I love Hong Kong 2011 was a comedy film which was shown during
traditional Chinese New Year time. It was produced and directed by Eric Tsang, a
well-known funny artist in Hong Kong, also most of the actors were from TVB,
the most famous TV channel. This film contains lots of simple and interesting main
scenes, all those elements makes people feel familiar with.
The story describes what happened in a public housing estate, Choi
Wan Estate which located in Wong Tai Sin. This is also a story about the Hong
Kong unique spirit due to public housing estate is the collective memory of all
Hong Kong people, and a symbol of struggles (奮鬥精神的象徵).
Collective memory can be anything which connects to our identities
and grounds in the past, also sees as our root. This memory does not have to be
experienced. With media projection, people would have the same feelings as
those who has truly experienced. In this movie, it talks lots about lives in public
housing estate, Itinerant hawkers (流動小販) and neighbors touches with harmony (屋村人情味). All Hong
Kong people would think that those are unique characteristics which owned by
them even though they might not everyone has the experiences. Those
characteristics link up individuals together and make them feel that they are
in contact with the society in order to build up their local identities. The
message of this movie is pretty clear, throughout the story, people are
reminded that last generation worked so hard to support families, they did
their best to fight with various difficulties and the trust between neighbors, also
to hope the new generation would pass those positive attitudes along and to smooth
away all grievances, and this is what audiences should be able to decode.
This film also a reflection of current social phenomenon, such as
school-aged girl wants to be a leng mo(靚模), boys love photo
taking and being a lung yau(龍友) and the concept
of slim equal pretty. Meanwhile, some social issues are mocked by the story,
for instance The Link misappropriates of public housing estates assets and “Queen
of Tutor” (補習天后) makes use of her “business line” (事業線) to please student and her boss. All these occurrences in the movie
resonate
the public and helps ordinary citizen to voice out what they think is not good
or not right in order to make this film more localized.
Heavy use of Cantonese slang is very
important to a comedy film. The names of characters are very interesting in
this movie. The main character played by Leung Ka Fai was called Ng Shun (吳順), Mag Lam was called
Ng Chi (吳芝) in the film, they both have meaning when pronounce in Cantonese and
people seldom heard this slang as a Chinese full name. To me, the funniest name
of a character was called Lee Lo Mei (李滷味). This is not a
very good word in Cantonese but this name can really echo Hong Kong people’s
cultural background with specificity.
Wong Cho Yi, Joey (10483998)
I love Hong Kong 2011 was a comedy film which was shown during
traditional Chinese New Year time. It was produced and directed by Eric Tsang, a
well-known funny artist in Hong Kong, also most of the actors were from TVB,
the most famous TV channel. This film contains lots of simple and interesting main
scenes, all those elements makes people feel familiar with.
A concise but comprehensive review which covers all important features of the film, from the representation of core/traditional values, reflection of emerging social phenomena, and internalization of local cultural practices (e.g., the naming strategy of characters). The discussion on “collective memory” is well formulated with some fundamental concepts of the theory.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned in your article, we do not possess some of the “first-hand” experience of the cultural context (and hardship) depicted in the film. What really drives us to identify with all these constructed images and regard them as our “individual memories”? (e.g., intertextual media consumption practices? Specific techniques used in narrating the story?)