Buying American, Consuming Hong Kong: Cultural Commerce, Fantasies of Identity, and the Cinema

The Transforming Cultural Identity of Hong Kong as Reflected in Jackie Chan’s Police Story Series

“…In the first movie, there is a combination of Cantonese, English, and mixed-up English and Cantonese in one expression; in the third and fifth films, Cantonese, English, and unstandardized Mandarin. This diversification highlights Hong Kong's image as a "melting pot of Asia" [11]. In New Police Story, a young criminal communicates with other characters in the film with fluent and standard Mandarin.…”

“…In Today's circumstance, Hong Kong is still troubled by the issue of identity recognition, if not more than before. Although film "reproduces a virtual space", it has played, is playing and will continue to play an important role in the "formation of Hong Kong's specific culture" [13], Hong Kong films, "a special kind of commodity of Hong Kong", which are very active in the world film market, not only play their own roles in the film market, but also prompt the discussion of fundamental issues such as identity and self-determination [11]. As the products of an international film star, Jackie Chan's films are even more so.…”

“…In a similar way, the fact that it provides undoubted and inevitable possibility for the reconstruction of Hong Kong people's identity that Hong Kong has changed from a British colonial city to a special administrative region. As Marchetti says, "as July 1997 comes and goes, and debate surrounding Hong Kong's political status intensifies, the film industry's place as an arena for the formation of identity and forum for speculation about Hong Kong's future also comes into question" [11], therefore the filmic texts record the trajectory of people's thinking. In addition to anxiety and fear, Hong Kong films show their subjective imagination of the culture, politics and even life style of mainland China.…”

The Death Narratives of Revitalization: Colonial Governance, China, and the Reconfiguration of the Hong Kong Film Industry

“…2 I protect anonymity for informants who work in a small community and could easily be identified. 3 This includes Laikwan Pang's 2001 article "Death and Hong Kong Cinema," Ackbar Abbas' analysis of Hong Kong's "culture of disappearance" (Abbas, 1997), and discourse on cinematic imagery of crisis and expiration as well as industrial decline (Cheung and Chu, 2004;Marchetti, 2000;Pang, 2007;Szeto and Chung, 2013;Williams, 2000). 4 See Rey Chow's critique of the British colonial government's push to accelerate democratic measures through the Hong Kong government (Chow, 1998; see also So, 2004, p.229-230).…”