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Nguyen, Thi Bach Tuyet

2011190173

CLC 3705-01-00

East Asia Cinema and Cultural Crossing – Final Paper

Rouge, Infernal Affairs

And the Moving Identity of Hong Kong

In the book “Hong Kong Cinema: Coloniser, motherland and self”, the author Yingchi

Chu describes Hong Kong as “[a] „nation‟ without sovereignty” (98). It is because of the unique

and complicating historical experience that Hong Kong people have been going through since its

early beginning. From the early time until before 1842, Hong Kong was considered to be a

territory of China. In 1842, China officially ceded Hong Kong to the British after the First

Opium War due to the rise of British‟s power; and from that moment to 1997, Hong Kong had

been remaining as a British‟s colony and experiencing the very distinct cultural development and

social changes. The year 1997 marked the most crucial moment for Hong Kong people with the

advent of Hong Kong‟s handover to its “motherland” – China (Hong Kong Profile –

www.bbc.co.uk). That triangular relationship between British, China and Hong Kong produces

some unique characteristics of Hong Kong‟s society such as the sense of historical “dislocations

and discontinuities” (Ackbar 81), the sense of ambiguous and uncertain identity. Thus, those

characteristics are dominant features in Hong Kong cinema, especially in pre and post-1997

period. Among those films, Rouge directed by Stanley Kwan in 1988 and Infernal Affairs

directed by Wai-keung Lau and Alan Mark in 2002 well represent for historical experience and

identity issues of Hong Kong people. The analysis of two films shows that through the personal

stories of main characters, those two films depict vividly the historical experience of Hong Kong

people before and after the turning point in their lives – the handover of Hong Kong to China in

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1997, and show how the historical experience changes the way Hong Kong people express their

identity, from British to Chinese.

To begin with, Rouge depicts the historical experience of Hong Kong people before the

handover of Hong Kong in 1997. In contrast to the sluggish economic development and unstable

political condition of mainland China, Hong Kong under British colonial rule went through “the

turning point of Hong Kong‟s historical development” (Foshek, Desser 254), transforming from

“a fishing village into metropolis” (254), and becoming “an international center for finance and

commerce” (254). Therefore, in 1980s when Hong Kong formed its own international identity as

one of the “Four Asian Tigers”; and was enjoying a high living standard and a robust economic

development, the 1984 Joint Declaration which states that British will hand back Hong Kong to

China in 1997 created extreme anxieties among Hong Kong people. The anxiety over the

unpredicted and uncertain future, and the fear of being handed back to the poor Communist-led

China lead to the feeling of hopelessness, despair and disorientation. Also, the sense of historical

dislocation and discontinues, as well as the fear of being disappeared haunt Hong Kong society,

ultimately leading to their desperate yearning to their fantastic past as a mean to get rid of reality

and to reaffirm their identity. Firstly, those negative feeling is expressed through the love story

of Fleur who died in 1930s and decided to go back to find her lover in 1980s. The love story of

Fleur and Twelfth Master was described as a perfect love story in which the two seem to be

inseparable; they even promised to committed suicide if they cannot be together. However, after

Fleur committed suicide and hopelessly waited for her lover for 50 years, he has not appeared yet.

The passionate love which is deemed to remain unchanged permanently turns out to be just a

normal and changeable thing. Her hopelessness and depression over the changes of love when

Fleur goes back to search for her lover after 50 years imply the anxiety and hopelessness of

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Hong Kong people with the future of Hong Kong despite the fact that Chinese authorities

assured that Hong Kong will remain unchanged in 50 years after the handover. Secondly, Fleur‟s

decision to give up on her present to go back and search for her lover also illustrates the feeling

of frustration, the “lack of confidence” (Poshek, Desser 140), and “lack of faith in progress” (140)

of society. In addition, the sense of disorientation is also displayed through the way the past story

and present story are narrated. The story of Fleur and the story of the present couple are not

presented in linear time from past to present but in the way that the past and the present are

intermingled and its boundary is blurred. Also, the story of Fleur is in the past tense but it is an

unfinished story which keeps presenting and haunting the present. The confusion projected by

the merger of past and present clearly speaks to the feeling of disorientation of Hong Kong

people when facing with their dramatic future changes. Experiencing that undesirable feelings,

Hong Kong people yearn for their past as a mean of escaping from the awful reality. Their

longing to the past is expressed in the juxtaposition of 1930s-Hong Kong and 1980s-Hong Kong.

