Etapa de Operaciones Formales (12 a 15 años):

The above lines of argument open up a space for us to explore Hong Kongers’ situational, diasporic sense in this study of Hong Kong cinema (in Chapters 2 and 4). This is because if Hong Kongers’ diasporic consciousness, as articulated in films made during the Handover transition, is read in its fixity, we would be running the risk of confining the arguments to specific aspects only while leaving the others untouched.

For example, if we just discuss it in terms of a nationalist sense of identity (as what Teo and Lu have done), we would not be able to discover why there is an ambiguous relationship between Hong Kong and China in different films. Various Hong Kong filmmakers have attempted to capture, either realistically or dramatically, Hong Kongers’ mixed feelings for ‘China’. For example, Kong Bu Ji / The Intruder (Sammy TSANG, Hong Kong, 1997) tells the story of a Mainland Chinese prostitute and her husband who have committed a series of killings and identity thefts along the border between China and Hong Kong in order to escape their fugitive lives in China and settle in Hong Kong. Obviously, Mainlanders in this film are portrayed as prostitutes and villains while all Hong Kongers are innocent victims. Similarly, Biao Jie, Ni Hao Ye! / Her Fatal Ways (Alfred CHEUNG, Hong Kong, 1991) initially makes fun of the awkward behaviour of a female Mainland police officer who is sent to Hong Kong to work on a criminal- hunting case jointly with a male Hong Kong police officer. The male and female leads,

geopolitically representing their place of origin, later fall in love. These films thus reflect the feelings of Hong Kongers for ‘China’, that are indeed more than just nationalistic. Rather, they are mixed with love, hate and many other ambiguities.

If we view Hong Kong films from the angle of post-colonialism only (like Chu who has an implicit post-colonialist stance with her ‘national cinema’ approach, and Abbas with a more explicit post-colonial approach), it is debatable in the first instance whether Hong Kong has in fact been ‘de-colonized’ and/or is willing to be ‘de-colonized’ even after the official Handover.71 Different Hong Kong films made after 1997 have materialized such discourse through their narrative setting. For instance, Xin Dong / Tempting Heart (Sylvia CHANG, Hong Kong / Japan, 1999) which is an urban romance, Hua Yang Nian Hua / In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, France / Hong Kong, 2000) which is a nostalgic romance, Qiang Wang / Double Tap (LAW Chi- leung, China / Hong Kong, 2000) which is a psychological thriller, and Jin Ji / Golden Chicken

(Samson CHIU, Hong Kong, 2002) which is a comedy, set all or most of their narratives in the pre-Handover, contemporary colonial era.

If we see Hong Kong’s positioning in terms of globalization (like Stokes and Hoover; Bordwell; Fu and Desser; Yau; Cheung and Chu; Morris, Li and Chan; and Marchetti do), there will be another set of convolutions at play, resulting in another kind of ambiguity. We may be able to find examples of the cultural and economic exchanges in the global film industries. For instance, can we say that Hollywood imposes its influence onto Hong Kong cinema? It depends. Local film critics in Hong Kong blame the Hollywood blockbuster Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, USA, 1993) for stealing the box office income of local Hong Kong productions.72 Yet the export of Hong Kong filmic elements, like kung-fu components and talents (such as John Woo and CHOW Yun-fat), to Hollywood has obviously enriched the variety of Hollywood films.

On a micro scale, there are mutual hatred and discriminations between different ethnic / dialectic groups residing in Hong Kong, making straightforward study of the diasporic sentiments of Hong Kongers hard to grip in most, if not all, situations. Unlike other diasporic groups such as Jewish Diaspora or Black Diaspora, who have a clear idea of their history before their departure from their ancestral land and may have trouble being assimilated into their host societies, Hong Kong Chinese are the majority population of Hong Kong. Other diasporic groups like Hong Kong Indian / Pakistani are minorities that would often elude the main discourses on Hong Kong. Troubles also occur among different Chinese groups there, for example, Shanghainese immigrants from China may look down on local Cantonese people’s roughness but these Cantonese may disdain their Shanghainese neighbours as laid-back and arrogant.73

In an article ‘Transnationalization of the Local in Hong Kong Cinema of the 1990s’, Hong Kong- based film critic Kwai-cheung Lo establishes a thought-provoking concept, that ‘the local is the transnational itself in its becoming’.74 Lo argues that the hierarchical relationship between transnational and local, and Chinese cultural core and peripheral Chinese diaspora (and the like), cannot reflect the real situations of transnationality.75 He discusses his ideas with the gendered (mis)identity in Jinzhi Yuye / He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (Peter CHAN, Hong Kong, 1994), and the transnationality and temporal displacement of the pan-Chinese pop songs in Tian Mi Mi / Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan, Hong Kong, 1996). As Lo states:

What is discovered at the kernel of the local is always a self-estrangement. Thus there always remains, in the construction process of the local, a nonlocal that can provide a viewpoint from which the local can identify itself as something other than itself.76

Lo’s proposal thus provides us with a starting point to re-evaluate all the other fixed, hierarchical and bipolar relationships in conferring meanings on any texts, entities, individuals, groups and so on. I will discuss this further, as informed by the theoretical ideas of Derrida, Bhabha and Hall, in Chapter 2 and to rethink the relationship between Self and the Other in Chapter 4.