Review of film: Vulgaria

<Vulgaria> is about the story of a director, Du, who is sharing his experience of being famous and popular by directing a porno film with the university students in a talk.

<Vulgaria> is being described as a localized slapstick comedy with rich Hong Kong cultural atmosphere. It firstly contents a large amount of Cantonese slag language which is hard to translate into other languages. Foul language appears frequently too. As commented by the film critic Chan Zhuan, the film is extremely porno and violent, but these are the core values of Hong Kong.

The film is being showed in mainland too. Yet, some scenes are cut and forbidden to show due to porn and violence. With scripts on the screen, some mainland audience find it is hard to understand the content. One of the audience mentions that it jumps too fast that he thinks it is some scenes only but not a whole story and he cannot understand the conversation sometimes. Some content, for example Director Du’s daughter says she hopes her father to be interviewed in the TVB program <Scoop> (東張西望), is hardly to be understand by some audience as the cultural backgrounds are different.

Stereotype – Mainlander

As the handover of Hong Kong to China, the interaction between Hong Kong people and the mainlanders become more and more. In <Vulgaria>, there are stereotypes can be found on the identity of mainlanders showing what is the public belief of Hong Kong people towards them. The director Du meets a mainland investor in one restaurant of Guangxi. The investor and his brothers or friends are unpleased at the first sight as they are dressing in bad taste with sparkling suits, gelled hair and cigarettes. Besides, their ignorant characteristics are reflected as the investor asks Director Du to drink alcohol and need not to worry about being arrest even he is discovered of drink driving as he is so powerful in Guangxi so no one is dare to put his friends in jail. They are described as barbarians even more by the scene of ordering dishes which are made of rabbits, cats, the eyes of cow etc. This reflects that they do not have a proper morality. They have no idea about protecting animals and pets but only enjoy eating them for good tastes. Affecting by the cases of mainlanders urinating in the public, littering etc., a negative image of no morality, neglecting laws, selfish is being established on the mainlanders.

Stereotype – Successful Career women

We can find not only stereotype on mainlanders but also on successful career women. In <Vulgaria>, Director Du’s is divorced with his wife. His wife is a senior lawyer who is highly educated. She lives with their only daughter. She is fashion, with make-up and in professional image with smart short hair but no longer the traditional married women image with curly hair and in bad taste dressing. She is not the kind of “yellow-faced women” as called by people who only know preparing meals, doing housework and are innocent and naive.

She is also not subordinated to her husband as she is wealthy enough that she can hire maid to take care of her daughter, live without the alimony payment from her former husband and even lend him money for his film production. She can be independent and not necessary to depend on men and even to be the breadwinner to supporter to others. Her life is not only about husband and daughter but with own space.

By Mabel Lui Pui Yi 21047486