As mention above, the past story of Fleur and the story of present couple, Yuan Ting and Chu,

are intermingled. One of the purposes of the juxtaposition is to highlight and emphasize the

world of difference between two versions of Hong Kong. The society of Hong Kong in 1980s is

depicted through the life of the present couple who are both so occupied with their works; they

do not even have enough time for work, let alone time for pleasure and relax. The first scene of

Ting and Chu where Chu is in haste to her work so she just quickly gets the present from Ting

and runs away clearly portrays the hectic pace of contemporary life. The images of the hustle and

bustle of daily life are also portrayed through the bar where Chu goes to work, and the stuffy

apartment where the couple have “brief sex, and short-lived romances” (Yau 217) without much

emotion. In contrast to the busyness and craziness of contemporary society, Hong Kong in 1930s

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is described so peacefully, enjoyably and beautifully. As it can be seen on the film, the society of

Hong Kong in 1930s is a place of pleasure and fun where all Fleur has to do is worrying about

her make-up and enjoying life as a prostitute in a brothel. The enjoyable aspect of life is also

depicted through the images of people enjoying operas in Cantonese operas house, of men

enjoying their lives in brothel. Up to this point, the fear and the anxiety in present lead to the

idealization of the past as a mean to escape from the painful reality. Suddenly, all the hardships

people endured during the economic development are being ignored, “all social and racial

inequalities are erased”, and the discontent of living as a British colony is vanished. In short,

through the remembrance of depressing people in 1980s, Hong Kong as a colony of British in the

past ridiculously becomes so free, so beautiful, and so desirable. All taken together, Rouge

displays the negative reaction of Hong Kong society towards the historical change of their

territory, and their idealization of the past as a way to overcome their fear and anxiety.

If Rouge vividly depicts the experience of Hong Kong people in the pre-1997 era,

Infernal Affairs continues by illustrating their historical experience in the post-1997 period when

Hong Kong officially belonged to China. July 1, 1997 marked the turning point of Hong Kong

people when Hong Kong officially returned to its “motherland”. In contrast to the extreme

anxiety if Hong Kong people, although China and Hong Kong have distinctly different political

systems, lives of Hong Kong people have not changed much due to the policy “one country, two

systems” of Chinese authorities. Thus, Hong Kong people in post-1997 period could free

themselves from the extreme anxiety over their uncertain future. Nonetheless, the new problem

posed here for Hong Kong people is that “the absence of the British colonizer after 1997 does

not mean the end of British presence in Hong Kong” (Chu 120) because Hong Kong economic

and politics still operate in the old British system; and most importantly, Hong Kong culture is

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deeply influenced by British‟s one. At the same time, Hong Kong people‟s nationality is now

changed to Chinese but they are unable to identify themselves as Chinese due to the distinct

differences resulting from 157 years living under the British colonial rule. In short, the

unresolved issue for Hong Kong people is that they are “neither completely (comfortably)

Chinese nor British, but an in-between entity…” (Lee 4), putting them in a dilemma in which

they do not know which path they should choose, whom they can identify themselves with. The

dilemma is first expressed in the film through the dilemma of characters Lau and Yan. Lau is

originally a member of a gang but later becomes a police trainee; and he even live under the

cover of a police officer. The moment Lau becomes police trainee marks the starting point of his

dilemma in his life for he is forever trapped in-between two contrasting worlds – the world of

legitimate government and the world of illegitimate underground society. Also, the difficulty of

remembering the past of Lau perfectly signifies for the dilemma of Hong Kong people. If Lau

wants to keep his identity as a real police officer, he needs to erase his past; but past is a crucial

factor that creates identity of a person, thus cannot be forgotten and erased so easily. The conflict

between the need to remember one‟s past to define the self and the need to erase one‟s past to

form a new identity speaks to the dilemma of Hong Kong society. Hong Kong people have to

remember their history as a part of their identity; and they also want to forget about it to form a

new identity for they are an independent territory that belongs to China now. Similar to Lau, Yan

is original a police trainee but goes underground to be member of a gang with his true identity

being erased publicly. The dilemma of Yan is that he always yearns to take back his true identity

but unable to do so. The dilemma makes Hong Kong feel the sense of uncertainty, inconsistency,

“moral ambiguity, conflicted loyalties” (Marchetti 1) which are all portrayed in the two main

characters. First, when Yan‟s friend asks him “Last time you said you‟re a cop. Is it true?” and

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Yan answers “It was true but I‟m not sure now”. His response clearly shows the feeling of

uncertainty. Second, the sense of uncertainty and inconsistency is expressed more in the

character Lau. Throughout the film, it cannot be sure that whether Lau is in the side of the gang

or the police force. He at first identifies himself as a mole in police force, calling the boss of the

gang father, keeping in touch with him from the trainee day until when he becomes a high-

prolife police officer, and helping him by disclosing confidential information. His life as a police

officer roots deeply in his unconscious mind to the point that he finally seems to think of himself

as a real policeman who can bring himself to kill his boss to protect justice. However, his act of

killing the boss and his attempt to hide his true identity do not mean that he is now clean and

straight for the fact that the head police office and the leader of the gang now all died puts Lau in

the position in which he could be both the head of police force and the leader of the gang in

underground society. His position clearly signifies for the feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity

in society where the boundary between the so called legitimacy and illegitimacy is now blurred,

and even erased. The conflict loyalty, the behavior and cognitive inconsistency, and the sense of

uncertainty of Lau clearly portrayed the historical experience of Hong Kong society when they

are in the state of “in-between entity”. That unresolved issue remains as a central concern for

