Abstract
In Hong Kong action cinema, the inevitable condition of fighting usually, though not always, ends up in one of the fighters winning the show, another losing it, such being a popular convention in matters of martial art. Culturally, the spectacle of any good fight is a matter for public appreciation, discourse, and indeed consumption, though the outcomes of any particular game could sometimes be whimsical, intangible or simply inconsequential. For politically Hong Kong is indeed rather intangible; the city has grown into perhaps one of the most sensitive ideological battlefields in the world, with its own unique cultural formation shaping a modern city life with a unique kind of colonial modernity. To grow from that groundwork of history, and indeed to build on the basis of the cosmopolitan framework involved, some local politicians would insist that we need prosperity and stability to keep intact the power bloc as
defined and delimited by the status quo of the late colonial rule up to 1997, the year of the big historical spectacle when the people saw themselves, as it were, eventually winning the game of (de-)colonization. Have the winners somehow now lost their grip on the object of their show? And how will they appreciate that ambivalent passage from colonial to postcolonial subjection, an inevitable passage of power as of sensibilities, supposedly allowing the Hong Kong people to start setting the rules of the game in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region after the transfer of sovereignty in 1997?
defined and delimited by the status quo of the late colonial rule up to 1997, the year of the big historical spectacle when the people saw themselves, as it were, eventually winning the game of (de-)colonization. Have the winners somehow now lost their grip on the object of their show? And how will they appreciate that ambivalent passage from colonial to postcolonial subjection, an inevitable passage of power as of sensibilities, supposedly allowing the Hong Kong people to start setting the rules of the game in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region after the transfer of sovereignty in 1997?
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Hong Kong connections : transnational imagination in action cinema |
Editors | Meaghan MORRIS, Siu Leung LI, Stephen Ching-kiu CHAN |
Publisher | Hong Kong University Press |
Chapter | 4 |
Pages | 63-79 |
Number of pages | 17 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781932643190 |
Publication status | Published - 2005 |
Event | Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema - Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Duration: 1 Jan 2003 → 1 Jan 2003 |
Conference
Conference | Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema |
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Country/Territory | Hong Kong |
City | Hong Kong |
Period | 1/01/03 → 1/01/03 |
Other | CERG Project, Research Grants Council, Hong Kong SAR |