Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong

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Recommended: Chinese culture death and dying

1. Introduction
Made in Hong Kong (1997) is one of the independent films directed by the “grassroots director” Fruit Chan on low budget production. The cost of production was kept low by utilizing the leftover film reels and amateur actors such as Sam Lee Chan-Sam who has been awarded best New Artist in the 17th Annual Hong Kong Films Awards and nominated Best Actor in 35th Annual Golden Horse Awards. Made in Hong Kong is very much a vernacular film featuring the Hong Kong society and culture in 1997, particularly the social marginality and violence in juvenile delinquency . This paper will assess how the film expresses nation’s sentiments by portraying the livelihood of four teenagers, namely Autumn Moon, Ping, Ah Lung and Susan, and the Hong Kong social environment in 1997 during the transition of the Hong Kong Handover.
2. Literature Review
“Death and Hong Kong Cinema” written by Laikwan Pang (2009:15) explores the significance of death as a recurrent theme in Hong Kong cinema by analyzing two Hong Kong trilogies, namely the Handover trilogy and the Milkyway trilogy. Pang asserts that the four main characters in Made in Hong Kong have strived to attain individual identity before entering their adulthood yet none of them succeeded, just as the desire of Hong Kong in attaining a pure identity in the transition period of handover which the ending suggests the failure or impossibility of this ambition.

“…their death can be seen as a wilful challenge and refusal to pass through the rite of passage provided by the institution in order to remain infinitely in the enjoyment of ‘non-identity’,” says Pang (2009:19) . This statement reflects their subjectivity towards the impotency in determining the political future and defines death,...

... middle of paper ...

...e population, China and even the world.

Works Cited

Chen, Ross. "Made in Hong Kong." LoveHKFilm.com, n.d. Web. Cited 30 March 2014. available from http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews_2/made_in_hong_kong.htm

Cheung, Sidney. "Hong Kong Handover." 1997. The Journal of the International Institute, Michigan Publishing, 5, 1 (1997). Cited 30 March 2014. available from http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.4750978.0005.107
Liew, Kai Khiun. “Fracturing, Fixing and Healing Bodies in the Films of Fruit Chan.” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 6, 3 (2009): 209-225.
Pang, Laikwan. “Death and Hong Kong Cinema.” Quarterly Review of Film & Video, 18, 1 (2001): 15-29.
Selzer, Manfred. “Made in Hong Kong.” AsianMovieWeb, n.d. Web. Cited 30 March 2014. available from http://www.asianmovieweb.com/en/reviews/made_in_hong_kong.htm
Made in Hong Kong. Dir. Fruit Chan. 1997. Film.

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