Screening Communities analyses Hong Kong cinema from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as several more recent case studies. Jing Jing Chang argues that post-war filmmaking in the city often masked political agendas in response to contemporaneous Cold War ideology and the policies of the colonial government. Her central focus is on how these diverse political imperatives constructed and imagined the audiences as “communities.” The book is structured in three parts. The first considers film policy – specifically film censorship and the Colonial Film Unit – and its impact on shaping the films being produced and local audiences. The second section concerns Leftist Cantonese cinema. The last part explores the gender discourses presented in youth movies and celebrity culture in the newly-industrialized city. Chang's research on the film policies of the post-war colonial government and local political factions as they responded through filmmaking is detailed and academically rigorous. Cantonese cinema has been widely studied and written about by Hong Kong based academics and through organizations such as the Hong Kong International Film Festival (which has published valuable catalogues) and the Hong Kong Film Archive. However, in-depth English-language research on the complexity of local filmmaking during this period remains rare. Thus, Chang's study will make a significant contribution to the existing literature.
The study is informed by in-depth archival research with a clear purpose. Chang convincingly employs a range of primary and secondary sources, from government documents to commercial film paraphernalia, from textual analysis of the movies to the contemporaneous social, political and cultural context. The textual analysis of the films could be more expansive and detailed, which is an issue often associated with a panoramic survey study of a period in filmmaking.
One of the key contributions of the book is the way the author combines analysis of commercial Cantonese films with an understanding of the industry players, especially regarding the ideological schisms among filmmakers in the post-war period, and the work of the colonial film office. It highlights the relatively little-known film activities of the city while the predominant academic research is on its feature-length narrative genre films. The first section of the book (chapters one and two), in particular, demonstrates this key strength.
The second part “Towards a Leftist Vernacular Modernism: From the National to the Familial” examines the ideological and cultural influences of the May Fourth intellectual movement and cinematic responses to the changing family structure in a modernizing city. A point that the author makes but does not fully delineate is the extent to which the local Leftist filmmakers in Hong Kong were able to continue the early 20th-century anti-feudal sentiments developed during the Republic. The advocacy of individual freedom began at this time, which grew as the industrial economy in the city continued to flourish. Chapter four aptly points out the contradictions between Confucian doctrine and patriarchy and this developing individualism. The author analyses lunli films and their familial address, which served to support a strong sense of family and community in this time of change.
The last part of the book, comprising chapters on the exporting of Hong Kong cinema in South East Asia (Nanyang) and female stars, works less well. The topics have been widely researched, evident by the extensive bibliography, but the chapter-length discussions here cannot afford the subjects the depth they deserve. For instance, the textual analysis of the film examples is rather brief. Chapter six discusses two female stars of the 1960s – Josephine Xiao and Connie Chan – and their respective groups of fans, linking them to the emerging industrial development and youth culture. While the discussion is convincing, it appears to reiterate existing literature. The author's use of the term masquerade needs further deliberation. Mary Ann Doane's 1982 seminal article “Film and the masquerade: theorising the female spectator” (Screen, 23[3-4]: 74–88), could have been helpfully referenced here. Chang does not explain how the concept of masquerade helps our theoretical understanding of genders in Hong Kong cinema. The assertion of the two celebrities’ “gender-bending roles” is also lightly analysed. Without a firm definitional frame of the term masquerade at the outset, the chapter's treatment of gender is undermined. Nonetheless, there is a place for the two chapters in the structure of the book, to support the author's assertion of a screening/screened community in post-war Hong Kong.
Screening Communities offers an in-depth study of Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s, which no doubt contributes to Hong Kong studies – an emerging field – as attested by the first annual conference of the Society for Hong Kong Studies held in 2019. Chang's study is also a valuable addition to Asian film studies, film history and area studies. As a research monograph, its potential use in teaching may be limited, though postgraduate research students in related areas will no doubt find the book informative. While the Hong Kong Film Archive and the Hong Kong International Film Festival have produced various publications on the subject area, this study consolidates these previous works, rendering it a significant book for those working with film heritage in the city and interested scholars alike.
