Screening Communities: Negotiating Narratives of Empire, Nation, and the Cold War in Hong Kong Cinema

257 Pages·2019·5.213 MB·English

by  Jing Jing Chang

15mm 5mm 146mm 12mm 20mm 12mm 146mm 5mm 15mm
1
5
m
m
5m
m
Crossings: Asian Cinema and Media Culture
SCREENING
Negotiating Narratives of
Empire, Nation, and the Cold War
Communities
in Hong Kong Cinema
S
“Despite the voluminous literature on Hong Kong cinema, Screening Communities doesn’t C
just fill in gaps; it positively seals up a number of fissures. Chang shows us a cinema on
R
the ground, refuting the standard image of an apolitical, fantasized world of martial arts and
musicals. When Hong Kong’s identity seems ever more precarious, this is a bracing reminder E
of how film was deeply implicated in Hong Kong identity-formation in the Cold War era.”
E
—David Desser, University of Illinois
N
“Screening Communities offers an exciting analysis of the role of cinemas in shaping Hong
Kong and diasporic identities during the Cold War. Chang brings left-wing Cantonese
I
filmmakers and the colonial state back into the story, and in the process broadens our N
understanding of the place of Hong Kong in the cultural and social history of the Cold War.
This is an important contribution to the scholarship.” G
—Jeremy E. Taylor, University of Nottingham S C R E E N I N G

C
Postwar Hong Kong cinema played an active role in building the colony’s community in the
o
1950s and 1960s. To Jing Jing Chang, the screening of movies in postwar Hong Kong was
a process of showing the filmmakers’ visions for Hong Kong society and simultaneously an m
C o m m u n i t i e s
attempt to conceal their anxieties and mask their political agenda. It was a time when the
city was a site of intense ideological struggles among the colonial government, Chinese m
Nationalists, and Communist sympathizers. The medium of film was recognized as a
2
powerful tool for public persuasion and various camps competed to win over the hearts and u 35m
m
minds of the audience. Screening Communities thus situates the history of postwar Hong n
Kong cinema at the intersection of Cold War politics, Chinese culture, and local society. i Negotiating Narratives of
t
Focusing on the genres of official documentary film, leftist family melodrama (lunlipian), and Empire, Nation, and
i
youth film, this study examines the triangulated relationship of colonial interventions in Hong
e the Cold War in
Kong film culture, the rise of left-leaning Cantonese directors as new cultural elites, and the
positioning of audiences as contributors to the colony’s journey toward industrial modernity. s Hong Kong Cinema
Filmmakers are shown having to constantly negotiate changing sociopolitical conditions: the Jing Jing Chang
Hong Kong government presenting itself as a collaborative ruling body, moral and didactic
messages being adapted for commercial releases, and women becoming recognized as a
driving force behind Hong Kong’s postwar industrial success. In putting forward a historical
narrative that privileges the poetics and politics of shaping a local community through a
continuous screening process, Screening Communities offers a new interpretation of the
development of Hong Kong cinema—one that breaks away from the usual accounts of the
“rise and fall” of the industry.
J
Jing Jing Chang is associate professor of film studies at in
Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. She has written articles Film Studies / Asian Studies / g
on such topics as celebrity culture and Cold War politics in History J
i
postwar Hong Kong cinema. Her current research explores n
g
the sexual politics of Hong Kong cinema since the 1970s.

