[READING RESPONSE: ACKBAR ABBARS]

This essay discussed ideas which are exorbitant city and generic city. Hong Kong have shown a lot in local films as exorbitant city previously under Abbars classification, which city fill with glassy skyscrapers and hang over neon/LED light advert boards that looks like a replica of each others. Compared to western cities like New York and London, Hong Kong developed much later. Classical tall buildings which were built in early 20 centuries were more commonly found in those western cities, and changing to glassy skyscrapers of today. Form the sky line of those cities, people could observe old and new,

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[READING RESPONSE: ACKBAR ABBAS]

Ackbar Abbas successfully introduces the concept of ‘exorbitant city’ and the ‘Generic city’ to further enhance the understanding of the Globalization and architectures. It was interesting that the explanation and characteristic of the exorbitant city reminded me of the city mentioned in “Metropolis” by Lang, in which the details were monotonous and overflowing with same pattern, depicting in some ways what the reading mentioned as “we learn more about the image through the city.” Borrowing from Ackbar’s words, the city is not photogenic, but rather overflowing with details that are not distinguishable of the particular location and country of the

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[Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas]

The exorbitant and generic cities are introduced in this chapter of Abbas’ book. What caught my eye is the irony of cities wanting to be legible and imageable and hence boosting their visuals but instead turning into the opposite problem of hypervisibility and instant recognition. Hence, as such anomalies multiply in the city, they become too generic. The book states Hong Kong as one of such examples, but I disagree with such a view since I think as long as there is a cultural and traditional heritage these “anomalies” do not become generic even if they add up. I think

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[Reading Response: Ackbar Abbars]

In the reading, the concepts of  ‘exorbitant city’ and ‘generic city’. Such two concepts initially seem unrelated, the exorbitant being the form of the city as described and created by its inhabitants and the generic being the actual city itself. Under the effect of globalization, many global cities, including Hong Kong, became replicas of each other, seeming to lose their own identities. Famous designers’ skyscrapers, big malls, international chain stores, busy streets, all of the same formula. Yet, the form of the exorbitant city reminds us that there are more than the physical components of the city that are visible

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[READING RESPONSE: ACKBAR ABBAS]

What is the relation between cities and cinema? The cinematic image contains the entire process of urban development. It shows the “image of the city” which makes the city invisible. We could understand the history of the cities and the daily life in the past from the cinematic images. It is interesting that every city wants to have a label to identify itself. These images or labels are tools to boost their tourist trade which can also improve the influences of the city. For example, Shanghai is known as the Paris of the East which presents a prosperous city. On

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Reading Response: Abbas, M. A.

What is a generic city? Can a city be both generic and exorbitant at the same time? To me, both generic and exorbitant cannot be explained literally. Their meaning is not exactly the same as the one in a dictionary. Maybe generic means a city can be represented in a photo while exorbitant means a city with different cultures and histories. Although Abbas considered that an exorbitant city cannot be generic or photogenic at the same time, I believe that it is possible for both of them to coexist. In my view, whether the city is generic or exorbitant is

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[Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

This reading is mainly talk about two types of city, which is generic and exorbitant city. These might be not a words that people use often, but this is just s word that use to show the style of the city. Cinema portrait the characteristic of those cities. As an example, I could see the characteristic of the exorbitant city, which is a type of city that fulls of buildings and light that looks like a maze. Hong Kong has more of this type of style and this shown a lot in those previous Hong Kong film. On the otherhand

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[READING RESPONSE: ACKBAR ABBAS]

  This reading has deeply explored the main two area; Exorbitant city and Generic city. It was interesting that he attempted to expand on exorbitant city as he said ‘Kublai Khan possesses a vast empire but does not know its cities, hence his melancholia.’. Exorbitant city is something that cannot be taken in one scene as it is not photogenic. In other words, it is a boundless city and hence it creates own repertoire rather than following the repertoire. Then, Abbas continued to the generic cityl; he defined as a city that is independent from a history, which the city

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[Reading Response:ACKBAR ABBAS ]

  In this reading, the city with the complexity of physical size and population, historical and cultural change, and movement is been defined as exorbitant while the city with less uniqueness tends to be described generically. However, as the city prospect model is shown in tutorial class, the generosity and exorbitance could coexist. For example, the unique atmosphere was depicted in Kar Wai Wong’s movie “In the Mood for Love” that combined the implicative Chinese style romance and the fashion clothing as well as the modern city background, conveying a special erotic dimension in the movie, which could be the exorbitant perspective

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Reading Response – Ackbar Abbas

Ackbar Abbas looks into the enduring paradox of urban modernity through the lens of the exorbitant and generic city. Hong Kong itself has a rich identity as post colonial city, the city has mundane or memorable stories everyday, rapid development, and the ever-changing nature has vivid colours of its own. However, the exorbitance is almost invisible by looking into the city scape, cinema challenges that and represent the exorbitance of the city and emerge in the backdrop, that allow the urban city to exceed its function that helps to unfolding the narrative. According to the passage, “The great promise of

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