Neon lights in a futuristic Hong Kong, extracted from Ghost in the shell(1995), directed by Oshii Mamoru.
Hong Kong is a unique place where technologies and cultural symbolism combine, making it the perfect setting for the movie, Ghost in the shell.
The movie presents Hong Kong in an unfamiliar way, including both futuristic imaginations(the river transport in urban space, gigantic high-rises) as well as realistic traces of Hong Kong(neon lights, bamboo scaffolding). As Hong Kong is a modern technological city filled with traditional Chinese ethnicity, the location of the movie itself even outshines the stories in visualising the theme of how technology changes the future of humanity. The concepts of information technology and iconographic ethnicity seem to be different, but they are similar. They are both complex but knowable, and both very conceptual rather than visualisable. Oshii Mamoru makes use of Hong Kong as an icon for typical Chinese ethnicity to visualise the horrible influence and impact of technology through film animation, allowing the message behind the two concepts to be easily portrayed and astonishing to the audience.
Hung Chi Hang 3035933907
Clear summary. Apart from summarizing the piece, it would be great to provide some of your reflections on the reading. Why do you think Chinese ethnicity is selected as the setting of various sci-fi films?