[Fieldwork Podcast]: My Life as McDull (2001)

TEXT TRANSCRIPT OF PODCAST

Magenta: Around December 2001, a comic book adaptation was premiered in the local cinemas
titled “My Life as McDull”. People loved it. It had everything a coming-of-age movie needed. A
classic gullible, innocent character, McDull, an overbearing mother McTai, and multiple failures
and disappointments that ultimately resulted in a sort of “happy ending” of growing up.

Nafisa: What initially started as a cute local production with a production crew of 100%
Hongkongers soon became a worldwide sensation, as noted by the Chinese Film Media Awards
2010 as “Best of the Decade”, the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards as having the “Best Original
Film Score” and so many more. This movie became a local treasure not only appealing to
children but also adults and it was directed by Toe Yuen alongside the creators, Alice Mak and
Brian Tse. “My life as Mcdull” navigates through the growing experience of our local cartoon
character McDull. Through the lens of young McDull, we get to reminisce over the “good old
days” and experience the growing pains that adult McDull faces through his failures and
disappointment. We get all of this is shown in the form of a diary entry narrated by adult McDull.

Magenta: The animation is definitely something really interesting to look at, but how do you
think it compares with the spaces we see in real life? One of the first few things I noticed while
watching was the two personalities of Hong Kong that were portrayed, we get this nitty grittiness
of the old district and the impressionistic, dreamlike state of Hong Kong.

Nafisa: Right! We first get Tai Kok Tsui, the primarily residential area of McDull painted into
this bleak, dirty, dark image of the “old districts” we know them of. Here, we get countless shots
of the area, with the first scene being this magic pan that flies over the streets of Tai Kok Tsui to
Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei where McDull was born.

Magenta: That’s true! Also with this shot of McTai and her friend talking about McDull going to
kindergarten, we first get a glimpse of this low shot showing Tai Kok Tsui’s pedestrian road and
the walls plastered with advertisement posters. The camera then shows us a birds-eye view of Tai
Kok Tsui,

this cramped, industrialized urban jungle that is filled with rows and rows of old
Tong-lau-style buildings.

Right off the bat, we can already notice the contrast in the animation graphics used on the
characters and the background set of Hong Kong – the characters are drawn in a 2-D cartoon
style against a 3-D photorealistic background of Tai Kok Tsui.

This animation contrast showcases how the film views the character and the place differently,
presenting the characters in a more fantastical way while the background is something more real,
or in other words, showing a contrast between reality and expectation.

The film wanted to focus on the simplistic grassroots lives of the working class and presented
just that, with the urban landscapes, and even with the background music! I remember
recognizing this piano scene by Mozart(“Piano Sonata K.331 Andante Grazioso”) over scenes of
congested highways with dense buildings and cranes looming over. It painted this optimistically
grim scene, where despite the poor state of McDull’s living, it was still pretty hopeful and
optimistic.

Nafisa: But the real question is, is Tai Kok Tsui still this really undersaturated, scruffy district?

Magenta: Well, there is some truth in the way they painted Tai Kok Tsui and even when we
walked the streets of Tai Kok Tsui, we found a lot of places that resembled the movie scenes like
the cranes, the construction sites, and the old housing styles.

But that’s also a small part of Hong Kong.

Considering the multiple renovation and redevelopment projects Hong Kong has undertaken over the years, the truth is that Hong Kong
isn’t the same as it once was. Even with old districts like Tai Kok Tsui or Sham Shui Po, we are
starting to see sort of a mix of the old and the new in Hong Kong.

Nafisa: Hmm, that’s true. Especially with the film being over 10 years old, a lot of changes in
the urban environment of Hong Kong can be seen. Hong Kong as this densely packed and
squished-up environment was definitely exaggerated at times in the film. Nonetheless, an aspect
that the film still retains both in reality and expectation is the nostalgia and reminiscence of these
familiar places in Hong Kong.

