All contents related to 2019 CCHU course are placed and archive here.

Category: 2019 Blog

Cat Links Workshop 2

Workshop 2: Interview with Mr. Second Chan

Posted on Yuqi

Questions: 1) What are some of the characteristics you learned from the architectural school that contributed to building these dramatic sets; and 2) I noticed that in your films, for example, in Kungfu Hustle, the dilapidated tenement of Pigsty Alley is very dramatic, unlike the Kowloon City from which the name is derived, what is the preparation process for coming up with such brilliant ideas? Answer from Mr. Second Chan: “[As an art director] in the movie industry, my ultimate goal is to tell the story. That’s the very reason why we are needed: to deliver the story. When we

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Cat Links Uncategorized, Workshop 2

Workshop 2: Interview

Posted on Tin Chi

Image from Kung Fu Hustle (2004) Wong Tin Chi:  As technology keep improve nowadays, movies usually used CG (computer graphics) to building some of the set, and I see your new movie Transition has used many CG. Do you prefer to build the sets with computers CG or build in real as much as possible? Second Chan: Actually computer graphics only starting using in these decades as the technology development. In early, there are no CG in the movie but the movie are also interesting, right? o I think people are now over-using CG and I think we should build a

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Cat Links Uncategorized, Workshop 2

Workshop 2 Response

Posted on Emily Mei Chang

Question: As persons working in the creative field, how do you balance between being historically/culturally accurate and telling the story? As both of you mentioned, you both enjoy creating your own art, be it the clothes or the props as it best able to bring out the feel that you would like to tell the story. However, as content creators we also have the responsibility of being historically/culturally accurate as it through through films that people get a glimpse of the time period or the city. So, how would you balance the two and how much is it important for

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Cat Links Workshop 2

Workshop 2: Interview with Second Chan

Posted on Jieming

  Push (2009), a Hollywood action film set in HK     Question and response Zhu: Mr. Chan, I have looked at your profile on IMDB and found out that you have engaged in a lot of transnational filmmaking, where you cooperated with Euro-American directors, playwrights, production teams or film companies. For instance, Push (2009) and Iron Man 3 (2013) are basically Hollywood films with Chinese/HK elements; My Lucky Star (2013) is the work of a US director; Trail of Panda (2009) is produced by the Walter Disney Company. Also quite a few Jackie Chan movie, like Karate Kid (2010)

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Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City

Spatio-temporal Connections at Zero Degree of Film

Posted on Sum Yuet Faustine

Architects of Time: Reel Images from Warhol To Tsai Ming-Liang brings me to the new realm of film and architecture, seeing filmatic architecture with new eyes.  One may feel confused why architecture is a film. But after watching Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964), I am convinced that architecture is indeed a film. The reflective quality of Empire’s facade becomes a large screen where an urban film displays. The building plays the changing of time with diffraction. The light texture of architecture enables high sensitivity to the “atmosphere”, hence architecture becomes a “pure atmosphere” and a film. However, one not only feels

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Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City

“The preservation of history often brings about it’s disappearance”

Posted on Sophia

Abbas talks about the culture of disappearance within Hong Kong, and the issues surrounding it. Abbas claims that preservation, particularly in the Hong Kong context actually brings about the disappearance of culture. Abbas says: “the notion of disappearance I am alluding to does not connote vanishing without a trace”.  The issue of Hong Kong’s cultural and architectural preservation, according to Abbas, is that history is selectively preserved and therefore doesn’t bring about the real substance of Hong Kong’s identity. An example brought up by Abbas is Kowloon Walled City, and the backlash that was brought upon its demolishment. Although Hong

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Cat Links Architecture, Film + The Modern City, Uncategorized

Reading Response 1: Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space

Posted on Holly

Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space In this reading ‘Building on Disappearance’, Ackbar Abbas exemplifies and critiques the political and economical factors that influence of culture of Hong Kong through space and architecture. He claims that the identity of Hong Kong represented in architecture, has been reduced to anonymity and hyper-density and influences of external powers, weather it be foreign architects, international business buildings, and political colonizers. The historical representation of the city is threatened, and it doesn’t have to take the physical demolition of monumental buildings to see that. The attempts for preservation of cultural places

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Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City, Uncategorized

Hong Kong as a City of Disappearance

Posted on Yui Kan Karie

In Abbas’ Hong Kong: Culture and Politics of Disappearance (1997), Hong Kong is presented as a city of disappearance, where there exists a gap, or hysteresis, between the city and its representation through media and architecture. Hong Kong exists in a limbo between its identity as a British colony and a Chinese city, and an overarching sense of nostalgia colours our image into one of a fleeting, unstable nature. Abbas contends that our image of the city is one that views Hong Kong from a distant and impersonal lens; architecture and iconic landmarks are used as easily recogniseable symbols to represent

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Cat Links Architecture, Film + The Modern City

[Reading Response I] The Alluring Atmosphere of Cinema Halls

Posted on Saima

In the piece ‘Leaving the Movie Theater’, author Roland Barthes explores the dazed and disjointed feeling of exiting a cinema hall. He argues that, through the processes of transfixion and reflection, the audience are ‘hypnotised’ with the film and are left feeling muddled and disconnected, wrapped up in themselves. However, Barthes argues, it is not sufficient to merely reflect on your affair with the film – instead, a successful cinematic experience would ensure that the film possesses you, to the point where your gaze is stuck on the screen and nothing else can call to your attention. Only then, when

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Cat Links Architecture, Film + The Modern City

Reading response 1

Posted on Wenjun

In the reading ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility’, some interesting arguments the author gives are about the comparison between ancient technology of artwork (The Greeks’, for example) and today’s technologically reproducible art, like film. And also he has some unique comment about film production. He seems trying to argue that film is more specialized, fragmented, made collectively, less individual spirit, and the reproducibility of these work of art has some effects on the aura of artwork. The way how the audience accept films is as important as how the film is reproduced. That should

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