This was one of the best discussions ever, funny and adding to knowledge, attended by Alexius, Yen, Dorcas, Natalie, Xinyu, and Aaron. We spoke about the obsession with and the inclusion of animals in city life especially giraffes (“giraffes are cute,” said Alexius) and fat stray dogs VS skinny people; that tender relationships occur between mother-daughter or human-animal but not between lesbians, and wondered if that’s homophobic; identity of Hong Kong citizens especially lesbians in light of capitalism, the return to China, scarcity of land, intimacy mediated through media, technology, colonialisation, and globalisation (Nicole being mixed race).
Somehow, almost every scene is sexualised in the movie such as nun eating apple (recalling to the Adam and Eve scene), “banana fingers,” long necks of giraffes and their tongues, mom sucking on chicken feet, Chan holding coke can against her neck.
All the factors (mentioned in previous paragraphs in bold) have created intense loneliness in the characters, manifest in different ways such as insomnia, paying for sex, etc.
We talked about exterior factors such as the funding of the film and, unlike Monsoon which is a travelogue of Vietnam, Let’s Love Hong Kong (LLHH hencefore) embraces the country for all its filth and dirt, showing the underbelly of the housing estates, but also revealing a nostalgia which may be seen in the yellow filter used for the film.
Regarding the film’s style, it is noted how the camera is placed closed to the edge, mimicking a claustrophobia of the country. As for editing, the transitions are confusing and the plot narration isn’t straight forward but this intentionality is to link LLHH to the other global queer films’ narration techniques all the way back to the 70s.
This style announces itself in the title of the film (the director said in an interview that “let’s” is a stand-in for “les” as in “lesbian,” so you can read the title as “Les love Hong Kong.”) The porn website that Chan Kwok-chan (meaning “made-in-China”) worked at is called “Let’s Love” so ironically it seems like the title could be “let’s love China” or “Les love China.” Also ironically, the main leads, Nicole and Zero, love Chan, but Chan couldn’t love them back, perhaps a metaphor here? Especially when seen from the chronology that HK returned to China in 1997 and this film was conceptualised in 1999.
The Cantonese title, Ho Yuk, means “move quickly” as in the speed of HK society, but the camera contrasts this movement by keeping still.
Also still was Chan who was the only person in HK to feel the earthquake because she was standing still on the MTR platform while lovers kissed behind her and a cleaner kept sweeping the floor around her. Clearly there is symbolism at work in this scene, as there are plethora of symbols in the film.
Chan’s standing still is mirrored in the narrative and character development; there is none, leading to Hollywood Bitch Slap (HBS) concluding “Yet another lesbian movie that tries very hard to avoid lesbianism.” Clearly HBS is using Western lens and neglecting Asian culture. We disagreed with him and discussed how Asian sexuality is expressed through the body and how the mother tacitly acknowledges Chan’s sexuality.
That said, we made the same mistake as HBS. Although we all like the character Zero for her lucky-go-happy ways and insouciance towards homophobia, we were disturbed by her stalkish behaviour until Natalie reminded us that Asians generally don’t know how to express their admiration and love and Zero does it by offering “lobang” to Chan.
Nicole, as a character, seems to stick out and her scenes could be cut away without much harm to the movie. What was Nicole’s purpose? We suggested that Nicole represents a different type of lesbian from Zero and Chan; and a different socioeconomic class.
Because of this stillness — nothing gets resolved in the film, there is no escape from this China dream — we pondered if this movie was too long and could have been made into a short film to express the same meaning.
Whatever the case, despite Alex still adamantly disliking the film while Dorcas switched from dislike to neutral, the film has provided much fodder for thought. Although it may not have been commercially successful and not make much of an impact culturally, it is a cerebral and interesting film that gives insights to the Hong Kong society.
Queer Book & Movie Club (Singapore) 