The book focuses on how Fruit Chan’s film defamiliarizes the city of Hong Kong, challenging the dominating genres at that time. He used spectral elements as a means to explore the city’s omitted problems and historical events.
Chan’s film depicts haunted spaces as symbolic representations of large historical issues or repressed memories associated with those spaces, becoming a metaphorical reflection of the deeper issue that fills up the collective memory of the city. Chan describes the city as a place where ghosts gather, representing the dense history that is in tension with the act of remembering and sorrow.
In the film “Made in Hong Kong”, Chan used ghosty elements to represent the anxiety, uncertainties and fear atmosphere surrounding the city during the handover. The main character Autumn Moon met a spirit named Sylvester who has a strong presence in the film, representing the spirit of Hong Kong in the past, haunting the present to let viewers reflect the fear and uncertainty people were facing at that transitional period due to the shortage of housing. The ghosty element not only brings up the emotional and social impact of housing problem, but also brings up his comment on the social and cultural change during the handover at that time.
Overall, the passage provides a detailed analysis of Chan’s film, its emphasis on the interaction between realism and utopianism, memory and also forgetting. It reflects on how spectra can evoke people’s emotions and the understanding of urban history.
Ho Hoi Ying
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