HOOKED ON YOU, DIR. LAW WING CHEONG (2007)
Luen Wo Market, Fanling, Hong Kong
The Fortune Market gang toke a photo in front of the plaque before the demolition of the market. Scenes from the ’ Hooked On You’ (2007), directed by Law Wing Cheong.
Hooked on You is a 2007 Hong Kong comedy-drama film. The storyline was started in 1997 when Miu was a twenty-seven year-old fishmonger working at the Fortune Market. She needed to clear the debts of her gambling and whoring father. Miu dreamed to achieve financial stability and leave Fortune Market one day. She wanted to marry a husband, who had a high socioeconomic status, before turning into thirty, so she ruled out her neighbor stalls Porky and Fishman. As the new supermarket threatened the business of the market, the Fortunate Market gang introduced promotions and sales to fight against it. However, the Fortune Market could not escape from the fate of teardown at last. Stepping into thirty, Miu finally knows that the game of continuously changing and she has missed so much in these years. Luen Wo Market in Fanling is the major filming location of the Fortune Market.
In the film, Luen Wo Market was depicted to be a crowed and boisterous area contained a lot of stalls and customers. It was a lively place filled with sellers’ shouts and the milk of human kindness within the community. The night view of Luen Wo Market is also filmed to illustrate the lifestyle of sellers. In reality, Luen Wo Market becomes a warehouse. It cannot be entered by visitors except there is an exhibition or event. Without human activities in the market, the place becomes cold, deserted and desolate, which create a great contrast with the market in the film. The market is experienced to widen the distance and the relationship with people. Differ from the plaque in the film with clear wordings, the Chinese words on it are either faded out or covered by the nearby climbers and foliage in reality. The whole architectural structure of the building remains unchanged, columns and beams are still there. They show the trace of time and witness the historical change in the district.
Luen Wo Market nowadays: The plague is covered by foliage.
The Fortune Market is a metaphor of Hong Kong. Wet market represents local values and community spirit. This vernacular architecture does not only reflects the lifestyle of Hongkongers, but also contributes to enhance the sense of place and the sense of identity via cultural memory in the district. The timeline is set in the year of the Handover of Hong Kong when a majority of Hongkongers are longing for a better future. People always hope that things can remain unchanged and last forever. One of the characters even stated the wish of Fortune Market to remain unchanged for 50 years, which is the same as the China’s promise in 1997 about Hong Kong itself. Nevertheless, as time passed, the experience of changing becomes more significant. The film uses lots of full shots and framing of the market with different saturation and brightness of colours to create certain atmosphere in a cultural context. The disappearance and reappearance, as well as the demolition and reconstruction of Fortune Market showcase the helplessness of the gap between the hope of the future and the transformation in reality.
— Law Vanessa Lok Tung 3035825095
- Video taken outside of the Luen Wo Market showing the facade of the vernacular architecture.
Left: A view inside of the Fortune Market. Scenes from the ’ Hooked On You’ (2007), directed by Law Wing Cheong. Right: A vew inside of the Luen Wo Market nowadays.
What an irony that the storyline of this film is actually focused on how the modernisation threat lurked behind the Fortune Market when in reality the real threat was abandonment. In the end, neither brought the Fortune Market a happy ending. To pick up on your description, expanding on how the market represented the distance and relationship between people would be a great way to demonstrate how the local values and community spirit was related to both the film and real life. You also mentioned the disappearance and reappearance in your last paragraph. It could be helpful to also reflect on how this concept of disappearance/reappearance was portrayed in the film. What has been disappearing in Luen Wo Market? What have the disappearance meant for the market, or the society, or the city? Consider using one of the key ideas we have discussed in the class to read through the site and build your argument.