This article mainly talks about the relationship between Hong Kong people identity and Hong Kong movies. He mentioned that some film theorists who thought local film and cinema were all fictitious (Clarke, 1997, as cited in Leung, 2000) . He agreed that film reproduced a fake space for viewers to enjoy but he also wanted to discuss the cultural side of the films. He thought Hong Kong movies were actually representing some real and authentic local cultures, or even forming some specific culture as well. The example that I would like to take out from this article is Chungking Express. This well-known movie, which directed by great Wong Kai-wai, showed a great example of cultural representation of Hong Kong, and even produced some local cultures of Hong Kong. The author mentioned about the fake details in the film. Despite some fake minor details, it still helped the viewers understood some local cultures like their outfits, architecture style of Hong Kong… Local movies were great sources and medium for viewers, especially foreigners, to learn cultures in Hong Kong, and act a form of cultural exportation. And yet, I support his view on this issue. I had some friends from different countries, such as South Korea and even Turkmenistan, knew some Hong Kong cultures through watching movies directed by Wong Kar-wai. They did not care about the fake geographical details in the film, but all attracted by the 2000s style in the film.
Reference:
Leung, P.-K. (2000). Urban Cinema and the Cultural identity of Hong Kong. In Fu, P. S. and Dresser, D. eds., The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity (pp. 227-51). Cambridge University Press.
I appreciate your contemplation on the themes of this article and rethinking whether it was relevant to your own experience and those outside the local culture. Is the “he” that you are referring to in your response “Michael de Certeau”? I advise writing his name at the beginning to clarify this. Do you feel that it is important to portray “real” places in film?
Thank you for your feedback. I apologise for my unclear wording in the beginning. For the second question, I think it is not important to really portray the “real” place in film as some stories in film is supposed a fictional story. I think places in film can somehow referring to an actual place like in Batman, Gotham was referring or implicated to New Jersey and New York City, but certainly, it is not a must. However, I do believe that if a movie portray “real” places, it will easily get connections with the people lived there and also let the viewers know more about the place.