Hong Kong people, motivating them to find a possible solution for their problem by rejecting or

forgetting one out of the two entities in order to define the true self. This trend is first portrayed

in the character Lau. In the scene where Yan is expelled from cadet school and the officer asks

“Who want to be like him?”, Lau speaks to himself that “I do”. This detail emphasizes his

invisible wish to reject his double identity, to live as his true self – a member of a gang, not a

member of a gang under the cover of a police trainee. Also, Lau tries to transfer to the new

identity of a real police officer by denying and trying to forget his identity as mole in police force,

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killing all people who are aware of his identity, and begging Yan “Give me a chance. I have no

choice before but now I want to turn over a new leaf”. Second, this trend is also expressed

through the yearnings of Yan to get his identity back as a real policeman, not an underground

cop any more. Beside the historical experience of Hong Kong people in post-1997 era, Infernal

Affairs also portrays Hong Kong society in postmodernity period with issues such as

“consumerism,…, new technologies of communication, and the defining qualities of

postmodernity” (required reading). Those issues can be seen very clearly throughout the film.

For example, the scene where Lau uses credit card to purchase goods, or the scene when Lau and

his wife moving to a new apartment which is full of modern furniture present for the image of a

consumerism, or throw-away society, and the defining qualities of a modern life. Also,

throughout the film, it can be seen that the police office and all people are equipped with high

communication technology and cell phones.

Finally, the analysis on how history and identity of Hong Kong society are represented on

Rouge and Infernal Affairs shows a remarkable change in the way Hong Kong people express

their identity. As Yingchi Chu points out in her book “Hong Kong Cinema: Coloniser,

motherland and self” that “cultural identity is not something which already exists or has been

fixed. It is something that is always in process” (93), although the identity of Hong Kong people

before and after the year 1997 shares some common characteristics such as uncertainty and

elusiveness due to the unique historical experience in a triangular relation with China and British,

the identity of Hong Kong people changes from British-bias identity in pre-1997 era to Chinese-

bias identity in post-1997 era. This move is the result of the shift of Hong Kong territory from

the status of a British‟s colony to the status of a Special Administration Religion of China. Rouge

shows how Hong Kong people try to cling to the identity of a British colony when facing with

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the thread of the handover in 1997. The inclination to identify the self with British is well

illustrated by the process of idealizing the past which was discussed above. The past of Hong

Kong – the 1930s Hong Kong- is a British colony and this colony is described as an enjoyable

and free land, is imagined as a comfortable “home” for Hong Kong people. The yearning to the

past and idealizing it indicate the invisible desire to remain the same as a British colony, the

desire to keep and strengthen their British colonial identity. In contrast to the desire to preserve

the past, to keep British identity, Infernal Affairs displays a strong wish of Hong Kong people to

form a new identity by either erasing, clearing, and forgetting the past or searching for the

authentic self. This wish is presented in character Lau when he struggles to reject and forget his

past as a member of a gang to form a new stable identity as a police officer, and Yan when he

insists on taking back his true identity as a policeman. The most important thing is that being a

member of a gang or an underground cop, both Lau and Yan strive to be “legitimate”. Their

strong desire implies that Hong Kong people are not only seeking for a new identity, an authentic

self, but also longing for a “legitimate identity”. The “legitimate identity” indicates Chinese

identity since Hong Kong is now an official territory of China. In other word, not only do Rouge

and Infernal Affairs well represent characteristics of the identity of Hong Kong people, but those

two films also show the change in the way Hong Kong people present themselves, from being a

colony of British to being a territory of China.

In conclusion, both Rouge and Infernal Affairs are successful in describing the historical

experience of Hong Kong people before and after 1997. Before 1997 when still being a colony of

British, Hong Kong people were frightened to the great extent by the Joint Declaration between

British and China; and they response by clinging to their fantastic past. This social chaos and the

trend of longing to the past are well represented in Rouge. Infernal Affairs completes Rouge by

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displaying how Hong Kong people try to change their identity to adjust themselves to their new

status as a Special Administration Religion of China. Most importantly, those two films show

how the uncertain and elusive identity of Hong Kong shifts from British-bias to Chinese-bias

identity.

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Work cited

Chu, Yingchi. Hong Kong Cinema: Coloniser, motherland and self. London:

RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Print.

Lee, Vivian P.Y. Hong Kong Cinema Since 1997: The Post-Nostalgic Imagination.

United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print.

“Hong Kong Profile.” BBC News, 15 Feb. 2012. Web. 10 June 2012

Ackbar, Abbas. Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. London:

University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Print.

Marchetti, Gina. Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs – The Trilogy. Hong Kong:

Hong Kong University Press, 2007. Print.

Poshek Pu, Desser David. The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.

Yau, Esther C.M. At Full Speed: Hong Kong cinema in a borderless world. London:

University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Print.