https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCkLxMLfVRo
Comrades: Almost a Love Story is a Hong Kong romantic film released in 1996. The movie is directed by Peter Chan and stars Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai as the main protagonists. The movie tells the story of two migrants, Fang Xiaoting and Li Qiao, from mainland China who move to Hong Kong in the 1980s in search of better opportunities. Their friendship slowly blossoms into a complicated romance over the next decade. The film explores themes of migration as the movie shows the lives of the two characters migrating from the countryside to Hong Kong city, to New York City.
The film starts with a scene that is in black and white, showing the main character Li Qiao arriving by train to Kowloon, from mainland China. He takes an escalator up to exit the station. The level above is depicted as brightly lit and only can be seen as a bright light. This is reminiscent of scenes showing one going to heaven. The act of travelling up the escalator can be interpreted as he is entering someplace better, someplace that is of a higher status. He is moving up in the world by taking that escalator up to a place filled with colour that is modern. It suggests that these migrants hope to move up the social ladder and have a better life by coming to Hong Kong.
The first time we had a look at Hong Kong, we viewed it from inside a taxi looking out. As a foreigner to Hong Kong, we get our first glimpse of the city when riding a taxi. The scene is accompanied by a narration of a letter Li Qiao wrote to his girlfriend on the mainland on his first impressions of the city. We see colourful signs on the streets of Hong Kong, signifying the vibrant hope and aspirations that these migrants have as they enter Hong Kong.
Li Qiao starts out in the film staying in his aunt’s bathroom. The living quarters of Li Qiao are seen as cramped, sharing an apartment with many strangers speaking many languages that he does not understand. The apartment is shown to be old, worn out and poorly lit. This showcases the poor living conditions that many migrants have to endure as they come to Hong Kong to seek a better life.
Another location prominent in the narrative is a typical Kowloon branch of McDonald’s, functioning as the first meeting site of our two protagonists. Although having opened various branches in mainland China in the 1990s following the Deng reforms, in those days McDonald’s primarily marketed itself towards a progressive, middle-class audience and wasn’t widely available to most of the mainland population, despite its ubiquity in Hong Kong and much of the West.
Leon Lai’s arrival to the McDonald’s is marred and defined by various social faux pas, from his difficulties in understanding various English phrases such as ‘hamburger’, to his incomprehension at the concept of takeout food. A bemused Maggie Cheung, working as a McDonald’s cashier and cleaner, takes his order and tries to teach him some basic Hong Kong manners. She also makes him out as an easy target, convincing him that his lack of English skills instantly reveals him to be an ignorant mainlander. She soon directs him to a local – and overpriced – English teacher, taking a large cut of the tuition fees as compensation and setting the stage for their further romance.
As such, a visit to McDonald’s represents both a physical and ideological gateway into a fast-paced, capitalist Hong Kong lifestyle beyond the understanding of Lai’s character, acting as a stand-in for the lived experience of mainlanders arriving in Hong Kong. The McDonald’s also signifies the existence of a clear social and economic hierarchy.
Although Maggie Cheung’s character is merely a service worker – presumably lacking higher education and possessing low social status – her understanding of McDonald’s etiquette and basic English language skills immediately place her in an advantaged position over Lai’s character. This internalisation of cultural habits and norms – what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would describe as ‘cultural capital’ – allows her to obtain instant economic benefit as well, through swindling Lai’s character into overpriced English lessons.
However, later in the film, this McDonald’s-infused identity also shows itself to be merely a thin façade. As Maggie Cheung reveals that she herself is actually a mainlander immigrant herself, pretending to be an experienced Hongkonger in order to swindle recent immigrants. This shared experience, of existing on the edges of Hong Kong society, acts as a centrality within the blossoming romance between Cheung and Lai, as well as its eventual demise. Although allowing limited economic opportunity, the McDonald’s embodies the limitations of the “Hong Kong dream”, with Maggie’s character only reaching true economic liberation later in the film through an unhappy marriage to a wealthy businessman.
Thum Jun Long Isaac (3036111207)
Verhagen Bram (3036112615)
The podcast has demonstrated high level of contextural, cultural and historical understanding in the time of narrative. Some very in-depth analysis given which clearly elaborate how architecture enhances the cinematic qualities of the film and your intrepretation on the film are logical and comprehensive. Appreciate how you illustarte the idea of ‘viewing the city from a taxi’, which echoes with our lecture content as well.
Yet, please note that this podcast is mean to be a pair work and more interaction between the two members in the dialogue should be seen. The proportion of content elaborated by each student is imbalance now and it is currently more like an ‘individual presentation’ rather than a pair work.