Hong Kong Dark Cinema: Film Noir, Re-conceptions, and Reflexivity

Description

This book is a scholarly investigation of the historical development and contemporary transformation of film noir in today’s Hong Kong. Focusing on the evolvement of cinematic narratives, aesthetics, and techniques, the author balances a deep reading of the multiple filmic plots with a discussion of the cinematic portrayals of gender, romance, identities and power relations. Nuancing the prototypical cinematic form and tragic sense of classical film noir, the recent Hong Kong cinema turns around the classical generic role of film noir at the turn of the century to convey very different messages—joy, hope or love. This book examines how the mainstream cinema, or pre-and-post-Hong Kong cinema in particular, applies a peculiar strategy that makes rooms for the audience to enjoy a pleasure-giving process of reflexivity and also critique the mainstream ideology. With new analytical approaches and angles, this book breaks new ground in offering transcultural and cross-genre analyses on the cinema and its impact in local and international markets. This book is the first major scholarly investigation of the historical development and contemporary transformation of film noir in today’s Hong Kong. Focusing on the evolvement of cinematic narratives, aesthetics, and techniques, the author balances a deep reading of the multiple filmic plots with a refreshing discussion of the cinematic portrayals of gender, romance, identities and power relations. This book also revisits conceptual categories developed by Foucault, Lacan, Derrida and Butler. Front Matter ....Pages i-xii Introduction (Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan)....Pages 1-25 Film Noir, Crisis and Politics of Identity (Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan)....Pages 27-80 The Private Eye Blues: A New Spectator-Screen Relationship (Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan)....Pages 81-114 City of Glass: A Temporal Character of Plot (Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan)....Pages 115-137 Happy Together: Reversing the Archetypal Roles (Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan)....Pages 139-158 Swordsman II: Performance and Performativity (Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan)....Pages 159-172 Conclusion (Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan)....Pages 173-191 Back Matter ....Pages 193-241