Part IV: Globalizing Hong Kong (March 20)

1. Wong Kar-wai: globalization, localization and cult movies (小眾電影)
1.1. Wong is one of the most "globalized" directors of Hong Kong
1.2. Hong Kong movies, as one of the dominant narrators, exist in a border-crossing or "borderless" world (Kin-Yan Szeto).
1.3. Cultural globalization
1.3.1. Hollywood movies: globalization of the American film industry (movies, genres, stars, distribution, investment, product... ...)
1.3.2. Hong Kong or Korean film industry in Asia and the US.
1.3.3. Cult movies: globalization of non-mainstream local movies or directors (localization)
1.4. The main features of cult movies
1.4.1. Local characteristics
1.4.2. Global themes or languages (Example: John Woo's action movies)
1.5. Two questions:
-Is Hong Kong cinema becoming more national or transnational?
-How do the film talents in this industry and the works that derive from it react to challenges of (post)colonialism and nationalism?

2. The early phase of Wong's movies: (The Days of Being Wild), Chungking Express, Fallen Angels and Happy Together
2.1. Displaced identities, alienation
2.2. Some tricks of postmodernism (後現代) :
-Hybrid languages
-Cultural collage (拼貼)
2.3. Hong Kong as a cultural space: signifier of change and hybridity
2.4. Wong mimicked the high-speed flow of contemporary cities.
2.5. Analysis of a scene in Chungking Express: Mise en scene (場面調度)

References:The Cultural Aesthetic of Wong Kar-Wai

3. Nostalgia: In the Mood for Love and 2046
3.1. Explicitly picking up the theme of nostalgia again after 1997.
3.2. Wong's obsession with the 1960s.
3.3. Hong Kong: 1960s: love story: beloved one: 2046

4. In the Mood for Love
4.1. A man's (周慕雲) love story> a woman's story
4.2. Love affair: an incident: a memorable past: a woman
4.3. An oriental and exotic woman under male gaze
4.4. Analysis of a scene portraying Su Li-hua (Maggie Cheung) as a desired object (13:32)
4.5. Analysis of the ending: In the Mood for love is a male-centric story.


5. 2046: "Love is a matter of timing"
5.1. Zhou Mu-yun's story continues
-1963:在新加坡遇上另一個蘇麗珍(Rm no. 2046)
-1967-8:跟白玲交往（Rm no. 2046）
-1969:跟靖雯的故事（Rm no. 2046）
-1968:在新加坡再找不到另一個蘇麗珍 ("2046" is lost)
-1969:靖雯去日本 ("2046" is gone)
-1969:白玲去新加坡("2046" is gone)
5.1.1. The lover of "2046" is gone-->Memorizing "2046"-->All "2046"s are gone
5.1.2. Nostalgia of "2046" and "Hong Kong":
-A political metaphor (Hong Kong remains unchanged for fifty years, from 1997 to 2046)
-A disjuncture: close and distant
-Commodity fetishism: a room, a mood, a woman, a set of objects... ...
-A male gaze upon his beloved one(s)
-Looking back to history from "2047"

5.2. The story of 《2046》: People who went to 2046 never come back
5.2.1. Kimura Takuya (木村拓哉) left 2046 (his love relationship with somebody)
5.2.2. He fell in love with a robot
5.2.3. The robot didn't respond to his love.
5.2.4. He moves on to the future.
5.2.5. 2046: No. 2046: a piece of memory (Chapter 4)

5.3. Analysis of two scenes
5.3.1. Looking at "2046" (Chapter 3 and 4)
-"2046": a hotel room number: a fragment of memory preserved: a "borrowed" and temporary place
-Male gaze upon the past
5.3.2. Ending
-Obsessed with "2046"
-Leaving "2046"

6. Postmodernism, globalizing nostalgia
6.1. Hong Kong movies elevate themselves to the "global stage" as exotic others
6.2. From the eyes of the global spectators:
6.2.1. Hong Kong is portrayed as a place of nostalgia.
6.2.2. Fetishism (拜物主義): The beauty of Hong Kong is imagined as an object of the 1960s (the past)
6.2.3. The complex of 1997 arouses the nostalgic mood.
6.3. Postmodernism: Nostalgia without historical consciousness
6.3.1. In the mood for love: The past is highly aestheticized.
6.3.2. 2046: The past is a self-referential (自我指涉) and intextual game of pastiche (模仿拼湊) and collage
6.4. Postmodernism as a global cinematic language


Further references
後現代的風格‧後殖民的香港：關錦鵬電影中的（反）國家寓言

Next week
《香港製造》、《細路祥》
Hong Kong Blue: Flâneurie with the Camera's Eye in a Phantasmagoric Global City