Seeing how Asian cities allow the supernatural to surround us made me realize how much we differ from the West. K. Ancuta uses the multi-apartment building as an example, which houses a great number of tenants that come and go. The interior tends to be eerie with narrow alleyways, never-ending flats beside each other, small windows and doors, and staircases that lead nowhere. I found the strategically placed mirrors to be an iconic feature of these haunted buildings. Mirrors are considered as passageways to other dimensions, and also from an interior designing point of view, as illusions of a bigger room. I believe this fits perfectly with the description, “Its foreboding exterior hides an impossible interior that seems to expand or contract on a whim”, in which the rooms are falsely larger than they are. As for western horror films, the supernatural tends to inhabit far places from civilization like forests or large homes of families. It is not surprising that buildings like these are usually shown in Asian films, as Hong Kong tends to portray the working class and their inequality in society and they are forced to stay in multi-apartment estates.
Ghosts are also perceived differently, with the West following Judeo-Christian beliefs and South-East Asia mostly following Confucianism. Western horror films do not try accommodating the supernatural and usually depict the theme of “Good destroys Evil”, whereas for Asian films the supernatural tend to blend in whilst mirroring people and are more nuanced.
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I appreciate your detailed spatial analysis of the settings in ghost films, as well as the comparison between Asian and Western horror films. I would suggest digging deeper into how ghost serves as various metaphors to demonstrate social, spatial, and urban issues. More importantly, the bloom of Hong Kong’s ghost-themed films in the 20th century has something to do with its social background. This can navigate your further analysis of the specific circumstance in Hong Kong. Similarly, the 1950s-1990s is the “golden age” of monster-genre film in Japan, which is a medium to emphasize the destruction and reconstruction of the city. It might be insightful to discuss by comparing these two filmic genres.