Hong Kong

• Immigration (From china, people escaped communist

rule)
• Political scenario of Hong Kong (British + china + local)
• Mix of modernisation and Chinese cultures
• Evolving social and cultural notions
• Modernisation/ Westernisation

COMRADES
Summary (Lengthy)
This film is about two Chinese people from mainland China who migrate
to Hong Kong with the objective making a living. The two Chinese main-
landers, Li Xiao-Jun and Li Qiao end up falling in love whilst in Hong
Kong. Whereas Li Xiao-Jun is a naive person from northern China, Li
Qiao is an opportunist who takes advantage of the naivety of mainland
Chinese people to attain financial gains. Although the two people have
fallen in love, circumstances separate them because Li Xiao-Jun has
plans to bring his wife to Hong Kong whereas Li Qiao is planning to work
hard and become wealthy in Hong Kong. The separation between the two
becomes solid when Li Xiao Jun eventually married his fiancé, Yang in
Hong Kong while Li Qiao establishes a relationship with Pong, a mob
boss. Li Qiao also becomes a very successful business person in Hong
Kong. Their clandestine persists despite the fact that both are in separate
committed love relationships.
The relationship between Li Xiao Jun and Li Qiao causes Li Xiao to move
to United States with his wife after confessing to his wife about his un-
faithfulness. He gets to work as a cook in the United States after leaving
Hong Kong. Pao, after being chased by Hong Kong police, escapes with
his wife to the United States where they become illegal immigrants. The
two lovers: Li Xiao Jun and Li Qiao, later meet after ten years in New
York as lonely immigrants. They had also been freed from their former
relationships, Li Xiao Jun having separated with his wife while Li Qiao,
having remained single after Pao’s death in a robbery attempt in the
United States. The film ends with the two lovers meeting in the United
States after a very long period of time as lonely immigrants.
It is quite an interesting romantic film. One of the scenes that are very
captivating is when Li Xiaojun was helping Li Qiao to put on her coat. In
this scene, Xiaojun helps Li Qiao in buttoning up the coat. However, in
the process, the two actors get closer to each stimulating a romantic at-
mosphere that causes them to hurriedly unbutton the coat they had just
been buttoning a few seconds ago. It is an interest scene as it incorpo-
rates humour and romance to emphasize the influence of fate on the love
relationship between Xiaojun and Li Qiao. The film does highlights some
of the challenges that immigrants from mainland China were facing
whenever they went to Hong Kong to make a living. Life in Hong Kong
was quite tough, requiring a person to engage in different part-time jobs
for him or her to keep pace with the tough economic conditions. This is
depicted by Li Qiao who, despite having a job at the McDonald’s, she also
runs a side business of peddling flowers. Xianjun has to make necessary
adjustments in order to fit the in this very fast world.
The film also highlights the values of people within Hong Kong in 1997 or
thereabouts. When Xiajun meets Li Qiao, they do fall in love but deny
that fact because they have completely different ambitions. The two
lovers’ ambitions are centred on money. Xiajun wants to make enough
money to send for his fiancé whereas Li Qiao wants to become a success-
ful entrepreneur in Hong Kong. It can, therefore, be noted that the desire
or rather clamour for money was a crucial element of the Hong Kong so-
ciety’s value system. Despite their love for each other, Xianjun and Li
Qiao, would rather pursue wealth and financial gains rather than nurture
their love. Indeed, this explains why Li Qiao ended marrying Pao and be-
coming a successful business person whereas Xianjun married his long
time fiancé.
The film also shows that however much people may try to avoid love rela-
tionships and instead pursue wealth among other material things, love
would still come knocking at their doors. The two lovers eventually ful-
filled their ambitions: Xianjun accumulates enough money to send for
and eventually marry is fiancé. Li Qiao, on the other hand, becomes a
successful business person and also marries a wealthy person. Despite
this, their love did not fade as they kept seeing each other whenever they
had an opportunity. Xianjun escapes to the United States but love pur-
sues and catches up with him as he bumps into Li Qiao on the streets of
New York.

