Abstract
Polley views Hong Kong from many angles: population demographics, critical theory, vernacular criticism, the media, and autobiography. These intersect in the work of Wong Kar Wai. His 1960s’ trilogy-Days of Being Wild (1990), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004)-provides a discursive entry to a discussion of what the fractious identity marker “Hongkonger” speaks to 20 years after the 1997 handover to China. Wong’s films prize nostalgia, discontinuity, ambiguity, and deferral. Polley adopts a similar destabilizing approach. He makes a virtue of fragments, margins, and counter-narratives. Wong’s Hong Kong is not the global one of fast finance and free-markets. Polley’s Hong Kong, when reviewed through Wong’s lens, is assembled through competing paratexts, narrative layers that complement and contradict one another.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Cultural Conflict in Hong Kong |
Subtitle of host publication | Angles on a Coherent Imaginary |
Editors | Jason S. Polley, Vinton W. K. Poon, Lian-Hee Wee |
Place of Publication | Singapore |
Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
Pages | 235-256 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Edition | 1st |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9789811077661 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789811077654, 9789811339967 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 29 Mar 2018 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Social Sciences(all)
- Arts and Humanities(all)
User-Defined Keywords
- Hong Kong identity politics
- Media analysis
- Poststructuralism
- Vernacular criticism
- Wong Kar Wai