Performing (Comic) Abjection in the Hong Kong Ghost Story

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicia Chan
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
The Self ◽  
Wave Period ◽  
Rigor Mortis ◽  
Ghost Story ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
Hong Kong Cinema ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Second Wave

Horror films in Hong Kong cinema have eschewed terror in favour of comedy, where supernatural beings take the form of hopping vampires, wandering spirits and underworld demons rendered in latex masks and movie slime. This chapter explores the comic presentation of these subjects in Hong Kong horror, where the self-reflexive exposure of the cinematic machinery of costume and special effects appear to put it at odds with the spectral affectivity of the Hong Kong ghost story. This chapter returns to two classic films from the mid-1980s, A Chinese Ghost Story (Tsui Hark 1987) and Rouge (Stanley Kwan 1988), films from the ‘second wave’ period long noted to carry ‘Hong Kong’ as a subject of concern in the run up to the British handover of 1997, and revisits their historical positioning in the light of more recent post-1997 incarnations such as Visible Secret (Ann Hui 2001), My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (Johnnie To 2002), and Rigor Mortis (Juno Mak 2013).

Hong Kong Horror Cinema

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Rigor Mortis ◽  
Ghost Story ◽  
Hong Kong Cinema ◽  
The World ◽  
Over Time

Dumplings stuffed with diabolical fillings. Sword-wielding zombies. Hopping cadavers. Big-head babies. For decades, Hong Kong cinema has served up images of horror quite unlike those found in other parts of the world. In seminal films such as A Chinese Ghost Story, Rouge, The Eye, Dumplings, and Rigor Mortis, the region’s filmmakers have pushed the boundaries of genre, cinematic style, and bad taste. But what makes Hong Kong horror cinema so utterly unique? How has this cult tradition developed over time? Why does it hold such fascination for “serious” cinephiles and cult fans alike? And how have Hong Kong horror movies shaped the genre internationally? This book provides answers to such questions, celebrating the classics of the genre while introducing readers to lesser known films. Hong Kong Horror Cinema is the first book about this delirious and captivating cinematic tradition.

Ghostly Returns: the Politics of Horror in Hong Kong Cinema

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Hong Kong Cinema ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
The City

This chapter examines the trend towards Hong Kong-China co-productions, during which Hong Kong horror films have been in decline due to censorship restrictions in Mainland China. While this mega-market direction is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, Hong Kong filmmakers have made fresh attempts to revitalize this popular genre and inject it with new meanings in the changed and changing context of cultural production and cultural politics in the city. Between 2012-2014, several low to medium budget horror films were released. Local audiences responded enthusiastically and many saw these as a sign of the resilience of the local popular culture to counter or at least deflate the hegemony of the Mainland market. This chapter traces the trajectory of Hong Kong horror through the pre- and post-handover decades, situating horror within the evolving discourse of identity and the issues of local histories and collective memory. It also elaborates on the politics of horror as seem from horror films produced and released in the midst of escalating social and political tensions attributable to a popular/populist “anti-China localism”. The chapter further reflects on the cultural politics of delocalization and relocalization in the context of “re-occupying Hong Kong screens.”

Food for Thought: Cannibalism in The Untold Story and Dumplings

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Odham Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Youth Culture ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Real Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
High Anxiety ◽  
Cultural Importance ◽  
Hong Kong Cinema

Food features prominently in Hong Kong cinema, from the infamous “Eat my rice” scene in Woo’s heroic bloodshed A Better Tomorrow 2 to the special recipes of dueling restaurants in the Hui Brothers’ comedy Chicken and Duck Talk. While in many action movies, dramas and comedies, food brings people together, in Hong Kong horror films, food carries more ominous overtones. Cannibalism serves as the main course in Herman Yau’s Untold Story (aka Human Pork Buns) and Fruit Chan’s Dumplings (the former drawn from a real case and the latter a short and feature). Both explore the political and social underpinnings of their time. Untold Story (1993) is an excellent example of crisis cinema- in your face, low budget, high anxiety over the return of Hong Kong to China. Dumplings (2004) reflects the post-postmodern fascination with a youth culture, at any costs. Both films mark class distinctions and reflect the cultural importance of food in Chinese society as well as provide comment on their times.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Bettinson ◽  
Daniel Martin
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
South Korea ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Film History ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Hong Kong Cinema

