Taking a look at ten films from the Hong Kong golden age 1986-1992 and how the common themes in these relate to the handover from United Kingdom to China in 1997, this essay investigates this with the use of a thematic analysis as well as with the theories of seeing “cinema as a mirror” and the way that the society and people of Hong Kong as a whole are reflected and identified in these films. From this it can be seen that the handover and themes closely related to it is recurring throughout the films of this period, but also how society and major political events are reflected in cinema.

Hollywood remakes of East Asian films clearly change more than just the language of a film, and the choices that producers and directors make in order to tailor a foreign film so that it better appeals to American audiences creates an entry point that allows for a more direct comparison of aesthetic styles, cultural tastes, and narrative conventions. An analysis of two case studies, South Korean hit film My Sassy GIrl (2001) and Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002, 2003, 2003) remade into My Sassy Girl (2008) and The Departed (2006), explores the principles of Korean and Hong Kong commercial film industries and how they differ and interact with those of Hollywood.

In the 1990s, the fact that Hong Kong cinema thrived in the world market, with both art and commercial films, is a theoretical anomaly. Despite its petite size and lack of government support and protection, it has survived both colonial administration and Hollywood domination. Hong Kong has a long history of prolific filmmaking, and has flourished during a decade full of challenges, and out of proportion to the size of the city and the industry. Hong Kong film is now recognized for its directors’ personal style and action aesthetic. How did this happen? How did Hong Kong filmmaking develop into an efficient system that could survive the harsh conditions of its past and thrive in the competitive environment of the 1990s? Hong Kong’s story is one of paradox and Hong Kong cinema relates that story by embracing paradox in both its industrial system and cultural ideology. This project is a formal, cultural and industrial analysis of Hong Kong cinema in its multiple contexts. Instead of replicating the Hollywood studio system or other national cinema models, Hong Kong cinema, like bamboo surviving by bending with the wind, has developed a flexible system adapted to its habitat, but that also simultaneously created a space for a unique style of filmmaking with a transnational perspective. I will investigate how the cinematic system worked, and how individual filmmakers devised tactics to both work within and push the limits of the system. I will explore what they reveal about the local condition I call “orphan island anxiety”, a deep sense of insecurity underneath the economic miracle, and a paradoxical state that people from a non-conventional nation state experience in an age of universal and normative ideas of the nation. The case of Hong Kong cinema will illuminate for us an industrial model substantially different from that of Hollywood, and a voice that was missing from official Sino-British talks, which reveals a cultural sensibility not found in either Hollywood or in Chinese national cinema. / text

100 years ago, there was a group of women called Zishunu who stood up against the whole society and swore off marriage for life. Zishu offered an escape for many women in the Pearl River Delta area. As forerunners in female independence and liberation, Zishunu never had the chance to be the spokesman of themselves or the recognition they deserved. Ji Sor (1997), a groundbreaking work in lesbian-themed movies, beautifully depicts this special and unparalleled historical phenomenon in detail. Released a few months after the Handover of Hong Kong in 1997, this critically acclaimed movie by Hong Kong New Wave filmmaker Jacob Cheung embodies the three biggest fears of an extremely conservative society: absence of marriage, challenges to male hegemony, and homosexuality. Although seen as representatives of strong and independent women, Zishunu had to make a lot of compromises to the patriarchal culture to be allowed not to marry. The emancipation of Zishunu, although as a huge advancement in the feminism in China, is not a complete liberation. Women emancipation cannot be achieved by women celibacy. A hundred years later, we are still asking what gender equality really means, what is women’s power, what is independence, what is feminism? Through the analyses of Zishu and Ji Sor both individually and together, this thesis explores the meanings of gender equalities and sexual identities mean in the cinematic world and in the real world. There shouldn’t be a set of standards of how women should act. The right that a woman should have, just like a real women’s movie, is the autonomy to make her own decisions.

This paper observes Hong Kong nostalgia cinema. After the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed, a tendency of anxiety loomed among the society of Hong Kong. People started to feel nostalgic toward their past and concerned their uncertain future. From the late 80s to mid 90s, nostalgia films were produced as a trend, reflecting Hong Kong's identity crisis of its ambiguous entity and fear of reuniting with its Communist motherland. Based on Hong Kong's historical and cultural backgrounds, my thesis examines the nature of nostalgia through Stanley Kwan's Rouge (1988) and the impact of nostalgia by contrasting John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) and Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild (1990).

