Esther M. K. Cheung
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099777
- eISBN:
- 9789882206953
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099777.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the surreal and ghostly elements in Fruit Chan's films. Hong Kong in Chan's “Handover Trilogy” is frequented by surreal, ghostly intrusions of various kinds. They are the ...
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This chapter examines the surreal and ghostly elements in Fruit Chan's films. Hong Kong in Chan's “Handover Trilogy” is frequented by surreal, ghostly intrusions of various kinds. They are the allegorization of recalcitrant elements of the past that resist erasure. The surreal in Chan's films evokes the heavy weight of melancholic sentiment in “The Swan” and reminds us of the ambiguous status of the ghostly subjects. As ghosts always return with a story to tell, the ghostly subjects in Chan's films stubbornly persist in the space of the present that does not want them.Less
This chapter examines the surreal and ghostly elements in Fruit Chan's films. Hong Kong in Chan's “Handover Trilogy” is frequented by surreal, ghostly intrusions of various kinds. They are the allegorization of recalcitrant elements of the past that resist erasure. The surreal in Chan's films evokes the heavy weight of melancholic sentiment in “The Swan” and reminds us of the ambiguous status of the ghostly subjects. As ghosts always return with a story to tell, the ghostly subjects in Chan's films stubbornly persist in the space of the present that does not want them.