Online review - The way we dance (2013)

I am going to do a local film review called The way we dance (2013). Analyzing a film text is like analyzing language. Movie is not just a movie entertain people, it brings us messages. If you look deeply into the message from a film, you will get the real meaning behind a film. This review will focuses on Stuart Hall‘s Encoding/decoding model of communication and my viewpoint critical analysis of cultural text of the film The way we dance. The genre of The way we dance is dance. This genre is not as popular as others genres such as action films: cops and robbers, gangsters or romance films. The iconography of dancing film are sports style clothing, sports shoes, cool style of people. The setting of dancing film are community, underground, abandoned places, dancing floor, clubbing. The characters of dancing film most are boys, but there must be one or two girls to supporting the whole film. The themes of dancing film are the spirit of dance, the dream comes true, insist on dancing and so on. Narrative of dancing film are fail, give up, success, famous. Popular culture is ruled by market pressures, to cater to various sectors of consumers, also to repeat commercially successful patterns, ingredients and formulas. You can see while the dance film showing on theater, there will be a dancing trend during that moment. For example, the western film Step up was so successful and then others film companies will attempt to film the similar theme. Dance film mostly emphasis music and movement. The target audience are teenagers, youth, people who love dancing and people who pursue dreams. Subverts distinction between high and low culture, importance of the ordinary, everyday culture. The message in its natural form must be encoded by the source and decoded by the receiver so that a symbolic exchange is produced. According to the Encoding/decoding model of communication adopted by Stuart Hall (1980), he also claims that the decoding subject can assume three different hypothetical positions of decoding: Dominant-hegemonic position, negotiated position, and oppositional position. This is the most inspired local film that I have watched in 2013. Although this is so called a dance film, it is not just focuses on dancing. All the actors and actresses are not famous star, but they performed very well. There is a saying from this film“為左跳舞,你可以去到幾盡”, it means how far you could go for dancing. It literally means what you could sacrifice for chasing your dream. This is a dance movie talks about a fresh year one university girl Ah Fa who is talented in dancing, she has joined a dance club Bomba in university. She was quite smoothly at the beginning, but after something happened between her and her team members, she left Bomba and joined Tai Chi club. During the days in Tai Chi club, she met the leader Ah Leung of Tai Chi club, she is inspired the skill of new dancing movement and also understood the mental philosophy. She went back to the Bomba and finally performed a great show with her team. This film should be supported by local Hong Kong people and it is really worth to watch. The way we dance has won the best New Director, the best Original Film Song and the character of Ah Leung has won the best New Performer in the 33rd Hong Kong Film Awards.

 (579 words) 
From Pun Wing Tung (21240956, 10427298)