Leung Ping-kwan - Literary Adaptation and Cultural Negotiation in Hong Kong Cinema of the 1950s

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• published: 07 Oct 2011
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Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the department of Asian Studies. Professor Leung Ping-kwan 梁秉鈞 (pen name: Ye Si 也斯) is a highly prolific poet, novelist, cultural critic, and multimedia artist. Dr. Leung is Chair Professor of Comparative Literature, Lingnan University in Hong Kong. His recent research on the film culture of Hong Kong in the 1950s forms the basis of this year's Wat Lecture. Contrary to the common belief that Hong Kong cinema excels only in martial arts and gangster genres but has little to do with literature, recent research (Hong Kong Film and Literature Filmography, 1913-2000 [Hong Kong: Centre for Humanities Research, Lingnan University, 2005]) has shown that more than a thousand Hong Kong films have been adapted from literature since the beginning of the film industry (with the 1950s and 1960s as the high points). This talk examines how Hong Kong culture has evolved since the 1950s, and examines how directors and writers drew on traditional and modern Chinese literary works as well as foreign and popular resources to develop alternative Chinese cultures--cultures that would not have been possible to develop in Mainland China. Hong Kong cinema from the 1950s made adaptations not only from mainstream twentieth-century writers such as Lu Xun, Ba Jin, and Mao Dun but also from unacknowledged writers such as Shen Congwen and Eileen Chang. It continued to adapt from the literary works of Tolstoy, Maupassant, and Dickens when its counterpart in the mainland had ceased to do so. And it continued to adapt from traditional opera and romance (the "Mandarin Duck and Butterfly" stories) when the latter were severely criticized in the north. This talk focuses in particular on some rarely seen films adapted from Lu Xun, Tolstoy, and traditional opera. Its objectives are to highlight the literary varieties in Hong Kong culture, to clarify its historical links with Chinese and Western cultures, and at the same time to trace the formation of the characteristics that contributed to the development of Hong Kong culture. The Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lectures are made possible by the generous support of Messrs. Alex and Chi Shum Watt in honour of their mother, the late Mrs. Wat, and her passion for Chinese literature and culture.