C
h
a
n
g
Printed and bound in Hong Kong, China
5m
m
1
5
m
m
Screening Communities
Crossings: Asian Cinema and Media Culture
Editors: Poshek Fu (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Man-Fung Yip
(University of Oklahoma)
The series “Crossings” publishes books in English and Chinese that investigate Asian
cinema and media from cross-disciplinary and cross-methodological perspectives. It
situates Asian cinema and media within a global or regional framework and explores
different dimensions of transnationality in relation to production, distribution,
and reception. It also entails trans-medial interrogations of past and present media
culture, looking into the complex interactions of media forms and how they have
shaped aesthetic and social practices. Wide-ranging in scope and method, the series
places special emphasis on cutting-edge scholarship that draws on careful archival
research or derives from vigorous, insightful theoretical study.
Screening Communities
Negotiating Narratives of Empire, Nation, and
the Cold War in Hong Kong Cinema
Jing Jing Chang
Hong Kong University Press
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
www.hkupress.hku.hk
© 2019 Hong Kong University Press
ISBN 978-988-8455-76-8 (Hardback)
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmit-
ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound by Hang Tai Printing Co. Ltd., Hong Kong, China
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
Part 1. Toward a Colonial Modernity: From Imperial Legacy to
Colonial Politics
1. Film Censorship and the Regulatory Context of Postwar
Hong Kong 23
2. Between Idealism and Pragmatism: Postwar Hong Kong’s
Official Film Culture 46
Part 2. Toward a Leftist Vernacular Modernism: From the National
to the Familial
3. May Fourth and Postwar Hong Kong’s Leftist Cantonese Cinema 75
4. Familial Address and the Aesthetics of Lunli 102
Part 3. Toward a Gendered Industrialized City: From a Borderless
to a Localized Place
5. The Nanyang Ethos and Engendering the Chinese Overseas
Experience 127
6. Girls in Masquerade: Celebrity Culture and Fandom in 1960s
Hong Kong Youth Film 150
Coda: The Persistence of Screening Community in Post–Cold War
Hong Kong 173
Glossary 185
Notes 187
Filmography 207
Bibliography 210
Index 223
Illustrations
Figure 2.1: Tso Kwan descended from his altar (Report to the Gods,
1967) 60
Figure 2.2: Tso Kwan as one of Hong Kong’s townsfolk witnessing
the construction of public housing blocks (Report to
the Gods, 1967) 61
Figure 2.3: The rising public housing complex (Report to the Gods,
1967) 61
Figure 2.4: Children playing outside public estate buildings in
Hong Kong 69
Figure 3.1: Ming-fung hesitates outside Kok-wai’s study room before
entering (Family, 1953) 92
Figure 3.2: Ming-fung continuously asks Kok-wai what he wants her
to get him (Family, 1953) 93
Figure 3.3: Kok-wai tells Ming-fung to go to bed and let him work
(Family, 1953) 93
Figure 3.4: Suk-ying enjoying a boat ride with Cousin Kam, Kok-man,
and her other cousins (Autumn, 1954) 97
Figure 3.5: Kok-sun and the rest of the family leave their house
(Autumn, 1954) 100
Figure 4.1: Ha Chai on his first day of school (Father and Son, 1954) 106
Figure 4.2: Advertisement for In the Face of Demolition (1953)
(Ta Kung Pao, November 27, 1953, 8) 113
Figure 5.1: Ke-ping and the pilot, Lei Tai-ying, in Bangkok
(Air Hostess, 1959) 141
Figure 5.2: Wai-chi looks at the picture and realizes that Hung Mui
is her sister (The Story between Hong Kong and Macao, 1966) 146
Figure 5.3: Wai-chi looks at the picture of her sister and herself that
Chi-yuen now holds (The Story between Hong Kong and
Macao, 1966) 147
Illustrations vii
Figure 5.4: At the wedding of Wai-chi and Pui-fan, Hung Mui and
Chi-yuen bid them farewell (The Story between Hong Kong
and Macao, 1966) 148
Figure 6.1: Josephine Siao’s character dances ballet in the opening
credit sequence of Rhapsody (1968) 156
Figure 6.2: Ping-ting and her factory worker friends sing and dance
to “Long Live the Factory Girls” (Her Tender Love, 1969) 165
Figure 7.1: The residents rejoice at the end, when the landlady is
taken away by the police (The House of 72 Tenants, 1973) 180
Figure 7.2: In the courtyard of Pig Sty Alley (Kung Fu Hustle, 2004) 181
Figure 7.3: The landlady chases Sing at high velocity (Kung Fu Hustle,
2004) 182
Acknowledgments
