The Writing Of Urban Space, The Confusion Of Identity And The Expression Of Woman’s Self-consciousness

Ann Hui is undoubted a very important female director in the Hong Kongmoviedom or even Chinese-language moviedom. She has been negotiating betweenthe tradition and modernity, the marginality and mainstream, the locality and globality,the art and commerce and getting balance right. As a native Hong Kong director, AnnHui’s films express a sense of Hong Kong-ness,which is very valuable when theconcept of Hong Kong film becomes questionable at present. On the other hand, thespirit of humanitarianism in Ann Hui’s films makes them transcend Hong Kong andwell received while representing the quality of trans-locality. This dissertation chooseAnn Hui’s films as object of study, using the theory of aesthetics, space, identity andfeminism to analyze Ann Hui’s films from the angles of form and style, Hong Kongcity space, cultural identity and national imaginary, the expression of woman’sself-consciousness, discuss how Ann Hui’s films strike a balance between locality andtrans-locality, art and commerce in order to provide some advices to the creation ofHong Kong film and woman’s film.This dissertation is divided to the following chapters.The prologue including the background of this research, the research status andthe major research methods, illuminating the value of this dissertation on the basis ofabsorbing the anterior research fruit.The first chapter tries to portray Ann Hui’s grown course, TV period and movieperiod after the New Wave, put Ann Hui’s films into the specific context, probe theconnection between Ann Hui’s own film career and the Hong Kong movie industry,analyze how Ann Hui to keep the balance between the author impulse and thecommercial system, the purse of art and the pressure of box office.The second chapter mainly focuses on the form and style of Ann Hui’s filmsfrom the inspect of the culture and city spirit of Hong Kong. On the one hand, AnnHui is good at the western modern film technique such as the tempo-spatial crisscrossstructure and multiple viewpoints because of the nourishment of European art filmand Avant-garde film; on the other hand, Ann Hui is obsessed by Chinese traditionalculture which makes her films bear oriental aesthetic characters. The third chapter researches the Hong Kong city space and its culturalrepresentation of Ann Hui’s films from the angle of normal life space and marginspace with the help of the theoretical resources of cultural geography and space. AnnHui’s films striped off the aura of Hong Kong as a global city, caught thecommonplace and the poetic characteristics of Hong Kong metropolis space with hercamera full of humanism and realism spirit, focused on the margin group which wasignored by the mainstream films.The fourth chapter discusses the cultural identity and nation imaginary of AnnHui’s films focused on the bounder-crossing and displacement of the characters, fromthe angles of the metaphor of floating city and diaspora discourse, the Hong Kongnative consciousness and the disillusionment of the nation, the breaking of thesubjectivity and the difference politics and so on. Ann Hui’s films hold the suspiciousattitude toward the grand discourse of nation and nationalism.The fifth chapter focuses on the expression of woman’s self-consciousness ofAnn Hui’s films. As a female director who is concerned about women’s situation,Ann Hui’s films break and question the normal gender system to a certain extent, sheexposited the oppression of the patriarchy, the modern capitalism system and thegrand discourse of nation and history exerted to women, and also express the activismand subjectivity of women, but as a director survives in the commercial film system,Ann Hui’s films have no intention of subverting the mainstream gender order andgender system.The epilogue is an integrate evaluation of Ann Hui’s films, which analyzes theenlightment of Ann Hui’s films to the creation of Hong Kong film nowadays, and alsopoints out the limitations of Ann Hui’s films.