Le monde chinois ou sinophone ne se limite pas à la Chine continentale, mais il s’étend au-delà de l’État-nation qui est souvent perçu comme étant le phare médiatique de la culture chinoise. La langue chinoise est aussi parlée dans d’autres pays comme Taïwan et Singapour où elle a un statut officiel; elle est aussi langue d’enseignement en Malaisie et à travers la diaspora.Ce monde sinophone n’est pas unilingue et comprend non seulement les langues des minorités officielles définies par la Constitution de la République populaire de Chine, mais aussi les autres langues chinoises, telles le shanghaïen, le cantonais ou le hokkien pour ne citer que les trois langues chinoises jouissant d’un certain prestige. À Taïwan, société multilingue et multiculturelle, à côté des trois langues chinoises, le mandarin, le hokkien, sous sa dénomination locale de taïwanais, et le hakka sont aussi des langues couramment utilisées dans les médias et plus récemment dans le système éducatif ; à leurs côtés se trouvent plusieurs langues aborigènes qui sont encouragées par le gouvernement et jouissent d’une image positive dans la population Han. Cette diversité linguistique est reflétée dans le cinéma différemment en Chine et dans les autres pays sinophones. En Chine, les minorités ethniques ont longtemps été reléguées au statut de sujet anthropologique et présentées au cinéma d’un point de vue paternaliste reflétant une attitude « orientaliste » telle que théorisée par Edward W. Said. Ce n’est que récemment que le cinéma chinois a commencé à produire des films où les minorités ethniques prennent la parole et sont incarnées par des protagonistes prenant en main leur destin. La situation à Taïwan est plus diversifiée : après l’occupation japonaise la majorité des films était en taïwanais mais l’investissement important de la part des autorités dans des productions sophistiquées en couleur a rapidement vu la fin des productions en taïwanais pendant plusieurs décennies. Ce n’est que vers la fin de l’état de siège au milieu des années 1980 que le cinéma taïwanais recommencé à faire usage d’autres langues que le mandarin ; par contraste avec les périodes précédentes, on assiste surtout à des films multilingues reflétant le mélange multiculturel et linguistique de la société taïwanaise du passé aussi bien que du présent.La relative liberté du cinéma sinophone de refléter les pays de langue chinoise dans leur diversité culturelle, d’articuler les contacts entre minorités ethniques en Chine et la majorité Han, comme dans Kekexili ; le souci de réalisme culturel, linguistique, sociétale et historique comme dans Seediq Bale à Taïwan ; le portrait d’une société multilingue à Singapour telle qu’elle est décrite dans Singapore Dreaming sont les signes avant-coureurs que la société sinophone ne se réduit pas à un seul pays et que sur la scène internationale il sera impossible de considérer la Chine comme seule détentrice d’une culture sinophone. Le développement de ce cinéma sinophone dans les festivals étrangers, sur les plateformes de diffusion vidéo ou de salles de cinéma montre qu’il existe un intérêt pour le cinéma sinophone qui est perçu comme une fenêtre sur la culture, la politique et les sociétés de ses composantes. Il sert aussi d’échange entre les différents pays et régions du monde sinophone et pourrait bien être le premier élément d’une culture sinophone transnationale et transculturelle. Dans ce contexte transnational, Taïwan, comme l’avance June Yip à maintes reprises dans Envisioning Taiwan - Fiction, Cinema and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary, pourrait être le premier pays à avoir abandonné le concept d’État nation et fait preuve d’avant-garde au même titre que le cinéma sinophone transnational. / The Chinese speaking world is not limited to Mainland China. It extends beyond Continental China, a country often perceived as the beacon of Chinese culture. Mandarin and other Chinese languages are spoken in Taiwan and Singapore where the former is an official language. Mandarin is also used as a teaching medium in Malaysia and throughout the diaspora.The sinosphere, as it is increasingly being referred to, is not a unilingual society but also includes not only ethnic minorities languages as defined by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, but also other Chinese languages such as Shanghainese, Cantonese or Hokkien (a.k.a. Taiwanese); these three languages being the most prestigious among others. Taiwan is a multicultural and multilingual society and includes three Chinese languages, Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka that are widely used in the media and have recently been made part of the school curriculum; in addition to these languages are found aboriginal languages that are encouraged by the government and enjoy a positive image in the majority Han population.China and other sinophone countries differ in their treatment of this linguistic diversity.In China, ethnic minorities have long been viewed and filmed as an anthropological topic and often examined with a paternalistic slant similar to “orientalist” attitudes as proposed by Edward W. Said. Chinese cinema has only recently started to produce films where ethnic minorities speak for themselves and ethnic protagonists take hold of their own future. At the same time Chinese-language films shot in other Chinese languages are still a relatively rare occurrence, probably due to the official policy of promoting Mandarin as the national normative language.Taiwan presents a more diversified situation: after the Japanese occupation, the majority of films was in Taiwanese, but an important investment drive from government authorities resulting in sophisticated colour productions saw the end of Taiwanese-language productions for many years. One would have to wait for the end of martial law near the middle of the 1980’s to see a return of films featuring non-Mandarin languages; in contrast to preceding periods, the majority of these films was multilingual and reflected the real multicultural and linguistic mix of contemporary and past Taiwanese society.In Singapore and Malaysia, an increasing number of films portray characters switching freely from one language to another.The retrocession to Mainland China of the former British colony, Hong Kong, has triggered an examination of its relationship with the People’s Republic and several films feature interaction between mainlanders and Hong Kong inhabitants.The relative freedom that is enjoyed by Chinese-language cinema to reflect sinophone countries and their cultural diversity; to articulate contacts between ethnic minorities and the Han majority, as in Kekexili; the preoccupation with cultural, linguistic, societal and historical realism as in Seediq Bale in Taiwan; the exposé of multilingual Singaporean society as described in Singapore Dreaming demonstrate that sinophone society is not restricted to one country and that, on the international scene, it will be impossible to consider China as the sole representative and owner of sinophone culture. It is also a means of exchange between the different countries and regions of the sinophone world and could well turn out to be the first element in the construction of a transnational and transcultural sinophone culture. In this transnational context, as proposed in many instances by June Yip in Envisioning Taiwan - Fiction, Cinema and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary, Taiwan could be the first country to have relinquished the concept of a Nation State and proven to be at the forefront of change in a similar vein with transnational sinophone cinema.