This introduction to Hong Kong Horror Cinema introduces Hong Kong horror from a variety of perspectives, charting the history and development of the genre and citing key films and filmmakers; it puts Hong Kong horror in the context of East Asian horror more broadly, discussing some of the cultural specificities of Hong Kong horror that differentiate it from the popular and historical horror cycles from Japan, South Korea, Thailand and China; it provides a brief overview of horror studies within the field of academic theory, and suggests ways in which Hong Kong horror films can contribute new perspectives to these well-rehearsed arguments. A brief survey of literature covers the major related works from the fields of Hong Kong cinema and horror film history, and in doing so, makes a case for the importance, timeliness and originality of this anthology. The introduction also includes a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of Hong Kong Horror Cinema, explaining the division of chapters into sections and drawing pertinent connections between the varied studies that follow.

scholarly journals Migration, Memory and Hong Kong as a 'Space of Transit' in Clara Law's Autumn Moon

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-158
Author(s):  
Tony Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
The Self ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Hong Kong Cinema ◽  
Contemporary Cinema ◽  
Auteur Cinema ◽  
To Receive

Macau-born and Melbourne-based film maker Clara Law and her screenwriter-producer-director husband Eddie Fong have produced a transnational output of films which are beginning to receive critical recognition as major contributions to contemporary cinema. These ‘films of migration’ explore what Gina Marchetti has encapsulated as ‘the Chinese experience of dislocation, relocation, emigration, immigration, cultural hybridity, migrancy, exile, and nomadism—together termed the “Chinese diaspora”’. The self-imposed ‘relocation’ of Law and Fong to Australia in 1994 was the result of increasing frustration with the rampantly commercial imperatives of Hong Kong cinema and its lack of appreciation for the auteur cinema they wanted to pursue.

Terror nicht Horror

2009 ◽  
Vol 0 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-184
Author(s):  
Matthias Bickenbach
Keyword(s):  
Horror Films ◽  
Ghost Story ◽  
Film Version ◽  
History Of

Hideo Nakata's film version of THE RING sets up a remarkable constellation of technical and spiritualist media that has re-established the genre of psycho-horror films. The film is not just about a ghost story but, unlike the novels by Kôji Suzuki, about a primeval scene of the fear of media that initiates the eventuation of a "video curse", thereby raising the issue of the technology of fear as a history of media.

Numerical Investigation of Wave Period Influence on Long Wave Run-Up on Slope With Rigid Vegetation

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Tang ◽  
Yongming Shen
Keyword(s):  
Shallow Water Equations ◽  
Water Wave ◽  
Wave Period ◽  
Coastal Vegetation ◽  
Coastal Structures ◽  
Rigid Vegetation ◽  
Comparison With Experiment ◽  
Long Wave ◽  
Nonlinear Shallow Water Equations ◽  
Run Up

Coastal vegetation can not only provide shade to coastal structures but also reduce wave run-up. Study of long water wave climb on vegetation beach is fundamental to understanding that how wave run-up may be reduced by planted vegetation along coastline. The present study investigates wave period influence on long wave run-up on a partially-vegetated plane slope via numerical simulation. The numerical model is based on an implementation of Morison’s formulation for rigid structures induced inertia and drag stresses in the nonlinear shallow water equations. The numerical scheme is validated by comparison with experiment results. The model is then applied to investigate long wave with diverse periods propagating and run-up on a partially-vegetated 1:20 plane slope, and the sensitivity of run-up to wave period is investigated based on the numerical results.

Patient participation

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Pregnant Women ◽  
Genetic Counselling ◽  
Patient Participation ◽  
Qualitative Difference ◽  
Information Delivery ◽  
The Self ◽  
Chinese Patients ◽  
Chinese Group

This study analyses patient questions in prenatal genetic counselling (PGC) in a Hong Kong hospital. The focus is on the kinds of questions asked by the patients and the sequential environments in which the questions are asked. The ten patients in the study are pregnant women at or above 38 years of age, four local Cantonese-speaking Chinese, and six of Filipina or Thai origin. The PGC is conducted by a nurse who communicates with the Chinese patients in Cantonese and with the non-Chinese patients in English. Two broad types of questions, medical and administrative, in line with the purpose of PGC, are found in both groups. While both groups share a concern on the accuracy of the test, the Chinese group asks more questions on medical details beyond the issue of accuracy. With regard to sequential environments, questions may be either ‘occasioned’ by the nurse’s prior talk or ‘self-motivated’; both may occur in the positions for minimal responses in extended information delivery sequences. Self-motivated questions also occur as a second or later component in the patient’s extended turn. While the two groups of patients ask questions from either of the sequential positions, a qualitative difference lies in the turn design of the self-motivated questions.

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