The author discussed the development of city and cinema from 1930s to 1990s in Hong Kong and holds the opinion that the culture of Hong Kong is very complex so it couldn’t be simply defined as “Western” or “Chinese”.
What impressed me here is the work of architecture in shaping a character or even a city in the film. Although the artistic works have different focus during distinct time periods, I found what is unchanged is the exploration of urban space, and it seems architecture plays a larger role in it than I thought before.
In the films mentioned in the text, the city is depicted in various ways by combining the appearance of the city and the representative architectures. For instance, in the film “Mis-setting the Love trip”, urban locations like hotels, clubs and teahouses appears. In the author’s words, the film takes us to these places by means of Broker Lai character, but for me, it is these locations which help shaped the character as “a person who gets involved in everything”. Imagine, if there are no shots of these buildings, can we intuitively feel the commercialization of the city at that time? Will we still marveled at the fact that the character wandered around everyday in so many different places to make money? I guess the answer is no. Representative building complex is like a microcosm of the era and culture at the time, and therefore has an irreplaceable position, especially in visual works.
I appreciate your writing about Urban Cinema and the Cultural Identity of Hong Kong. To improve your response, you can elaborate more about your idea in the last sentence ‘Representative building complex is like a microcosm of the era and culture at the time, and therefore has an irreplaceable position, especially in visual works.’ How is building complex a microcosm of the era and culture at the time? Can you provide example through your own experience?