Online review - 'Vulgaria' : Presenting the core values and stereotypes of Hong Kong

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‘Vulgaria’ (低俗喜劇) is a 2012 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Pang Ho-cheung, starring by Chapman To, Ronald Cheng and Dada Chan. The movie is about a film producer invited by a university lecturer to share his experiences about the moviedom, through his achievements to tell the students how miserable in the industry. It won the “Best Supporting Actor and Actress” during the 32th Hong Kong Film Award. The following will focus on how ‘Vulgaria’ show the stereoytpes and the core values of Hong Kong.

There are some memorable screen to show the stereoytpes and core values of Hong Kong. First, the film producer - To (starring by Chapman To) want to make more money to pay back to his ex-wife to have a chance to see his daughter. This screen can show the spirit of Hong Kong people work hard for what they want and to have a better life. Since To did not have enough money to pay back to his ex-wife, his ex-wife don't let him to take his daughter back home and ask him to give up the custody of their daughter, but his daughter is the only moral pillars for him, he don't want to show his failure to his ex-wife and his daughter, so he tries to find somebody to invest to his film, earn money to fight back his daughter and tell his ex-wife that no matter what method, he won't give up the chance to take care of his daughter and pay her back all the money. By the invitation of his friend, he have a chance to meet up with an investor in China - Tyrannosaurus (starring by Ronald Cheng), a ganger in Guangxi and dinner with him. During the dinner, To and his friend force to eat different kinds of food, which is the organ of animals.

According to this dinner, we can also find some cultural difference between Hong Kong and China. First, after Hong Kong return to China, many people go back to China to run their business because they think that there will have more opportunities for them to having their own business. And due to the development and open policy in China, many traditional local film products were disappear. Nowadays the investors only want to make more profits form the audiences, so that the director will shoot the screen that suit for Chinese audiences, since China is the biggest market for them to earn more money. However, 'Vulgaria' is the different case. Before shooting, Pang Ho-cheung already told the investor that it is impossible to broadcast in China, even can't pass the China's censorship in such a limit of time. Therefore, this film contain a lot of Cantonese, foul language and sexual screen, which is not suitable to broadcast in China and hard to translate for mainlanders to understand the contents.

Second, more and more mainlanders travel in Hong Kong, they made a lot of problems and cause a chain of anti-mainlander campaign, such as take photo in front of D&G store re-write a song to satirize the mainlanders behavior etc. They think that mainlanders are unruly, unfashionable, littering, spitting, 'pee and poo' everywhere, talking loudly in public place and take all the benefits that should only provide to Hong Kong people. Therefore, most Hong Kong people try to protect their own culture and called them 'Locust', which means the mainlanders are greedy and never satisfied. We can also find this kind of stereotype in 'Vulgaria', Tyrannosaur (Ronald Cheng) dressed in some unfashionable suit, talking loudly and unruly. He tries to force To and his friend to have sex with a mule and eat different kinds of animals' organs, which is the director want to present the uncivilized image of mainlanders to the audiences.

To sum up, Pang Ho-cheung used the way of vulgar in 'Vulgaria' to present the uncivilized image of mainlanders which mostly Hong Kong people think about. He also used a 'black humor' to present the strive spirit of Hong Kong people and the situation of the film industry in reality Hong Kong nowadays. As the result, I think this film is produce for Hong Kong people and represent the local Hong Kong culture.

By Hui Chun Sing (10523154/21055323)