Book Launch | Main Melody Films: Hong Kong Directors in Mainland China

Speaker:
Professor Yiu-Wai Chu, Professor and Director of the Hong Kong Studies Programme, HKU

Discussant: Dr. Winnie Yee, MALCS, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Moderator: Dr. Esther C.M. Yau, MALCS, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Time: 6:00 pm (Hong Kong Time)
Venue: On Zoom

The 2010s will probably enter the annals of Chinese film history as the decade of change, and major changes include, among others, the “blockbusterization” of main melody films. Main melody films are indeed not new to the Mainland market. Simply put, they used to refer to propaganda works that paid tribute to the nation, the party and the army, and in this sense their history is as long as that of Chinese cinema. In the new millennium, they had gradually grown into the main genre in Chinese cinema, and its “blockbusterization” was arguably the most phenomenal development of the Chinese film industry in the 2010s. This book endeavours to go across the Mainland-Hong Kong border to focus on Hong Kong filmmakers’ contributions to main melody blockbusters that affected both regions in this decade.

Yiu-Wai Chu is Professor and Director of the Hong Kong Studies Programme at the University of Hong Kong, and Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Humanities. His research interests focus on postcolonialism, globalization and Hong Kong culture. His recent English publications include Lost in Transition: Hong Kong Culture in the Age of China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013), Hong Kong Cantopop: A Concise History (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017) and Found in Transition: Hong Kong Studies in the Age of China (Albany: SUNY Press, 2018).

Enquiries: Georgina Challen – gchallen@hku.hk

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