Based on the Chinese cultural background, Hong Kong seems to represent the world of overcrowding and violence in foreign films, while it may also be appropriate to display the hyper-realistic technologies and stories. The reading passage Technology and (Chinese) Ethnicity illustrates the features of sci-fi stories that happened under the background of Chinese culture, especially in Chinatown. This reading response will focus on the images in the film Ghost in the Shell (2017) based on the cyberpunk story written by Oshii Mamoru and its connections with Hong Kong.
As the background city for a cyberpunk story, Hong Kong is attached great importance in terms of the illustration and emphasis of the thesis, namely, discussing the relationship between human being and technology and where will the technologies lead us to. It can be seen from the following perspectives: culturally, economically and architecturally.
In terms of Hong Kong history, the post-colonial culture in Hong Kong merges the Chinese culture and the western culture, including Chinese traditions, British colonial culture and also the immigrant culture from Asia like Japan and India. Hong Kong is described to be “the sign of Asian mobility, migration, and habitation” by Darrell William Davis (2010), and the sci-fictional worlds in the movie still evoke the seedy, “signifying varieties of unbridled technological hypermodernity”. Therefore, the various components in Hong Kong population and their backgrounds bring the complexity of Hong Kong culture, which leads to the illusion of the future hyper-realistic city image—rapid technological development, highly tolerant social environment and also the ineffaceable Chinese cultural root. The cyberpunk city contains infinite possibility in terms of culture.
Economically, Hong Kong is a highly open and free financial centre in Asia. The extremely advanced economy brings about the sense of futurism, as the modernity of Hong Kong seems to make it possible to access all the necessary resources. Meanwhile, the gap of wealth and poverty builds up the social class ladder, which can be observed from the appearance of the city—the contrast of the prosperous downtown and the dark narrow muddy allies. This characteristic of Hong Kong is embedded into the movie as the thesis of the story indicates the struggle of people between the technology and the raw human nature without decoration.
Architecturally, the skyscrapers in Hong Kong create an extraordinary city view of modernity. As commented by animation director T. Nishikubo, for Ghost in the Shell “we aimed to create an animation that is more real than life. Plenty of the scenes taken from Hong Kong, combining with the giant portraits created by CGI effect, bring a sense of hypermodernity. The skyscrapers glow in the night, and the colorful signboards shine on the streets. However, on the other side of the city, the highly dense living space and the humid dark living environment are presented to the audience in a most intuitive way.
Therefore, in terms of the culture, economic development, and the architectural characteristics, Hong Kong accords with the setting of cyberpunk cities to a large extent and the city images have a significant impact on the creation of cyberpunk films like Ghost in the Shell.
By Yang Shuran (3035448548)