This article provides an in-depth discussion of different themes in Asian horror cinema, and the films represent different socio-cultural contexts and urban culture and economy.
Asian ghost narratives are concerned with depicting the complex relationship between the living and the dead. This has largely characterized the production of ghost films in Hong Kong and Taiwan, places that are culturally part of China and escaped CCP repression. The dark side of Hong Kong’s financial prosperity is often revealed in those films set in the city, and their view of Hong Kong is generally one of too many people and too little land. Housing estates are a common haunted site in Hong Kong films, as space constraints make the buildings smaller and smaller on the inside. Flats are divided into many small cubicles, known as coffin houses, in which the poor live a ghostly existence, and sadly, their lot is not improved after death.
The loneliness of flat ghosts mirrors the loneliness of human beings in neoliberal cities like Seoul, who have been redeveloped to serve the interests of the city rather than the interests of the people. The people who live here are like evicted ghosts throughout their lives because they are ignored and considered expendable. Sociologists agree that living environments lead to social isolation, the environments are filled with indifference and add to the apocalyptic mood of these films.
Overall, some ghost films deal with local economic issues that lead to state segregation and deprivation of the poor, while others exemplify the government’s focus on urban development and financial capital rather than the interests of the people.
——Wang Qinghui, Charlotte, 3036265242