For instance, the gaming sequence of McTai living life as if in an arcade game, from knocking
over flier distributors along the streets, and racing against other mom-shoppers in Wellcome, to
the “Big boss” level of her knocking down business robot workers in Time Square of Causeway
Bay, it was definitely an interesting direction the animation took to show us Hong Kong. Not
only was this an effective way of exploring the different familiar places of Hong Kong but
“gamifying” it into a whole arcade game setting was an ingenious way to seek out the
entertainment and fun out of the ordinary in Hong Kong.

Magenta: That’s true, I think moving on, we also get a more colorful, bright picture of Hong
Kong where McDull recalled his happiest memories.

Nafisa: Or as McDull likes to put it, the place with bright blue skies and green palm trees.

Magenta: There, we get this glamorized, vibrant version of Hong Kong that tourists are so
fond of and it was shown when McDull went to Tsim Sha Tsui with his mother on Christmas
Eve.

Nafisa: Right that Christmas plotline! He yearned for the smell of turkey, something his mother
doesn’t normally buy for him. And so for one Christmas, McDull and Mctai sat by the Victoria
Harbour and enjoyed turkey slices together while watching the bright neon festive lights flashing
around. To him, that was his fondest memory of his childhood.

Nafisa: And I feel like we definitely saw that from the 3-D background of Hong Kong at its
prettiest – its nightlife filled with neon lights and firework displays and analyzing the animation
further, the contrast between the 2-D computer effects and 3-D effects doesn’t seem as strong as
the ones they showed in Tai Kok Tsui. It seems as if the pastel and watercolor animation is
combined into this one panoramic scene of McDull in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Magenta: You could kind of say that the color of Hong Kong was changing from McDull’s
perspective and feelings towards different parts of Hong Kong, right?

Nafisa: I would kind of agree, but actually when we were watching further in the film where the
animation switched to a more serious tone, we see something entirely different. At McDull’s
lowest moments, we see him going through everyday life without that same youthful optimism
we saw once as a child, all while showing Hong Kong’s magnificent nightlife scene of
bright lights and cityscapes. Which was quite the opposite of how he was feeling.

Magenta: Right, I think the juxtaposition of the romanticized version of Hong Kong and
McDull’s feelings were trying to tell us how Hong Kong is a city independent of our feelings. It’s
as if saying even at our lowest, Hong Kong is the place that it is. Hong Kong is a place of a
familiar lifestyle, our hopes, our dreams, our failures, and our disappointment.

Nafisa: We can’t forget the iconic ending as well, where McDull turns into this real-life adult
staring at the ocean. It was confirmation that he had grown up and overcome his trials &
tribulations and was brought back to reality. The mix of animations and real-life shots mirrored
well with the feelings the movie was trying to portray at the time.

Magenta: I think the animation style was definitely something worth looking at! The fact that we
get this unique animation style of a live-action/CGI animation hybrid is something really
interesting that this animation director took.

Nafisa: Not to mention the beige animation style when the plot took a turn in talking about the
serious troubles McDull was facing.

Magenta: And also the black-and-white montage showing the Cheung Chau bun-snatching
festival. It’s as if we can see this highly experimental, fun kind of animation that you don’t
normally see in Anime or Disney films, which is exactly the direction the producers and creators
were looking for. Even considering the time the film was released with other internationally
famous foreign films like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, you would think that “My Life
as Mcdull” was made in such a way to attract more international success.

Nafisa: Right, but it’s not.

Magenta: Exactly! According to Brian Tse, he never even intended for the film to reach the
success it has achieved. To him, there wasn’t this ulterior motive they had in becoming the next
Hong Kong big blockbuster. Instead, it was specifically made for the local eyes in the local
theater. It was a simple movie about a simple character. With that being said, the film was not
scared to actually replicate the landscapes of Hong Kong, whether it was aesthetically pleasing
or not.

Nafisa: It really taught us the beauty of simplicity. It shows us how you don’t need an
extravagant animation CGI effect or a complex storyline to touch people’s hearts. Despite it
being an animation, it did not fail to use the complex architecture of Hong Kong to portray the
lives of hopeful working-class people

Nafisa Humayra 3035781495
Tan Magenta Elizabeth 3036063955