Category: 2022 Blog

Cat Links 2023 Blog, Final Video Essay

[Field-Homework 3] Slow City: Tin Shui Wai’s Tram Story

Posted on clh648@connect.hku.hk

Slow City: Tin Shui Wai’s Tram Story Director: CHEN LIHENG Theme and Subject This video reveals a hidden corner in Hong Kong where the slow pace of lifestyle dominates, Tin Shui Wai. Tin Shui Wai features its unique public transportation, the tram. The tram plays a significant role in residents’ daily lives. It serves the community by connecting the private residential areas and the public facilities, including parks, malls, and the MTR station. The light railway finally forms a circle in Tin Shui Wai and merges with the community harmoniously. The interactions between the residents and the landscape showcase a

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Cat Links Lecture 7: Monsters, Materials & Skyscrapers

Reading response: Abbas

Posted on pennyw@connect.hku.hk

The writer claims that Hong Kong’s colonial space is particularly a space of disappearance. However, what he means is disappearance does not imply going entirely unnoticed. It can work really well with projects of preservation and a concern for the present. The writer brings out three examples to support his argument. They are Hong Kong Cultural Center, Flagstaff House, and Repulse Bay Hotel. He against the use of preservation as history to bring about the disappearance of history. Preservation of these architecture intentionally add Chinese elements into colonial architecture or integrate the “old” and the “new”. It leads to the

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Cat Links Lecture 7: Monsters, Materials & Skyscrapers

[Reading Response: Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of disappearance]

Posted on u3600267@connect.hku.hk

The reading talks about how the buildings in Hong Kong show how the city has changed over time. The writer provides a valuable perspective on the complex interplay between architecture, colonialism, and identity in Hong Kong. It also mentions the constructed environment of the city reflects a process of “disappearance,” and draws attention to how colonial influences are gradually being replaced by a more Chinese identity. The reading also offers a helpful analysis of the role of architecture in shaping cultural individuality, based on the reading, the term “disappearance” involves a shift from the colonial history of Hong Kong, which

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Cat Links Lecture 7: Monsters, Materials & Skyscrapers, Uncategorized

Reading Response: Abbas, M. A.

Posted on u3597773@connect.hku.hk

Just from the article’s title “Oh No, There Goes Tokyo” we can understand Tsutsui’s view on the destruction of Tokyo in science-fiction movies. Tsutsui agrees with the many Japanese filmmakers who take on the genre in a playful and humorous way. Japan’s traumatic history: atomic bombings and natural disasters prompted the creation of many fantastical creatures in the science fiction genre. Such creatures have a dual function: it serves as a therapeutic way for filmmakers to understand and confront their own fears, whilst also being a source of comfort for filmgoers who relate to such anxieties. Tsutsui mentions the concept

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Cat Links Lecture 7: Monsters, Materials & Skyscrapers

[Reading response: Abbas, M.A.]

Posted on u3606431@connect.hku.hk

In the article, the writer mentioned that Hong Kong is an open city that is exposed to all architectural styles and influences, however, architecture has frequently been built and rebuilt due to the rapid economic development. I would like to express the feeling of regret on this point that Hong Kong will eventually lose its cultural memories, for example, Central mentioned in the text, remains only a little vestige of this History. We cannot change the fact that Hong Kong’s architecture is inscribed in building space as capitalism, owing to the hyperdensity and the economic status. Hong Kong is a unique

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Cat Links Lecture 6: Housing Stories

Reading Response: Ancuta

Posted on u3595264@connect.hku.hk

The reading from Ancuta criticize urbanization in the cultural perspective. Using ghosts to reflect the failure of urbanization, Ancuta outlines the “loss of humanity” in the process where rural populations move into the city. Urbanization, with the build-up of sky scrapers using cold indifferent concrete, has turned into monsters with the shell of technology. Specifically in Hong Kong, due to the high population density, skyscrapers have to be built closely together, with little space left between them, making it the ideal setting for horror movies. The apartment’s inhabitants, often vulnerable and fragile with little exposure to nature, stares at the

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Cat Links Lecture 6: Housing Stories, Lecture 6: Housing Stories

Reading Response: Katarzyna Ancuta

Posted on u3606395@connect.hku.hk

Scared of confronting our past and facing the future, we represent the ghosts in ghost movies. Especially living in a modernistic, glamorized city like Hong Kong where everything is happening everywhere all at once, as the city grows, so does the fear of loneliness and social isolation of those who are socially and culturally marginalized. Despite us not being physically alone in this highly-packed, densely-populated city, we feel socially alone. In many ways, that could be even scarier than being physically alone. Apt (2006) provides us with a horror perspective of social loneliness from the protagonist’s disturbing experience in her

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Cat Links Lecture 6: Housing Stories

[READING RESPONSE] Ancuta, K. (2020)

Posted on fishyujo@connect.hku.hk

It is inspiring to discover how ghosts are and represent in films that features Asian apartment buildings. Initially we would approach ghost films as just a medium of gaining stimulations due to hedonic revesral effect (Classen et al., 2020).  However, these films could actually be: the portrayal of contiguous community where ghost lives together in the space along side the living; the representation of the alienating character of modern urban communal lifestyles so as the fear of being isolated; and the representation of the failed dream of economic success that continues to drive Asian rural-urban migration.  Taking the Korean movie

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Cat Links 2023 Blog, Fieldwork

[Fieldwork Podcast]: Limbo (2021)

Posted on u3610018@connect.hku.hk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-LrUfW5Gt99WfyLtbY2XTT7wNAO_kjQ4/view?usp=share_link (Due to copyright limits, the video is uploaded on google drive)   Synopsis: Limbo is an action thiller film directed by Cheang Pou-soi and released in 2021. The film is based on the Chinese novelist Lei Mi’s  novel Wisdom Tooth. The play is about a serial murder case that happened among marginalized people of Hong Kong society.   Script: James: Hello everyone, my name is James. Juan: I’m Juan. James: The movie we are discussing today is Limbo. Today, we’re going to talk about the film’s unique portrayal of space and place. Juan: That’s right, James. Director Cheang Pou-soi

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Cat Links Lecture 6 Housing Stories, Lecture 6: Housing Stories

Reading Response: Katarzyna Ancuta

Posted on u3598375@connect.hku.hk

It’s not usual to see analysis on ghost themed movies. Horror movies are relatively underestimated since people usually treat them ways to seek excitements so the plots and techniques tend to be ignored by the audience. However, this reading lists out many symbols of ghosts may represent, especially connecting to modern people’s living condition and life style. In mega cities, senses of insecure and unfamiliar create a fear that specific to city people which gradually develop into a social notion, which thus converge into the ghosts in these movies. I would like to share my idea over the horror movie

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