Some scenes and what they signify

Let’s take a classic Hong Kong film called Comrades, Almost a Love Story
(1996) as the subject of analysis for cultural studies. This film tells us a
love story between two Chinese mainlanders, Xiao-jun and
Qiao, who migrated to Hong Kong. The two immigrants fell in love
with each other when they worked together at a McDonald restaurant
in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, however, they were separated from each
other for some reasons. Many years later, the two main characters finally
reunited in New York City on the day when the news of Teresa Teng’s
death started to circulate. In the film, it seems that Xiao-jun didn’t really
fight for love and just let Qiao leave him for another man named Pao, her
long-term patron. This might lead foreign audience to look for circum-
stantial evidences being able to justify his motivation. Considering the
fact that this film was released just before the 1997 Handover, it might
be possible to interpret his wimpish behavior as a metaphor
for the unavoidable reality that most Hongkoners were sched-
uled to embrace sudden social changes caused by the ap-
proaching monumental social event. Other than Teresa Teng’s
death, there were two more deaths told in the film. One of the two was
the death of Xiao-jun’s aunt who migrated to Hong Kong long before
him. She endured a tough life in Hong Kong simply relying on her dra-
matic memory of the old days. When she was young, she happened
to have a date with a famous American actor who visited Hong
Kong to shoot a film called Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.
Seemingly, she symbolizes a legacy of Hong Kong’s western
colonial history. After her death, Xiao-jun left Hong Kong for the
United States. This can be interpreted as the end of colonialism in
China’s territory and a fresh start of economic refugees (or victims of
drastic social changes) at the heart of capitalism far from their homeland.
Another death was for Pao. He was a gangster but was a nice guy at least
to Qiao. In other words, he was rather a complicated character, like Hong
Kong to Chinese mainlanders. At the New York medical examiner’s
office, Qiao was able to confirm his identity only through the
Mickey Mouse tattoo on his back. The tattoo, just like McDon-
ald, seems to symbolize the Western-style capitalism Hong
Kong society has pursued. The westernization is what made the
city quite different from the other parts of China and at the same time
what many Chinese mainlanders, including Qiao, really longed for. It is
an irony that a Hongkonger with a Mickey Mouse tattoo was killed in rob-
bery in New York City, the iconic place of capitalism. The death of a man
wearing a symbol of capitalism on his back side implies that Hong Kong
wouldn’t be what it used to be any longer. Hence Qiao needed to look for
something else, most probably her true love. The deaths of Xiao-jun’s
aunt and Pao are the symbols that the director (i.e. Peter Chan Hosun)
intentionally prepared to deliver a strong message on the impending so-
cial changes to his audience in a rather sophisticated way. Other than
these allegorical symbols, there are also some cultural symbols you
can find throughout the film. One of them is a bicycle. Xiao-jun
enjoyed riding a bicycle in the middle of traffic in Hong Kong.
In the consideration of the fact that there are much fewer bicy-
cle riders in the city area of Hong Kong than in Northern China
where he came from, it is fair to assume that the bicycle sym-
bolizes his Chinese-ness. He continued to ride a bicycle even in the
downtown area of New York City. Thanks to that, Qiao was able to recog-
nize him right away when he passed by her in a heavy traffic. From this, it
can be inferred that his identity didn’t change at all. In the same manner,
audience can easily guess that his love for her (or Hongkongers’ love for
their home city) didn’t change for all those years. At the final scene of the
film, Xiao-jun and Qiao finally met with each other in the front of an elec-
tronic shop where the two were accidently attracted to the TV
news about Teresa Teng’s sudden death. The legendary Tai-
wanese singer’s songs were one of the memories commonly
shared by the two Chinese mainlanders. In the sense that her
death brought to their reunion, this seems related to Buddhism’s reincar-
nation. In other words, the bond made in heaven can’t be broken by any
outside interferences. Hence a further interpretation of this scene is that
the Handover (i.e. diplomatic or political matters) can’t break the nidana
between Hongkongers and their home city, even though many of them
have migrated somewhere far from Hong Kong.

