Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/219

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    (英語學系, 2020-03-??) Leo Chia-Li Chu
    This paper will examine the ambivalences and contradictions in post-handoverHong Kong cinema through the lens of gender, border, and the body politic inthree crime films. The first of them, Intruder (恐怖雞 Kongbu ji, 1997),released when sovereignty over Hong Kong had just been transferred fromBritain to China, may evoke a “crisis of masculinity” through itsborder-crossing female antagonist; in contrast, the portrayal of women, as wellas transgender and queer people, in Ming Ming (明明, 2006) and I Come withthe Rain (2009), appears to be more nuanced. Reading the three films againstone another and against established narratives about the city, I intend toinvestigate how these films adopt gendered narratives and the questions ofborder in the construction of identity politics in post-handover Hong Kong. Byjuxtaposing the fluid, unstable, and multi-faceted bodies of fictional characterswith the city’s history, this paper argues that the representation of past andfuture in these films reflects the struggle to narrate anxiety and hope inpost-handover Hong Kong.
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    (英語學系, 2020-03-??) William Carroll
    In this paper the author compares Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To’s (杜琪峯) formal articulation of urban space in his internationally celebrated crimefilms with that in his locally popular romantic comedies. Drawing from recentscholarship on urban space in Hong Kong, Chinese, and broader East Asiancinema, he establishes that To’s films in both genres hinge on spatialrelationships that are specific to rapidly forming metropolises. However,through close analyses of the crime films Expect the Unexpected (非常突然Feichang turan, 1998) and Breaking News (大事件 Da shijian, 2004) and theromantic comedies Turn Left, Turn Right (向左走‧向右走 Xiangzuo zou,xiangyou zou, 2003) and Don't Go Breaking My Heart (單身男女 Danshennannu, 2011), he contends that To’s crime films depict these spatialrelationships within a framework of spatial continuity, while his romanticcomedies do so within a framework of spatial fragmentation. These twoframeworks play into the two genres’ separate dramatic needs: fatalisticconfrontation for the crime films vs. delayed reconciliation in the romanticcomedies. However, To uses these spatial frameworks within the two genresto explore the ways that urban design can either thwart or facilitate encountersbetween the inhabitants of a global city.