The "Shanghai Factor" in Hong Kong Cinema: A Tale of Two Cities in Historical Perspectives

Author: Zhen Zhang  

Publisher: Intellect Books

ISSN: 2049-6710

Source: Asian Cinema, Vol.10, Iss.1, 1998-09, pp. : 146-159

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

One of the major components of the public discourse and imagination in the decade leading to the recent handover of Hong Kong was the incessant parallel drawn between Hong Kong and Shanghai, the two most prominent Chinese metropolises of this and perhaps the next century. While the colonial history of Hong Kong was reaching its end, the mixture of nostalgia for the vanishing "present" and the anxiety over an uncertain future frequently manifested itself in many Hong Kong films. Hong Kong and Shanghai are uniquely similar in terms of urban history, being the two most important trading ports and commercial centers in modern Chinese and global geo-political history. Both cities are also made up largely of migrants, and thus boast of a hybrid of languages (not least of which is pidgin English) amid a distinctly local dialect--Cantonese and Shanghainese, respectively. The strong dual local-cosmopolitian identity felt by the people of both cities has contributed to the making of two particular urban cultures (including mass media, of course) and the cultural sensibility they have fostered.