Transregional Imagination in Hong Kong Cinema

The formation of transregional imagination

The crisis of HK cultural identity as well as the lack of local history The anxiety & instability in film critics the process of HK cinema from incipient stage to the new millennium confronted and acknowledged the heterogeneity & hybridity of HK identity Fundamental & beneficial to HK cinema

Background
Hong Kong Culture: Crisis of identity 1. HK : a place of refuge a sense of belonging was lacking perspective of history is sadly limited history has been subdued & a new historical consciousness was never nurtured X local history X local culture

Background
Hong Kong Culture: Crisis of identity 2. In 1970s Local culture failed to go beyond native legends & folk wisdom indifference to contemporary politics & history an uneasy relationship between Cantonese culture & HKs local culture
E.g. Chan Po-chu HK woman OR Cantonese woman? indistinct identity

Background
3. Cultural disappearance In the mid-1980s a sense of unprecedented urgency/ intense apprehension due to HKs return to Chinas sovereignty in 1997 an alarmist view of the doomsday scenario of cultural disappearance

Cultural formation and transformation in HK

The importance of cinema Furnishes a means of retrieving collective memory and experience reconstructing local history and culture

Radical transformation in HK cinema (1950s-1970s) HKs local culture is intimately related to Cantonese culture as a regional culture e.g. Shanghainization South-North integration ( nanbai he ) Transregional imagination begins