Hong Kong Dark Cinema

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 messagesjoy, 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.

Offers a unique perspective that views noirish production in Hong Kong as a transcultural hybrid rather than a filmic replica Gives evidence of an essential "glocality" of commercial dark cinema that is not only filmic but also ahistorical, social, cultural and political Examines how mainstream dark cinema applies a peculiar strategy that makes room for the audience to enjoy a pleasure-giving process of reflexivity while also allowing them to critique the mainstream ideology of escapism

Autorentext

Kim-mui E. Elaine Chan has been teaching film studies and cultural studies in Hong Kong for undergraduate and post-graduate core programmes respectively at Lingnan University and Hong Kong Baptist University since 2005. Her work has appeared in such academic journals as the Journal of Chinese Cinemas and the International Journal of Cinema. Chan received her PhD in Film Studies from the University of Kent, UK.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Film Noir, Crisis and Politics of Identity.- 3. The Private Eye Blues: A New Spectator-Screen Relationship.- 4. City of Glass: a Temporal Character of Plot.- 5. Happy Together: Reversing the Archetypal Roles.- 6. Swordsman II: **Performance and Performativity.- 7. Conclusion.