Category: Filming the Modern Asian City

Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City

[Reading Response]: Seng E Noirs: The City, The women and other spaces

Posted on karinhoo

This article discusses about the social status of women in Hong Kong Cinema during the 1960s especially in the genres of melodrama and noir thriller. The article shed light on the geopolitical tension and how gender inequality deteriorated accomplished by modernization of the city. The article used James bonds series on Hong Kong’s noir thriller genre and the prominence of female lead in Cantonese-language films. They emphasise women’s beauty, physical power and intelligence, which tried to tell the public that women can also be strong, independent and work in the society. In this article, they also discuss how movies utilise

Continue reading[Reading Response]: Seng E Noirs: The City, The women and other spaces

Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City

Filming the Modern Asian City

Posted on u3610652@connect.hku.hk

Using Love of Labour, an early comedy film, as a case study, Zhang Zhen focuses on the gradual replacement of the huge influence of traditional Chinese theatre on cinema by cinematic means of expression and plot treatment in the 1920s. I personally believe that any family ethical drama has a tendency to inwardly orientate its plot, such as psychological motivation, but this inward shift is better explained by class and gender perceptions of the time. At the same time, how did the early filmmakers change their narrative techniques in order to cope with the inward shift in the plot of

Continue readingFilming the Modern Asian City

Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Lee, Leo Ou Fan

Posted on u3593980@connect.hku.hk

Leo’s piece compared the traditions of Chinese and Western cinema, discussing whether there was really a “native” tradition to Chinese cinema. He initially posited that Chinese cinema was a “direct transposition of conventional spoken drama”, which he later found too simplistic. However, I argue that in the prewar era, the Chinese could hardly differentiate film and theatre as two segregated mediums. If we consider carefully the development of Chinese films, Leo held a legitimate argument. The very first Chinese film believed to be produced “Ding Jun Shan” was a recording of the performance of a Beijing opera group. In fact,

Continue readingReading Response: Lee, Leo Ou Fan

Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City, Lecture 2 Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Posted on u3580585

This reading is exceptionally thought-provoking that carefully portrayed the colonial Hong Kong’s cultural and historical development through architecture and cinema and it’s disappearance from Hong Kong in postcolonial. The postcolonial Hong Kong since 1997 resulted in a commercialised and urban future of Hong Kong with influx of migrant workers looking for a home and rapid financial industry development. Tai Kwun in Central, which used to be a police station is the perfect example for the disappearance of cultural and historical sites in postcolonial and its conversion into commercialisation as it is now used as a tourist site with shops. Though

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City, Lecture 2 Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Posted on u3582792

In order to convey the idea that preservation is posited on the disappearance of the historical site, Ackbar defines preservation as selective and tends to exclude the dirt and pain, and provides three examples that illustrate three perspectives: we should not retain the building s that assimilate into the surrounding environment but still creates the gaze of coloniality, troubling people’s cognition of identities; the reincarnation of old buildings is not preservation  since it aestheticizing the house out of existence; rebuild has its aesthetic meanings in films or architecture but no longer contain the idea of preservation. We can see that

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Cat Links 2021 Blog, Filming the Modern Asian City

[READING RESPONSE] ABBAS, M.A.

Posted on sumkie

Chan Sum Kie Dorcas u3579263 The past, to me, is incredibly fascinating.  The world where people lived harmoniously without the distractions of technology and enjoyed nature’s breeze every day, the freshness and freedom made the past seem like the ideal world to live in.  I often crave songs from my parents’ (or even grandparents’) generation.  One would think that things from past generations may be outdated, but in reality, the comments under old music videos are filled with youngsters like me who don’t even belong in the generation.  Comments like “reliving my nonexistent 70/80/90s memories” are usually the top comments

Continue reading[READING RESPONSE] ABBAS, M.A.

Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City, Uncategorized

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Posted on u3579796

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas City evolves, building ages, people change. There is no eternal principle to the built environment, and Hong Kong as a city where the east meets the west is no exception. In this high time when many questions the true identity of Hong Kong, Abbas’s writing brings in-depth reflection from the perspective of architecture on how the city is shaped. As a past colony of the British Empire, Hong Kong is a city in the east while preserving many western, often British characteristics. Victorian style architecture such as the Murray House the Old Supreme Court and more

Continue readingReading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Cat Links Filming the Modern Asian City

[Reading response] Ackbar Abbas

Posted on daeun

The article mainly discusses about disappearance of historical identity and emergence of anonymity of architecture. He does not only account for physical disappearance, but fading away of the historical meaning it possesses within the architecture. It is further emphasized in films which reflects a city in a specific manner resulting in changing the city’s image. For example, Hong Kong used to be an international port where many trades occurred between countries, a city in China and a British colony. However, large and compact buildings were necessary on such a small land available. Consequently, Hong Kong became a globalized city and

Continue reading[Reading response] Ackbar Abbas

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

Continue readingSpatio-temporal Connections at Zero Degree of Film

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

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