One of the ideas in the reading fascinates me is that the writer has mentioned how directors use their camera and mise-en-scene to show their own ideology. For example, Street Angel (1937) uses the shot panning from the top of the skyscraper down to the grassroot people to show the contrast between different social classes. In 1950, Kaleidoscope also used Hong Kong’s urban space to depict the hardship of the poor in order to spread the leftist idea and criticism about the capitalist. This is surprising to me how the role of urban space is important in film in terms of spreading ideology as well as giving different kinds of feelings to the audience.
On the Other hand, the film The Wicked City (1992) uses the Hong Kong urban space to create the image that Hong Kong is rich and appealing, yet revealing afterwards its weakness which is a completely different approach to the early films mentioned. However, both of their targets are to depict Hong Kong negatively. This shows that there are different approaches in the same city to show a similar view.
Chiu Man Tsoi Janette
UID: 3036078261
Your response shows good understanding of Leung’s dissection of how ideology is implied in cinematography and the depiction of the city. To strengthen your argument, you can compare how the same filming techniques are used in different films to achieve different ideological effects in the portrayal of urban environments.