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2 - Re-turn to Hong Kong: Authorship, Memory, Intimate Biography
- Hong Kong University Press, HKU
- Chapter
- Additional Information
2 re-turn to hong Kong: authorship, memory, intimate Biography Ann Hui is best known internationally as one of the very few successful female directors working in a male-dominated industry. From early art house films such as Song of the Exile to the more contemporary and commercial The Postmodern Life of My Aunt, Hui has been consistently described as a ‘woman filmmaker’ (Doraiswamy 1990: 22). Most recently, in a 2007 Harvard Film Archive retrospective of her films, she was praised as having ‘produced a varied body of work which offers a more thoughtful contemplation on national identity and the role of women in contemporary Asian society’ (Harvard Film Archive 2007). In her published print media interviews however, Hui has never selfidentified as a feminist filmmaker or woman’s director. As she states, ‘when I’m working, I’m not conscious of being a woman’ (Hui, cited in Jaivin 1987: 11). Despite such refutations, the term ‘woman’s director’ has been mobilized by critics and academics. This chapter uses the context and text of Song of the Exile to consider this positioning of Hui’s female authorship. Authorship ● ann hui’s Song of thE ExilE 50 is central to Hui as an auteur and the film as a semi-autobiography of her relationship with her mother. The first section situates the film in its historical context to map the key styles of her female authorship. The second section considers textual authorship by approaching the film text through the framework of postcolonial feminist autobiographical cinema. The third section consolidates female authorship by considering the film as melodrama. As postcolonial feminist autobiographical cinema and melodrama, Song of the Exile returns to the sites of the family home and memory to rewrite master narratives. The final section considers this as a narrative of re-turn by examining the intimate histories that are inscribed in this space. Intimate histories are the ‘micro-histories’ (Cheung 2001) that offer an alternative modernity to write the biography of Hong Kong. Ann Hui’s Female Authorship: The Historical Discourse of the Film Hui’s female authorship is mapped using a three-fold structure: ‘1) authorship as a historical phenomenon, suggesting the cultural context; 2) authorship as a desiring position, involving determinants of sexuality and gender; and 3) authorship as a textual moment, incorporating the specific stylistics and preoccupations of the filmmaker’ (Flitterman-Lewis 1990: 21–22). According to this tripartite structure, the concept of a feminist cinema would not be defined according to the biological gender of the filmmaker, but ‘specific and enunciative processes that posit the work as alternative cinema’ (ibid.). This approach is appropriate for Hui as not only the most established female director in contemporary Hong Kong but one of the first to define an ‘alternative’ cinema (Ortiz Dy 2008). This section critically examines the contexts of Hui’s authorship and Song of the Exile within their cultural specificities and as [18.232.169.110] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:48 GMT) ● re-turn to hong Kong 51 historical discourses to consider how a counter-cinema has emerged as a feature of her cine-feminism. The next section examines the textual author through the practice of postcolonial feminist autobiography. When The Secret was released in 1979, Hui marked for herself a unique place in the industry. The film was made for an independent studio, Unique Films, co-run by Sylvia Chang. A popular 1970s Taiwanese star of the teen romance melodrama, Chang was, at that time, making her transition to the emerging Hong Kong industry. Chang not only lent her star billing to The Secret, the film’s creative input was also supported by peers such as Joyce Chan (writer), Violet Lam (composer) and Audrey Li (producer). The film’s ‘intricate structure firmly established the director as one of the freshest and most exciting cinematic voices of the Hong Kong New Wave’ (Berry 2005: 424). Hui not only brought a new style and sensibility; she also introduced a ‘model of female creativity’ to the industry (Kei 1994). These creative collaborations have become a regular feature in her prolific career. The Boat People was initiated by producer Miranda Yang who was also the scriptwriter for The Secret. Two of Eileen Chang’s (Zhang Ailing) novels were adapted into Love in a Fallen City and Eighteen Springs. Eighteen Springs features the late Canto-pop singer and film star Anita Mui, while Love in a Fallen City has Chow Yun Fatt supporting the lead female protagonist played...