Image(above): A poster of film I love Hong Kong 2013.
The Happiness Never Ends
In recent years, films for celebrating Chinese New Year are regularly invested by film companies, and mainly by two directors, Raymond Wong Bak-ming and Eric Tsang Chi-wai. The latter has produced “I Love Hong Kong 2013”(2013我愛HK 恭喜發財) with Peter Chik, and Director Chung Shu Kai; it was shown in cinemas between early February and late March.
The story of the film is set in recent time, with the leading role called Hung (act by Bosco Wong), facing the issues of selling his traditional Chinese restaurant, memorizing his pasts. The main timeframe of the film is from the 70s; the time when Hung has come to Hong Kong from mainland for living. Director has applied many collective memories and typification of stereotypical iconography to represent and identify the 70s, such as the settings of decoration, clothes for actors, and folk adages of people at that time. More, in the film, Hung and his friend Sum (act by Michael Tse), go to Hongkongese Cafe (冰室). They would like to make friend with Yeung (act by Kate Tsui) while Yeung and Yuen (act by Joyce Cheng) are eating ice-cream there. These hardwares effectively give an existing feeling of the 70s.
As the theme set to celebrate Chinese New Year, the feeling of Chinese Lunar New Year and happiness should be the prior feeling to deliver to the audience. Therefore, red pockets, red clothing, and the saying of “Kung Hei Fat Choy” are found in the film. More, the elements of comedy film that is similar to films of Michael Hui’s style in the 70s to 80s was added, while Eric Tsang often acted in his film. For example, In I love Hong Kong 2013, Hung speaks some tone of words those are similar to foul language. Like the New Year film he produced before, we can see the scenes of all actors singing and dancing together. Directors used this common technique of Bollywood in India as a reference (this technique has been used in early TV dramas and films in Hong Kong) to represent an atmosphere of Happiness. Using Auteur Theory to define, the director believes that singing and dancing altogether can convince the audience to bring up the mood of happiness. Also, as they would like to engage the audiences into the film, social issues and mocks on politics were added to increase the authenticity.
Besides, director also interpreted the particular social phenomenon to amplify the 70s. The role Hung and Yeung getting married means lovers from different socio-economic levels are not easy to be together because of family (pressure?), but they could overcome it eventually. In the huge gap between rich and poor, it was not difficult to see it happens. Furthermore, the most important thing for it becomes the logic from the film is the spirit of friendship at that generation. Hung is willing to work hard from worker, and being honest to everyone. It makes the spirit of unity strong between colleagues, friends of community, and family. Hung is always helping others although it will make himself in trouble. In the film, he gave the golden bracelet to the colleagues for money to help their family though it is originally the gift for Yeung for marriage; and he also spent all the money to buy the Chinese restaurant he worked for to avoid Sum to take-over as landlord ruling.
To sum up, this type of films should be produced in every coming year, and I believe the producers will keep investing on it. One of the reasons is there are plenty of sponsors for the film and therefore we can see many product placement through the scenes of film. And, for the wish of the producer, Eric Tsang said that he knows the negative atmosphere in the society, so he produced this film, aimed to cheer the audiences up, and brings happiness to Hong Kong people. The film name I Love Hong Kong is the simplest word to explain every love in Hong Kong.
Reference of Image: http://a753.phobos.apple.com/us/r1000/084/Purple2/v4/5c/3b/87/5c3b874e-0516-6bb1-95f2-f5666e8477b8/mzl.jahotgyp.1024x1024-65.jpg
SIU Ka Nam Maurice
A holistic approach is adopted in analyzing the textual representations of the selected film. Some representative scenes and symbolic qualities of the main characters are identified, with discussion on their social significance in the specific cultural context (i.e., hardship experienced in the 70s). In particular, the strategies and functions of producing (musical) comedy during CNY have been uncovered.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned in your article, the film reflects a kind of “Michael Hui’s style”, you might need to elaborate a bit on this point. Also, we do not possess some of the “first-hand” experience of the cultural context (e.g., the hardship) depicted in the film. What really drives us to identify with these re-constructed images? Do we really regard them as our “individual memories”?
Yes I think the director and producers of this film mixed some comedic appeals of Michael Hui's comedy. As the period that Michael Hui produced films with his brothers Sam and Ricky, they often applied the daily life of citizen, especially in the characteristics of neighborhood coonections of public estates as comedy and gag into the film, aimed to give a first-person feeling to the audience.
ReplyDeleteBack to the "I Love HK 2013", the director would like to arouse the collective memories of people who experienced the 70's. Therefore, the director also applied "70's" comedy and gag to the story for the similar feeling to 70's comedy film. But how about audiences they born in the 80s or even later? Although we might not fully understand the 'first person' feeling to everything of the 70's, and the old-time style of comedy and gag, but the director added an important message into the film, and that is monuments and heritage preservation. Recently, monuments and heritage preservation becomes an hot issue in Hong Kong society. More and more persons they are interested to the heritages will be attracted to pay attention to the news, or having site visits to heritages for creating their own individual memories.