ABSTRACT
Contemporary Hong Kong cinema provides an entry point from which to view the dynamics of social change within the Pacific region. All of the key indicators of the momentous changes that have taken place as Asia enters global postmodernity find their correlates on the screens of this cinema as it shoots for the global popular, seeking out niches. Global economic changes have fuelled migrations of labour and resources to and from Hong Kong, fostering the emergence of new and globally-connected class formations. The speed of information exchange and the flexibility of capital, in turn, have opened up questions of property rights, piracy, and global copyrights. Meanwhile entrenched traditional values give way to new roles for women and men, changing family dynamics, and calls for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered rights to public recognition. Other areas of personal identity have likewise become hotly contested, from citizenship to ‘generation-ship’. The local/global nexus questions national borders, linguistic barriers, and the putative powers of the state, while unearthing class inequities, racial prejudice, and ethnic chauvinism. So as Hong Kong filmmakers do business throughout the Pacific, with Hollywood, and the rest of the world, the good, the bad, and the ugly of global film culture find their reflections within Hong Kong films. Corporate business plans take studios on a whirlwind tour;1
design professionals ply their trades in the Hong Kong and Hollywood industries;2 Hollywood repackages Hong Kong films as remakes, making Hong Kong film fantasies part of the Hollywood mainstream.