IN THE MOOD OF LOVE

SUMMARY
In 1962 British Hong Kong, Shanghai expatriates Chow Mo-wan, a journal-
ist, and Su Li-shen, a secretary at a shipping company, rent adjacent rooms
in an apartment. Each has a spouse who works and often leaves them alone
on overtime shifts. Due to the friendly but overbearing presence of a Shang-
hainese landlady, Mrs. Suen, and their bustling, mahjong-playing neigh-
bours, Chow and Su are often alone in their rooms. Although they initially
are friendly to each other only as need be, they grow closer as they realise
that their spouses are sleeping together.
Chow invites Su to help him write a martial arts serial. Their increased time
together draws the attention of their neighbours, leading Chow to rent a ho-
tel room where they can work together undistracted. As time passes, they
acknowledge that they have developed feelings for each other. When Chow
takes a job in Singapore, he asks Su to go with him. She agrees but arrives
too late at the hotel to accompany him.
The next year, Su goes to Singapore and visits Chow's apartment. She calls
Chow, who is working for a Singaporean newspaper, but remains silent
when Chow picks up. Later, Chow realises she has visited his apartment af-
ter seeing a lipstick-stained cigarette butt in his ashtray. While dining with a
friend, Chow relays a story about how in older times, when a person had a
secret, they could go atop a mountain, make a hollow in a tree, and whisper
it into the hollow and cover it with mud.
Three years later, Su visits Mrs. Suen, who is about to emigrate to
the United States, and inquires about whether her apartment is
available for rent. Some time later, Chow returns to visit his
landlords, who have emigrated to the Philippines. He asks about
the Suen family next door, and the new owner tells him a woman and her
son are now living there. He leaves without realising Su is the lady living
there.
Chow travels to Siem Reap, Cambodia and visits Angkor Wat. He whispers
into a hollow in a ruined wall and plugs the hollow with mud.

Hong Kong Political scenario

The film is set in the 1960s in Hong Kong, when Hong Kong people were
living in a rather peaceful yet confusing time under British colonization.
(It is because under colonization that the British administration shielded
a lot of cultural genocide from the People's Republic of China at the time.
Hong Kong has been and is still constantly harmed by both British colo-
nization and PRC fascism. Long story but basically the gist.)

Immigrant crisis in Hong Kong

In 1962 British Hong Kong, Shanghai expatriates Chow Mo-wan, a jour-
nalist, and Su Li-shen, a secretary at a shipping company, rent adjacent
rooms in an apartment.
The main characters, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan, are neighbors living in
the overcrowded apartments in Hong Kong.They realize that their
spouses were having an affair with each other, so they coped with
it by acting and improvising how they imagined their spouses' affair de-
veloped. It almost draws parallel with Peter Kavinsky and Lara Jean hav-
ing a fake relationship in “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.” And as
anyone can imagine, they begin to develop feelings for each other by
spending time improvising their spouses’ affair. However, here’s where
it’s different from TATBILB. Under social pressure and stigmas at
the time, they kept denying that they developed real feelings
when in fact they fell in love with each other through the “fake
relationship.” Eventually, Mr. Chow moved to Singapore for his career
and they went on separate paths in life. The movie then shows that even
though there were moments where they almost encounter each other af-
ter they lived separate lives, their fate was to never see each other
again.The romance of the film is subtle, depicting the compli-
cated yet unexplainable internalized thoughts of Mr. Chow and
Mrs. Chan. This film is an absolute cinematic masterpiece, from the in-
tricate and aesthetic framing, the subtle character emotions and gestures,
to the cultural and political representations. Though produced in the
2000s, Western romance movies in our era like “Crazy Rich Asians” or
“La La Land” cannot even compare in my opinion.

