May Fourth and Postwar Hong Kong’s Leftist Cantonese Cinema

2019 ◽  
pp. 75-101
Author(s):  
Jing Jing Chang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Film Adaptations ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
May Fourth Movement ◽  
Fourth Movement ◽  
Ba Jin ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
Film Productions ◽  
The May Fourth Movement

Chapter 3 examines the legacy of the May Fourth Movement in the context of postwar Hong Kong’s golden age of cinema. It argues that the May Fourth project was an unfinished one and was carried forward by progressive Cantonese filmmakers who were the torchbearers of its ideology. This chapter focuses on the careers of left-leaning filmmakers such as Ng Cho-fan, one of the founders of the Union Film Enterprise Ltd., and their emergence as postwar Hong Kong’s new cultural elites. Through a close reading of Union’s film adaptations of the Ba Jin trilogy, Family (Jia, dir. Ng Wu, 1953), Spring (Chun, dir. Lee Sun-fung, 1953), and Autumn (Qiu, dir. Chun Kim, 1954), this chapter demonstrates the transformative nature of the moral message of postwar Hong Kong’s cultural elites. Not only did left-leaning film talent repurpose core tenets of May Fourth, they also sought to reinterpret the spirit of vernacular modernism for the colony’s audiences through their film productions. Although May Fourth precepts were brought to Hong Kong by China’s nanlai cultural elites and leftwing film talents, the May Fourth spirit underwent a creative translingual appropriation during the 1950s as local Hong Kong leftwing companies such as the Union and Xinlian emerged.

The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals and Chinese Political Culture 1898–1929. By Timothy B. Weston. [Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2004. xiv+325 pp. $60.00; £39.95. ISBN 0-520-23767-6.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 841-843
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Elman
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
May Fourth Movement ◽  
New Culture Movement ◽  
Fourth Movement ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
The University ◽  
Chinese Political Culture ◽  
The May Fourth Movement

Timothy Weston's study of Beijing University (hereafter, “Beida”) spotlights how modern Chinese intellectuals positioned themselves politically and socially in the early 20th century. Weston relies on the Beida archives, dailies, journals, and many other sources, to make four contributions. First, Beida's early history shows how literati humanists repositioned themselves during a period of great uncertainty. New style intellectuals had influence because they mastered Western and classical learning. Secondly, Beida's complex history did not break sharply with the past. Earlier accounts of the May Fourth movement obscure the efforts of intellectuals since 1898 to redefine their role. Weston suggests that May Fourth amplified a continuing progression of new and old ways of doing things. Thirdly, political tensions emerged when the university increasingly radicalized after 1911. No more than 20 per cent of Beida students were involved in the New Culture movement. A strong conservative undertow continually challenged radical agendas. Often we hear only the voices of the latter. Finally, Weston assesses Beida's history in light of how the May Fourth movement played out in different locations. In the 1920s, Shanghai replaced Beijing as the leading venue for urban China's cultural and intellectual leaders. Beijing increasingly lost status under warlordism, and the Nationalist shift of the capital to Nanjing refocused Chinese intellectual life on the Chang (Yangtze) delta.

scholarly journals Innovative or Rather Traditional? Confucianising Tragedy in May Fourth China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Letizia Fusini
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discussion ◽  
May Fourth Movement ◽  
Chinese Context ◽  
Fourth Movement ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
The May Fourth Movement

A key aspect of the May Fourth Movement was the critical discussion of Western tragedy. While the interest in tragedy was sparked by the assumption that China lacked an analogous genre, its interpretation and adaptation to the Chinese context suggests that a traditional ‘indigenous’ filter was applied to define its supposed ‘modernity’. Through cross-comparing Chinese conceptions of beiju 悲剧 in the May Fourth era and traditional Chinese views of bei 悲, this paper will seek to show that the Chinese reception of tragedy was informed by the rejuvenation of traditional ideas rather than the introduction of purely ‘Western’ theories.

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