More Ramblings on Post-Modernism in Hong Kong Cinema
m connors
Critics define post-modernism as a reaction against modernism
by a self conscious use of older styles and techniques. What I find
interesting is that so much of Hong Kong cinema references older
and other styles and techniques of film making. It is not just the
art movies of Wong Kar Wai or even the self aware comedies of
Stephen Chow where you find strong evidence of post-modernism but
in mainstream action movies as well.
Let me give you an example. Yuen Kwai made "Hero,"
[Ma Wing Jing] in 1996. The movie was a remake of Chang Cheh's
1974 movie "The Killer from Shantung." Both movies were released
by Shaw Brothers. "Hero" has a good cast, Kaneshiro Takeshi, Yuen
Biao, Yuen Wah, and Yuen Tak. In many ways it is a straight
ahead, big budget chop-socky. It is a good movie with good
characters, good action, and a good score. No one would call it
a post-modernist movie. But there are post-modernist elements
even in this film. At the beginning of the movie the narration
tells us that in 1898 there was a famine in Shantung and people
came to Shanghai. That's fine. It is a good starting point.
Then we get to Shanghai, and the women are dressed more in a style
more like a 1930's Hollywood movie, than like 1890's Shanghai.
Then there is a big night club scene. Kaneshiro, dressed
suspiciously like Fred Astaire in a white tuxedo, gets up on stage
to play with the band. They are playing Tito Puente's "Mambo
Gozon" which was written in 1957. Kaneshiro even plays the
timbales, just like El Rey. Go figure. Within the first half
hour of the movie we have three time references about 60 years
apart.
I'm every one of us could point to example after example in
Hong Kong cinema. It is easy to assign it to a lack of budget, or
time, or the director wasn't careful. It was a mistake. These things
in "Hero" aren't mistakes. They are the result of the planning
and execution. They choose to do it this way.
MIKE
Dan Helmick
: art movies of Wong Kar Wai or even the self aware comedies of
: Stephen Chow where you find strong evidence of post-modernism but
: in mainstream action movies as well.
Chiau's post-modernist roots also go deeper than one might think. From
many of the more subtle reaction shots and double-takes in his performances, I
have a strong suspicion that he's done a close study of the work of Bob
Hope--and Hope's films, with their vaudeville sensibilities and persistent
dynamiting of the fourth wall, were post-modern before the term was coined.
Dan
--
Gary
m connors
favorite Bob Hope movie is "The Road to Hong Kong"?
I'll give you another example of what I am writing about from
another movie. "City War" is one of the shoot'em ups made in Hong
Kong in the late 1980's. It stars Chow Yun Fat and Ti Lung.
Right in the middle of the movie there is a dance number. The
woman is dressed like Marilyn Monroe, and Chow Yun Fat is dressed
like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever." The music they are
dancing to is a Cantonese version of a Cole Porter song, and I
believe it is sung by Anita Mui.
Everyone of us could come up with example after example
from Hong Kong movies. But like I wrote, I am just rambling.
MIKE
Woutthi...@yahoo.com
jnglt...@delphi.com (m connors) wrote:
> In article <7pfmln$9nk$1...@gail.ripco.com>, oob...@ripco.com says...
> >
> >m connors (jnglt...@delphi.com) wrote:
> >: art movies of Wong Kar Wai or even the self aware comedies of
> >: Stephen Chow where you find strong evidence of post-modernism but
> >: in mainstream action movies as well.
> >
> >Chiau's post-modernist roots also go deeper than one might think.
> From
> >many of the more subtle reaction shots and double-takes in his
> performances, I
> >have a strong suspicion that he's done a close study of the work of
> Bob
> >Hope--and Hope's films, with their vaudeville sensibilities and
> persistent
> >dynamiting of the fourth wall, were post-modern before the term was
> coined.
> >
> >Dan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> Thank you for your post. Do you think Stephen Chow's
> favorite Bob Hope movie is "The Road to Hong Kong"?
Road To Utopia and Road To Bali are better examples (and movies).
