) (Thailand) to answer the following questions: what elements are added, amplified or excluded in the Rashōmon adaptations? Can the recontextualization of Rashōmon in the United States and Thailand show how the Rashōmon adaptations accommodate and confront cultural and epochal similarities and differences? What translatable and adaptable ‘textual gaps’ allow the adaptations to discourse and reinterpret the source/original/adapted texts? This article uses theory of adaptation as the main theoretical framework to address the questions above.
{"title":"East–West rewriting and recontextualization: Approaching Rashōmon (Akira Kurosawa) and its afterlives from adaptation theory","authors":"Le Quoc Hieu","doi":"10.1386/ac_00047_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00047_1","url":null,"abstract":"The legacy of Akira Kurosawa has become ‘fertile land’, beckoning a plethora of intercultural and intermedia adaptations. Rashōmon (1950), which is adapted from two short stories by the great Japanese writer Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927), namely, ‘Rashōmon’ (1915) and ‘In a Grove’ (1922), surprised Hollywood by refusing the dominant traditional narrative techniques of the period. Although this masterpiece was created over half a century ago, it has been reproduced continually through multimediated practices. Rashōmon was a cognitive explosion that revolutionized western perceptions of the creative and imaginative potential of eastern cinema. Since its release, this cinematic masterpiece has been rewritten and recontextualized into a slew of film, stage and musical productions. Adaptation is the process of reinterpreting and negotiating a target text for new cultural and sign biospheres. This work analyses the transformation process of Rashōmon into the movie adaptations The Outrage (Ritt 1964) (United States) and อุโมงค์ผาเมือง (The Outrage, also known as At the Gate of the Ghost) (Devakula 2011) (Thailand) to answer the following questions: what elements are added, amplified or excluded in the Rashōmon adaptations? Can the recontextualization of Rashōmon in the United States and Thailand show how the Rashōmon adaptations accommodate and confront cultural and epochal similarities and differences? What translatable and adaptable ‘textual gaps’ allow the adaptations to discourse and reinterpret the source/original/adapted texts? This article uses theory of adaptation as the main theoretical framework to address the questions above.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66687821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article will examine the way in which Koreans are mobilized in Kitano Takeshi’s Outrage series and how their representations may be related to Kitano’s vision of Japan. In order to do so, the article first places the Outrage trilogy in the context of Kitano’s other films as well as previous representations of Koreans in Japanese yakuza (gangster) films in general. The article then continues to explore the role of Korean characters in Outrage Beyond and Coda and discusses the way in which the seemingly progressive transnational bonding and Korean representation may confirm Kitano’s romantic nationalism or what I would call ‘melancholic nationalism’.
{"title":"Kitano Takeshi’s ‘melancholic nationalism’ and the role of Koreans in the Outrage trilogy1","authors":"Mika Ko","doi":"10.1386/ac_00046_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00046_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article will examine the way in which Koreans are mobilized in Kitano Takeshi’s Outrage series and how their representations may be related to Kitano’s vision of Japan. In order to do so, the article first places the Outrage trilogy in the context of Kitano’s other films as well as previous representations of Koreans in Japanese yakuza (gangster) films in general. The article then continues to explore the role of Korean characters in Outrage Beyond and Coda and discusses the way in which the seemingly progressive transnational bonding and Korean representation may confirm Kitano’s romantic nationalism or what I would call ‘melancholic nationalism’.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45300527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article attempts to trace the historical development of the period costume dramas known as Purba films, a prototyped genre for Malay cinema produced in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur during the ‘studio era’ from the late 1940s to early 1970s. Either adapted from folk literature/theatre and historical texts or based on original ideas by the screenwriters/directors, Purba films are set in the pre-colonial era, invariably in a kampong and glorify the Malay world prior to the arrival of the imperialists. I argue that the genre, which encompasses diverse variants and subdivisions, has undergone several phases of transformation and evolution, in particular, while drawing out the genre’s codes, conventions and ideologies. Additionally, I demonstrate that they are, on the one hand, culturally and cinematically specific, and, on the other, are borrowed from, and shaped by, other cinematic genres, forms and practices. The discussion also provides evidence on how Purba films were situated within the cultural and industrial contexts.
{"title":"Purba film as a prototype of Malay film genre: A preliminary exploration","authors":"N. Yusoff","doi":"10.1386/ac_00042_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00042_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article attempts to trace the historical development of the period costume dramas known as Purba films, a prototyped genre for Malay cinema produced in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur during the ‘studio era’ from the late 1940s to early 1970s. Either adapted from\u0000 folk literature/theatre and historical texts or based on original ideas by the screenwriters/directors, Purba films are set in the pre-colonial era, invariably in a kampong and glorify the Malay world prior to the arrival of the imperialists. I argue that the genre, which encompasses\u0000 diverse variants and subdivisions, has undergone several phases of transformation and evolution, in particular, while drawing out the genre’s codes, conventions and ideologies. Additionally, I demonstrate that they are, on the one hand, culturally and cinematically specific, and, on\u0000 the other, are borrowed from, and shaped by, other cinematic genres, forms and practices. The discussion also provides evidence on how Purba films were situated within the cultural and industrial contexts.","PeriodicalId":41198,"journal":{"name":"Asian Cinema","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45579006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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