(no subject)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am not sure when Michael Hoover and I discovered that we shared a passion
for Hong Kong cinema but it probably dates back to the time of the wild and
woolly days on the original Marxism list when I announced in the middle of
a fight with some sectarians that I had perfected the drunken Tai-Chi
Marxist style of polemics, inspired by the great Jackie Chan movie.

Shortly thereafter Michael informed me that he had begun work on what would
turn out to be the definitive study of Hong Kong cinema. Written with Lisa
Stokes, who teaches with Michael at Seminole Community College in Orblando,
Florida, "City on Fire" is sensitive to both the esthetic and
socio-political side of what appeared to be a cult phenomenon. Their
exploration of the genre is a virtual guidebook for how Marxists can shed
light on popular culture. Indeed, the book convinces you that this is not a
cult phenomenon at all, but one of the more important contributions to film
art in the 20th century that deserves to stand side by side with Italian
neorealism or American silent movie comedies of the Chaplin era.

A Hong Kong movie festival in NYC last weekend prompted me to give Michael
a call and share impressions. It was the first time I had spoken to him
since his trip to NYC last year promoting "City on Fire". To make sure he
wouldn't prejudice me against any of the films I would be seeing, he told
me that he would reserve judgement until I spoke to him on Sunday after the
festival was finished. As it turned out--not surprisingly--we were both big
fans of the films I was to see. Before giving you a brief overview of what
I saw, it would be useful to give you a flavor of the Hoover-Stokes oeuvre,
which mixes together in bravura fashion insights into the art-form with
knowing references to the Marxist classics:

"Chang Cheh?s One Armed Swordsman (1967) is generally acknowledged as the
movie that launched the 1970s? martial arts phenomenon. While the film?s
title announces that this is a swordplay movie ? nothing new in itself ?
the hero?s disability (his sin?s jealous daughter has chopped off his right
arm) produces a different type of character. Forced to undergo a strict and
tough rehabilitative training program, the protagonist (Jimmy Wang-Yu)
becomes a ?lean mean fighting machine? with a blade. Notably brutal for its
time, Chang?s picture ushered in an era of the self-reliant individualist
that, according to Sek Kei, simultaneously destroyed the image of the weak
Chinese male by featuring ?beefcake heroes in adventure and violence.?
Within a few years, ?flying fu? swordplay flicks gave way to ?kung fu?
movies. The transfiguration of the martial ?hero? from a mythic character
endowed with magical powers to a mortal fighter engaged in personal
hand-to-hand combat was consonant with the post-World War II generation?s
economic materialism as well as with its growing suspicion of traditional
values. Both more individualistic and competitive, the 1970s? variant
expressed capitalist modernity, what Engels called 'a battle of life and
death ... fought not between the different classes of society only, but
also between the individual members of these classes. Each is in the way of
the other, and each seeks to crowd out all who are in his way, and to put
himself in their place.'"

The film festival was organized by something called Subway Cinema, a
collective of New Yorkers who sought to maintain a venue for Hong Kong
movies after the closing of the legendary Music Palace in Chinatown.
Because of the emergence of home videos and changing immigration patterns,
the theater could no longer stay in business. This was the only theater in
NYC in which smoking was tolerated and where soy milk and dried squid could
be purchased at the concession stand.

The movie industry in Hong Kong seemed to be on the downward spiral as
well. When Michael and Lisa spoke to an audience last year at the Anthology
of Film Archives, where the festival was being held, they worried about the
viability of the industry in face of the Asian financial crisis. As it
turns out, the evidence of the films shown at the festival last weekend
points to the artistic health of the industry, even if belt-tightening
might result in fewer films being produced. All of the films being shown
dated from 1997 and later. They were all produced by Milkyway Studios,
which operates within the stylistic parameters of the genre while pushing
it to the limit.

1. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Directed by Patrick Yau, this film is a cops-and-robbers yarn set on the
streets of Hong Kong. There are two gangs being pursued. One from Hong Kong
and the other just arrived from the mainland and regarded as harmless
amateurs by comparison. There is a memorable scene in which the top cop
gets a confession out of one of the mainland criminals by softening him up
with a hot meal (he hasn't eaten in over a day.) He has been driven to
crime by economic necessity. No longer able to farm, nor support his wife
and 8 children, he has come to Hong Kong to take advantage of the good
life. In the final bloody scene of the film we discover that his feckless
comrades, who have remained on the loose, are capable of terrible destruction.

2. THE MISSION
This is Hong Kong movie making at its best. Directed by Johnnie To, we are
presented with a tale that is reminiscent of both "Seven Samurai" and "The
Wild Bunch". Five men are hired to be the bodyguard of a top criminal. In
most of the film, the suspense leading up to a shootout is much more
compelling than the action itself. To is a master of suspense, especially
during moments when nothing much seems to be happening. He is also capable
of brilliant comedic strokes that have an impromptu quality such as the
scene in which the five bodyguards play soccer with a crumpled piece of
paper outside the offices of the top criminal. Since this film has garnered
major awards in local festivals, I expect that it might become available in
video at some point. Don't miss it.

3. A HERO NEVER DIES
Also directed by Johnnie To, this film pays homage to the conventions of
John Woo's movies but subverts them through excess. Woo's movies always end
in bloody shootouts that incorporate slow-motion shots of men dodging
bullets in an elaborate combat choreography. This is how A Hero Never Dies
ends, but as the brochure from the festival puts it, "John Woo created the
heroic bloodshed genre with The Killer, and Johnnie To spit in his eye with
A Hero Never Dies -- equal parts genre worship and genre explosion."

4. SPACKED OUT
This was the big surprise. Not a martial arts or gangster movie, but a
'social problem' study of a group of teenaged girls living in the so-called
New Town urban developments miles from downtown Hong Kong. They are surly,
violent and filled with despair about their future. Totally immersed in
American culture and values, they walk around shopping malls talking on
cell phones and shoplifting. When they are not having promiscuous sex, they
are taking drugs. The schools are more like jails and the housing seems
like what you would see in a Ken Loach movie about the British underclass.
If the Asian tigers are supposed to be the way forward for the rest of the
underdeveloped world, then humanity does not have much of a future. That
would seem to be the unstinting message of this masterpiece. If it becomes
available in video, do not miss it.

(The City On Fire website is at: http://www.cityonfirehkcinema.com/)


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/