The architectures in the films give the first impression of the city to the audience, which is one of the most direct ways to know about the city. However, when the city is simply defined by the architecture, the history and culture which isn’t shown by the architecture may be ignored by people. HK has a very complicated social background and history, where is affected by China, its colony and its own special geographic and economic condition, resulting in three typical kinds of architectures——Placeless, Merely Local and Anonymous. In this case, the receptivity of HK is extremely high, which causes the tendency of the vague identity of HK in globalization. The political system of China and Britain should be rival in HK, but the architectures which connote these two countries belong to the same internationalist architectural system, which may imply: the ideologically differentiated socioeconomic systems disappears.
Abbas’s statement that “old” and “new” are easily contemporaneous with each other, and “continuities” and “discontinuities” can coexist without integration (p75) calls for further reflection on Hong Kong’s built environment. The film’s wide variety of Hong Kong architecture provides the audience with aesthetic impact in form. It invokes historical and cultural cognition and identity in the urban space integrating plot and atmosphere. The text also suggests that the ambiguous global identity of Hong Kong is the consequence of its particular historical context. Hong Kong’s heterogeneity, including local negotiations and conflict integration, defines its culture and urban development.