In Ancuta’s paper, there are three main interconnected statements made through studying the architectural spaces in three types of Asian horror movies. From Hong Kong’s movies, the disconnection between the housing and the land, and transient ownership caused by overpopulation, we found that actually the ghosts in condominiums are ourselves. While the similarity between human and ghosts is beyond the anthropomorphic forms but lies in the unbearable loneliness, we realised that “we need ghost as much as they need us”. Further, Bangkok’s case, the ghosts metaphorize the decimation of dreams of Thai’s population pursuing success, this is the destroy of

Continue readingReading Response: Ancuta and Cheung

This article talks about the “ghosts” in an urban setting, Hong Kong, a highly dense and populated city. Ghost can appear in social life in multiple forms. Specifically, one of the forms is that ghosts exist when people experience a failure to attain their goals and dreams. This can be originated from people’s sadness, as one primary aspect that causes the “ghosts.” Ghost films are mostly made in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. In terms of Hong Kong, it has a relatively liberal film industry, people can talk about some controversial and sensitive topics that are banned in mainland China;

Continue readingReading Response: Katarzyna Ancuta

The reading from Ancuta criticize urbanization in the cultural perspective. Using ghosts to reflect the failure of urbanization, Ancuta outlines the “loss of humanity” in the process where rural populations move into the city. Urbanization, with the build-up of sky scrapers using cold indifferent concrete, has turned into monsters with the shell of technology. Specifically in Hong Kong, due to the high population density, skyscrapers have to be built closely together, with little space left between them, making it the ideal setting for horror movies. The apartment’s inhabitants, often vulnerable and fragile with little exposure to nature, stares at the

Continue readingReading Response: Ancuta

Scared of confronting our past and facing the future, we represent the ghosts in ghost movies. Especially living in a modernistic, glamorized city like Hong Kong where everything is happening everywhere all at once, as the city grows, so does the fear of loneliness and social isolation of those who are socially and culturally marginalized. Despite us not being physically alone in this highly-packed, densely-populated city, we feel socially alone. In many ways, that could be even scarier than being physically alone. Apt (2006) provides us with a horror perspective of social loneliness from the protagonist’s disturbing experience in her

Continue readingReading Response: Katarzyna Ancuta