Martial Arts Cinema And Hong Kong Modernity Bodies Genders And Transnational Imaginaries

The goal of this dissertation is to explore the complex interconnections between the Hong Kong martial arts films and a set of sensory and ideological constellations arising out of the city's rapid transformation into a modern urban-industrial society during the 1960s and 1970s. The dissertation is divided into three parts, the first of which deals with the question of the body: on one hand, I take the filmed body of the martial hero as a socially symbolic sign and explore how its shifting representations emerged out of particular ideological pressures--not only fantasies about liberated labor but also the historical experience of violence, in terms of both colonization as well as unfettered development--associated with Hong Kong's rapid industrialization and modernization process. On the other hand, shifting the focus to the lived body of the spectator as a site of affect and sensation, I discuss the propensity of the 1960s and 1970s martial arts films toward a highly visceral and sensationalist style and situate this trend within the context of changing perceptual habits shaped and controlled by an ever-intensifying sensory environment. Then I go on to consider the shifting and mutually defining representations of masculinity and femininity in the martial arts genre, focusing in particular on two broad areas: the ways in which different forms of male homosociality (sworn brotherhood; the master-disciple relationship) are constructed, destabilized, and re-imagined; and the empowering yet dependent figure of the woman warrior, whose ambivalent position bears witness to the complex and often conflicting desires confronting modern Hong Kong women. Finally, the dissertation explores the changing practices and meanings that have characterized the transnational endeavors of the martial arts genre. Specifically, through an in-depth analysis of two particular instances--the "minor transnationalism" of 1970s kung fu films and the kind of big-budget, effects-driven productions characteristic of the recent trend of Chinese martial arts blockbusters--I seek to shed light on the myriad ways in which the global image economy is constituted and negotiated.