This book began as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. I am grateful to the mentorship of my advisor, Poshek
Fu. His scholarship on Hong Kong cinema, especially his work on the Shaw
Brothers was the reason why I decided to pursue my PhD at UIUC. I had
the privilege of learning from dedicated professors, including Antoinette
Burton, Tamara Chaplin, Kai-Wing Chow, Ramona Curry, David Desser,
Sarah Projansky, and Dana Rabin, who showed keen interest in my research
design and professional development since the beginning. My special thanks
go to Antoinette, who read multiple drafts of my project and gave me invalu-
able feedback. Her infectious passion and dedication for history inspires me
everyday.
I also owe debts of gratitude to many friends and classmates at the
University of Illinois who helped shape my project through intellectual con-
versations. I thank all the members of the East Asian Reading Group who
read and critiqued earlier drafts of my manuscript. I am especially grateful
to the friendship of Yongtao Du, Jin Gong, Lane Harris, Jeff Kyong-McClain,
Huang-lan Su, Ana Vivancos, Annie Xue Ying, and Dongxin Zou.
I thank the staff at the Hong Kong Film Archive, Public Records Office
in Hong Kong, and the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, who
have helped me over the years with accessing materials. I extend a special
thanks to Jack Leong, Director of the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong
Kong Library at the University of Toronto. His help over the past several
years with accessing various materials at the library was instrumental in
my ability to revise my book despite my not being in Hong Kong. I would
especially like to thank Jack for giving me the opportunity to present earlier
versions of my book chapters to the public at the Hong Kong Library at the
University of Toronto.
Since graduation, I have been extremely fortunate to gain the support
of many friends and colleagues from around the world. Xin Fan, Pauline
Finch, Jennifer Liu, and Bart Testa have read versions of the earlier drafts of
this book. Law Kar and Wong Ain-ling shared with me their knowledge of
Acknowledgments ix
the Hong Kong film industry and the history of Hong Kong’s film archive
movement. Grace Mak and Cindy Chan shared their knowledge about the
Hong Kong film industry. And Jeremy E. Taylor provided me with valuable
sources from the National Archives, at Kew in Richmond, UK. I gladly
acknowledge their help.
I thank my colleagues at the English and Film Studies Department at
Wilfrid Laurier University. I would like to say special thanks to the following
colleagues who have shared many conversations about my book or reviewed
parts of the manuscript: Sandra Annett, Philippa Gates, Madelaine Hron,
Jenny Kerber, Mariam Pirbhai, Ada Sharpe, Katherine Spring, and Eleanor
Ty. Also at WLU, I am grateful for the opportunities to have taught East
Asian film during winter 2015 and Hong Kong cinema during fall 2016. The
weekly lively debates and discussions in those classes helped me rethink the
parameters of different film genres in Hong Kong cinema.
The material used to write this book was gathered on research grants
from Doris G. Quinn Fellowship, Wilfrid Laurier University, and the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which I gratefully
acknowledge. I would also like to seize this opportunity to extend my thanks
to Eric Mok, acquisitions editor and Clara Ho, managing editor, at Hong
Kong University Press, for their guidance and support. I also thank the man-
uscript’s anonymous reviewers, whose constructive criticism, suggestions
and comments have been very helpful.
Many thanks to Iris Luong and Doris Luong for their friendship, to
Henry Shiu for his help with my translations of Chinese titles and texts, to Tat
Terence Yeung for his extensive knowledge of Hong Kong film history. His
valuable comments on earlier drafts of my book helped shape my project.
Many thanks to my family for their unconditional love and support: Yu
Chang, Lam Lam Chang, Yung Chiu Chan, Colin Chang, Raina Wu, Phoebe
Chang, and Eliot Chang. I am forever grateful to my brother Yu Chang for
his guidance and support. Finally, I would also like to thank my best friend
Habtamu Tegegne for his faith in me and constant encouragement which
helped me to get through the difficult writing process. This book is dedi-
cated to my parents, Shin Yuan and Chao Lan Chang.