 |
 |
In response to Kevin's queries: There are a couple of things in relation to Hong Kong cinema that spring to mind. Firstly, before 1997 and in some retrospective studies, HK films such as Homecoming (Yim Ho 1984), Long Arm of the Law (Johnny Mak 1984), Her Fatal Ways series and others were 'read' in terms of the construction of a distinctive HK identity, away from colonial and mainland Chinese influences. There are theoretical complications of course as HK has never been a nation or an independent political entity. You can find writings regarding these issues in Browne’s New Chinese Cinemas, Cultural Studies special issue on HK (2001), Esther Yau’s At Full Speed etc. Secondly, I am currently working on the notion of a mediated community through the consumption of HK cinema, that again challenges Anderson’s enunciation of a ‘political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign’. Ang discusses what she calls ‘the transnational media system’ in Living Room Wars (1996), which mainly deals with television but is also relevant here. HK cinema’s hegemonising tendency problematises discourses of globalisation and cultural imperialism that tend to rely on the notion of geographically bound nationhood. This part of my work is only in working progress though. Wing-Fai Leung SOAS