[Reading Response] Cuts Through Hong Kong, Seng, E. (2021)

3036237831 Wong Chun Fung

“Cuts through Hong Kong” uses Wong Kar Wai’s film “In the Mood for Love.” as a springboard to explore the theme of change and inevitability of the transient cityscape of Hong Kong in the 1960s and brings out the idea that our landscapes can be preserved through films. This reading depicts the transition of Hong Kong in the past, when it was a British colony. The film captures the mood of Hong Kong in the 60s, where “private spaces felt like public spaces” with the intimate relationships between one and other that will be gone soon in the future (which is Hong Kong nowadays).

Not only the historical context is reflected in the film, it also represents the conflicting identities of Hong Kong migrants in the 60s, with the protagonists being Chow and Su, two Shanghai immigrants with absent partners who form an intimate relationship. In the setting, their shared apartment complex symbolizes the transient nature of their lives as immigrants. As they independently wander through the building’s spaces, it reflects the search for connection and the blending of identities. Under the atmospheric storytelling design of the blurred boundaries between private and public spaces in the film, the issue of the Hong Kong immigrant identity crisis is well executed.

I then realized that films can be a time capsule that preserves memories ranging from people to places. By recording the spatial details of a place not only creates a more immersive experience, but also fosters a deeper connection and interaction with the movie. In an ever-changing world, films take up the role of preserving the vanishing and disappearing collective memories that could be completely intangible someday, therefore modern cultures and its cinematic representation is in an interconnected relationship in urban cityscape.