This melodramatic ending of a love story not only captivated the crushing
realities of life and internalized emotions of human beings, but also dis-
played the Western-infused style and history of Hong Kong in
the 1960s. It portrayed the immigrants who came to Hong
Kong escaping PRC's cultural genocide and famine to live in a
confusing instability where communism fuses with capitalism
and Western colonialism meets PRC totalitarianism and fas-
cism. In the movie, there are scenes that subtly mention how Hong Kong
people are leaving to pursue a more stable life. More notably, the locals in
a scene described Hong Kong as “chaotic.” In fact, Hong Kong has always
been in a complicated political state.

DURIAN DURIAN
Summary
The film consists of two distinct and contrasting parts; the first one is set
in Hong Kong, in the busy district of Mong Kok. Yan (Qin Hailu) is a
young woman from Mainland China who is trying to earn as
much money as she can, working as a prostitute, in the short
time that her 3-month visa allows her. She is therefore trapped in a
frantic loop of work, take away food and little naps in her tiny shared flat.
But she is strong and determined; work is just a means to an end. Every
day Yan waits in a tearoom populated by co-workers and pimps and when
the call with instructions arrives, she walks to the designated hotel.

Watching her pacing up and down is Fan (Mak Wai-fan), a little girl
from Shenzhen whose poor family is illegally staying in Hong
Kong after their 3-month visa expired, and all together wash
dishes in the alley for a living. Fan observes the movements in the
filthy back-alley – her little world – and takes everything in. One day she
sees Yan’s pimp being hit on the head with a durian by someone he had
previously racially harassed. Predictably, the episode brings in the Police;
Yan and Fan fear for their staying, and hiding both from the Agents, start
to know each other.

When Yan’s visa expires the film cuts abruptly from the busy,
bright and steamy Hong Kong to a peaceful, snowy plan in
North Eastern China, crossed by a solitary scooter-taxi. Yan is
back in her hometown where she is planning a future with the money
earned in Hong Kong. Nobody seems to know how she earned that much
money but her parents are happy to dig in for big celebrations. Uncertain
about the future, she has plenty of options in front of her, and one of
them could be even going back to Hong Kong. One day a package arrives.
It’s a present from little Fan, a durian. the “King of Fruits”, the spiky fruit
with a hellish smell and a heavenly flavor; and savoring the sweet pulp
Yan reminisces of Hong Kong.

Playing with contrasts, metaphors and docu-style observations, “Durian

Durian” is yet another significant tile in the larger “Hong Kong mosaic”
that Chan’s films of the post-handover years, have created. After the
marginalized youth of “Made in Hong Kong”, the destructive path of the
left behind in “The Longest Summer” and the family and community’s
economic dynamics in “Little Cheung”, with “Durian Durian” the director
goes beyond the subject matter of the the increasing phenomenon of Chi-
nese immigrants working as prostitutes in Hong Kong, to observe the
fragile equilibrium between Hong Kong and China, from the perspective
of a specific class, and how the social reality translates from one side to
the other.

Yan’s double life is at the same time convenient and bound to

implode and it mirrors the complex and often polarized nature
of China’s territory and administration (as we are witnessing
in this historical moment). A sense of ephemerality imbues the
whole first part of “Durian Durian”; like their visas, Yan’s and Fan’s des-
tinies in Hong Kong have an expiring date stamped on, while in the sec-
ond part the future feels tranquil and open to endless possibilities, but
not for this reason, more reassuring.

The idea for the movie came to Chan while observing the tireless back
and forward of young prostitutes in the alleys of Mong Kok and in this
sense Fan, the wide-eyed observer, serves as the gaze of the director. Shot
indeed like a documentary with no professional actors and in short time,
“Durian Durian” has the freshness and the carelessness of the experimen-
tal film-making with a story that reaches out with ease, thanks also to
Lam Wah-chuen’s eclectic cinematography and Tim Sam-fat’s inspired
editing, peppered by a pop music score.

The titular fruit popping up here and there in the movie, stands as a
metaphor for the city of Hong Kong and its peculiar contradictions. Diffi-
cult to handle, spiky exterior, a smell of rotten flesh but a sweet and nour-
ishing pulp, and most of all – as Fruit Chan reiterates – it is an absolute
“love-or-hate” fruit.