This thesis seeks to interpret the cinematic representations of Hong Kongers’ identity quest during a transitional state/stage related to the sovereignty transfer. The Handover transition considered is an ideological one, rather than the overnight polity change on the Handover day. This research approaches contemporary Hong Kong cinema on two fronts and the thesis is structured accordingly: Upon an initial review of the existing Hong Kong film scholarship in the Introduction, and its 1997-related allegorical readings, Part I sees new angles (previously undeveloped or underdeveloped) for researching Hong Kong films made during 1982-2002. Arguments are built along the ideas of Hong Kongers’ situational, diasporic consciousness, and transformed ‘Chineseness’ because Hong Kong has lacked a cultural/national centrality. This part of research is informed by the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall, and the diasporic experiences of Ien Ang, Rey Chow and Ackbar Abbas. With these new research angles and references to the circumstances, Part II reads critically the text of eight Hong Kong films made during the Handover transition. In chronological order, they are Boat People (Hui, 1982), Song of the Exile (Hui, 1990), Days of Being Wild (Wong, 1990), Happy Together (Wong, 1997), Made in Hong Kong (Chan, 1997), Ordinary Heroes (Hui, 1999), Durian Durian (Chan, 2000), and Hollywood Hong Kong (Chan, 2002). They meet several criteria related to the undeveloped / underdeveloped areas in the existing Hong Kong film scholarship. Hamid Naficy’s ‘accented cinema’ paradigm gives the guidelines to the film analysis in Part II. This part shows that Hong Kongers’ self-transformation during transition is alterable, indeterminate, and interminable, due to the people’s situational, diasporic consciousness, and transformed ‘Chineseness’. This thesis thus contributes to Hong Kong cinema scholarship in interpreting films with new research angles, and generating new insights into this cinematic tradition and its wider context.