From Neon Signs to Skyscrapers: The Spectacle of Fluidity in Hong Kong’s Post/Modern Cityscape

Chan Shao-yi

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Hong Kong Studies ›› 2018, Vol. 1 ›› Issue (2) : 143-159.

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From Neon Signs to Skyscrapers: The Spectacle of Fluidity in Hong Kong’s Post/Modern Cityscape

Chan Shao-yi

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Abstract

This article looks at two recurring cinematic motifs—neon signs and skyscrapers—as constitutive signifiers of Hong Kong’s urban topography, and charts the shifting construct of the city through its filmic representations. Focusing on Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs (2002) with the aid of a few others including Her Fatal Ways and Oshii Mamoru’s Ghost in the Shell, I aim to juxtapose the two architectural icons and their filmic presences alongside the city’s changing symbolic landscape, and to remap its transition from a product of colonial modernity to that of post/modernity. Rather than fixing themselves to two successive temporalities, I argue, these motifs are often manifested in a way that inverts the time–space of Hong Kong on screen, giving rise to a fluid identity that is unique to its cityscape.

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Chan Shao-yi. From Neon Signs to Skyscrapers: The Spectacle of Fluidity in Hong Kong’s Post/Modern Cityscape[J]. Hong Kong Studies. 2018, 1(2): 143-159

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