Hong Kong Movies and Local Culture Research Assignment

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Hong Kong Movies and Local Culture
Introduction
Hong Kong is one important region in China and on a global dimension. As much as the city seats in the center of the country’s culture and economy, Hong Kong exhibits some different values that set it apart from the broad national identity. Mass media is a crucial paradigm that impacts both national and local identities. From a historical perspective, Hong Kong has enjoyed a free media as compared to the rest of China (Matthews, Ma and Lui 59). Mass media affects not only the culture of the place, but also the individual consciousness of persons that inhabit a place. Education is of dire focus in the discussion of local and national identity. Just like mass media, education contributes to the consciousness of individuals and culture of the people in a given locality. Hong Kong has sparked some of the important changes in national identity that are being observed in China today as opposed to the past few decades. Despite the several strides that China’s mainland and Hong Kong have taken to bridge the pre-existing differences, there are a lot of instances that still set the two apart. This discussion seeks to understand the declining differences between Hong Kong’s local identity and nationalism
Hong Kong Movies
Cultural identity is a widely-discussed topic in Hong Kong, as well as the mainland, China. In the 1970s, the country’s electronic media industry was flooded with nostalgia films. The films served three broad roles; criticism and ridicule of colonial legacy, complicating comprehension of the colonial past and support of British legacy. Nostalgic films produced in the 1970s continued to impact the relation between Hong Kong’s media industry and that of the mainland. Understanding the pre-handover history is relevant in defining and understanding the development of the local identity of Hong Kong in relation to the mainland.
Local Identity
Historically, Hong Kong experienced different economic, political changes as compared to the rest of the Republic of the People of China. Hong Kong remained under the realm of British authority, even as the rest of China was liberated. However, the government of the population of China had the final say in Hong Kong. Apparently, Hong Kong was suppressed by the exertion of power from two different authority figures. During the power handover, it is observed that many inhabitants of Hong Kong migrated to Western societies due to political uncertainties. One of the notable group of Chinese that flooded Western countries were the film stars. As much as their migration into western culture impacted the media, attempts of the local authority to obtain a grip on the industry had more impact.
Hong Kong Locals and Outsiders
The history of Hong Kong is rather complicated as opposed to the global perspective. To most fans of Chinese movies outside China, Hong Kong films act as the representation of the Chinese culture. The reality is that mainland China has been historically excluded from the Hong Kong culture, politics and even the economy. In the early 1950s, Hong Kong could be described as an international financial center (Matthews, Ma...