About your original post : why do you say that the shifts in time in
Hero were deliberate? I don't think they are - or rather, the directors
just take images or sounds which they consider to be 'cool' or
attractive and do not care about reconstructing the period faithfully.
I always thought Hero WAS a movie which took place in the '30's. And in
Circus Kids, which is situated in 1937, the villainous kung fu fighting
woman is dressed in western clothes anno 1900. I fear it IS
carelessness rather than design.
BTW for a HK movie with post-modern sensibilities, check out Task
Force.
Wout Thielemans
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The Diabolical Erroneous Monk
Woutthi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> BTW for a HK movie with post-modern sensibilities, check out Task
> Force.
>
> Wout Thielemans
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
--
The Diabolical Erroneous Monk
"After I'm released from prison, I'll be living in Vancouver for the
rest of my life. Then I will invite all you smart guys over there."
-NO CARRIER
rg#$
$sgd%f^sf
---
Andrew Grossman
the only one. Self-consciousness had also been an important aspect of
modernism from the early part of this century--for example in Brecht.
What modernism posited was the centralization of human beings in a moral
universe; post-modernism attempts to do the opposite, by de-centering
human beings and proposing ethical instability predicated on the
necessarily unstable nature of language and its
understanding/communicablilty.
m connors
to me.
I am just guessing about the production design of "Hero"
but I would say it was planned to look as different from the Wong
Fei Hung movies, and there are a lot of them, that were made in
Hong Kong in the early 1990's. If Yuen Kwai had dumped the
narration at the beginning that set the movie in 1898 there would
be no evidence of an earlier time than the 1930's. And I thought
the Mambo Gozon number was pretty cool too.
I never wrote that "Hero" was a post-modernist film. I
was just pointing out an element which is found in movies others
have labelled post-modernist is also found in nonpost-modernist
Hong Kong films.
I have seen "Task Force." The best part of the movie is
Eric Tsang. He won an award for his performance, but don't ask me
which one. I forget.
MIKE
In article <7pfkvk$n...@lotho.delphi.com>, jnglt...@delphi.com
says...
>
>--More Ramblings on Post-Modernism in Hong Kong Cinema--
>
> Critics define post-modernism as a reaction against modernism
>by a self conscious use of older styles and techniques. What I find
>interesting is that so much of Hong Kong cinema references older
>and other styles and techniques of film making. It is not just the
>art movies of Wong Kar Wai or even the self aware comedies of
>Stephen Chow where you find strong evidence of post-modernism but
>in mainstream action movies as well.
kari
Woutthi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Road To Utopia and Road To Bali are better examples (and movies).
>
> About your original post : why do you say that the shifts in time in
> Hero were deliberate? I don't think they are - or rather, the directors
> just take images or sounds which they consider to be 'cool' or
> attractive and do not care about reconstructing the period faithfully.
> I always thought Hero WAS a movie which took place in the '30's. And in
> Circus Kids, which is situated in 1937, the villainous kung fu fighting
> woman is dressed in western clothes anno 1900. I fear it IS
> carelessness rather than design.
I think much of Hero is deliberate homage -- Yuen Kwai chose those images
and moments to echo other films, other sets of images, all of which are
then laid over the Boxer from Shantung plot (which is itself re-worked
here). Hero is very clear that it is a *film*, not reality. Shanghai here
-- as in various other gangster films set in the same city -- is as much a
myth as a city, an otherwhen of heroes who are part human, part legend
(look at the final shots of the Yuen Biao character, for instance). In some
senses, Hero is set in any of those 'outlaw' cities (Chicago, Berlin, Paris
-- they are all referenced and overlapped here). Tanelorn, if you like, but
Tanelorn of the triads and the mob.Circus Kids on the other hand is a mess,
and the costumes are probaly just more of the carelessness about accuracy
in weestern dress obne finds in much Hk film (1970s ballgowns in Project A,
for eg). Much as we in the west get Chinese dress decades out -- look at
hte early Chinese leaders in Xena, with their Ching dynasty queues...
Costume designers work by cliche as much as anyone else!
Kari