Author: Song Yiqun

Cat Links 2024 Blog, Final Video Essay

[Field-Homework 3] The Extinguished City: Fading Neon Signs, Portland Street, Mong Kok; Yau Ma Tei

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Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/lzP5z6pzz0I   Title: The Extinguished City: Fading Neon Signs, Portland Street, Mong Kok; Yau Ma Tei Video: directed and edited by Song Yiqun     The theme I chose is the fading of neon signs as a phenomenon that reflects the changing urban landscape of Hong Kong in the process of modernization. The field research was conducted in Yau Ma Tei and Portland Street in Mong Kok.   Hong Kong as a global city of commerce and cultural intermingling has emerged neon sign as a symbol with regional cultural characteristics in the development process. The first local neon

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Cat Links 2024 Blog, Lecture 7: Monsters, Materials & Skyscrapers

[READING RESPONSE] WILLIAM M. TSUTSUI: OH NO, THERE GOES TOKYO

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The article mentions that Japan’s cultural make-up and ideology are influenced by history and war. Japanese popular culture is filled with the darkness and pessimism of apocalyptic imagery, and people are obsessed with scenes of urban destruction and fantasies of rebuilding a peaceful landscape after that. Depictions of the apocalypse appear in many Japanese films, such as the movie Godzilla, spawned by the Japanese people’s fear of nuclear strike, which focuses the world’s conflict on a fantastical creature mutated by nuclear radiation, whose death symbolizes the demise of the threat and the establishment of a new order. The Tokyo city

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Cat Links Lecture 6 Housing Stories

Class Exercise “Moving House” Reflections—Song Yiqun

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When the family goes to the cemetery at the beginning of the video, the whole picture of the video is dim, only a circle of candles swinging a weak warm light, people holding flashlights in their hands, the light reflects on their faces to symbolize that something unusual is going to happen because of their behavior breaks the original silence and darkness of the environment.   SONG YIQUN 3036097293

Cat Links 2024 Blog, Workshop 1: Building Sets, Spaces & the City + Costumes, Characters & Urban Situations

Workshop 2 Song Yiqun

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The picture of the elder person sitting next to a leaning old tree, in black and white, with moving traffic behind him and reflections of water stains on the ground and on his raincoat, expresses the stillness of the figure in the center of the picture, who may have just experienced a family tragedy that has left him at a low point in his mood.     Song Yiqun 3036097293

Cat Links 2024 Blog, Workshop 2: Dreamland Film Screening + Director's Chat

Question for Director Steve Chen

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There are a lot of shots in the movie that don’t show the characters’ faces, such as a female descending a staircase where only the lower half of her body is filmed in motion as she walks down the staircase, and a shot of singing in a karaoke bar where all the surrounding area is blurred, and only the distant view of the two people in the center, sitting on the couch, is clear. Did you intentionally frame it this way? There is also sometimes a color block or a bit of color inconsistency in the scenes, for instance, when

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Cat Links 2024 Blog, Fieldwork

[FIELDWORK] LITTLE CHEUNG, SONG Yiqun & ZHANG Xinyi

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LITTLE CHEUNG, DIR. FRUIT CHEN (1999)            Tong Lau, Yau Ma Tei District, Hong Kong   Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/_YDrGCNKj-s?si=l5d351GvP-MVaWcO   V: Hello and welcome to today’s Movie and Architecture Appreciation podcast. I am the host Vivien.   F: Hi everyone, I’m Floss, and the topic of today’s podcast is spaces, buildings or objects that will no longer exist in Hong Kong in ten years’ time.     Background Sources   V: First of all, we will start with introducing the background source of this blog. Little Cheung is a Hong Kong movie released in 1999, directed by Fruit

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Cat Links 2024 Blog, Lecture 3: The Post-war Asian City as Set

[READING RESPONSE] Leung Ping-kwan: URBAN CINEMA AND THE CULTURAL IDENTITY OF HONG KONG

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Hong Kong cinema of the 20th century mentioned in the article indicates its urban construction and the awakening, dialectic and individuation of the cultural identity. I think these movies frequently use the depiction of figurative architecture as a metaphor for the context and spirit behind the surface, using images and plots that are close to reality to resonate with the audience. For instance, the close-up of the hanging laundry room in the movie Space is gold highlights the isolated and crowded living environment in the urban framework. Laundry as a common architectural element of daily life devalues the rationalization of

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