In case you missed it, Robin Peckham has a great piece over on World Wide Pop regarding the historic Guan Gong Fights the Aliens (1976) film. A Taiwanese production filmed in Hong Kong during the 1970s, the movie is part Japanese Godzilla film and part cheesy Chinese myth.
Incidentally, I also ran into the film at a LEGO promotional event in Hong Kong today:
Want to know more about the film? Read Robin’s piece here or if you’re a Chinese reader, check out Jason blog’s coverage.
Personal disclaimer: World Wide Pop is an online publication that I also write and edit for.
The Financial Times has a fun little round up of emerging high end men’s wear companies in Hong Kong and Singapore. Rather than summarizing the article (which mainly states that these firms are meeting a growing demand and trying to put their respective cities on the map), I’ve rounded up a representative sample of images from each company below.
Mr. Sheng’s 2001 MacArthur “genius” grant propelled him into an elite circle of globally famous Chinese composers. His peers include Tan Dun, an Oscar-winner for the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” soundtrack, also with a premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera to his name; Chen Qigang, a student of the late French composer Olivier Messiaen who returned from Paris to oversee music for Beijing’s 2008 Olympics; and Zhou Long, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for music.
China’s cultural commissars dangle plum opportunities—like star turns in Olympic pageantry, lavish commissions, or prestigious academic perches—to entice such luminaries to return, and many do. “It’s certainly true that the pull of working in China is very strong. I consider myself a patriot, and I feel a bit guilty for leaving China and living in the West [during the] thirty years of economic reform,” explained Mr. Sheng, who now teaches full-time at the University of Michigan.
So why is his workshop based at a 20-year-old [Hong Kong] science university with no music department, in a city pegged as a cultural laggard? Why not the warm embrace of a prestigious Chinese conservatory?
Mr. Sheng is blunt: “Well, you don’t have to bribe anyone here. We can focus only on quality, nothing else.” The political undertow of life in the mainland often takes a toll on musicians and other artists.
Just read two recent articles on the Financial Times on Hong Kong’s sham competitiveness, especially within its own boundaries:
Hong Kong’s land system that time forgot — about how the government still profits from a colonial custom of land sales, and how this not-so-competitive system has created the most expensive property prices in the world.
Model economy’s quest to spread its riches — describes the Hong Kong market as so closed that even Walmart can’t get a foot in the door, and how Hong Kong’s real growth will happen beyond its borders.
Ending today. Hong Kong’s annual art fair featuring works from galleries from all over (with Asian galleries dominating). Well attended by locals passing by, visitors flying in and from early reports, also by prominent buyers and sellers.
Above: A local favorite that blends traditional Chinese landscape painting with modern Hong Kong skyscrapers. I wonder if people unfamiliar with Hong Kong “get it”?
But: I’m bummed I missed this coral reef installation. Will remind myself to do a bit of research instead of just wandering about next time.
The story goes that Wang Momo (王卯卯), an undergraduate at the Communication University of China, was doodling on her blog one day and came up with a peculiar yet distinct rabbit-like creature. Built with Snoopy proportions, it also had no mouth and only had slits for eyes. Its name was Tuzki (兔斯基). Three months later, Wang made an animated emoticon of it. (Emoticons are icon-sized images used to express emotion or to “make a face” in text-only online conversations. They are especially popular in China.) Over the course of the following year, Wang continued to animate Tuzki performing various actions, adding to the arsenal of the Tuzki set.
The emoticons took off. It appeared all over people’s online conversations on QQ and MSN Messenger, in various forum posts, and brought 30 million visitors to Wang’s blog. Wang, on her part, continued adding to the emoticon set and experimented with placing Tuzki in new and intricate illustrations.
By the end of 2007, Tuzki became so popular that the commercial world noticed him. Motorola hired Wang and Tuzki for their campaign promoting their new Q9h phone.
By summer of 2008, Wang finally graduated from the Communication University of China. She promptly landed herself a gig at the Time Warner office in Hong Kong, with Tuzki in tow. (Time Warner owns Cartoon Network and DC Comics, amongst other things.) There, she published a Tuzki book, wrote various comics involving the rabbit and continued to place him in different product endorsements. The book, I, Tuzki, U? (我兔斯基你) sold 160,000 copies.
(Comic strip caption reads: A blocked digestive system causes sickness. A blocked mind causes madness.)
After spending a year at Time Warner, Wang quit, citing a desire for more personal and creative freedom. Yet Time Warner cleverly held onto Tuzki.
Both parties have moved on after they split up. Time Warner have continued developing the Tuzki brand in their recent Tuzki Snap iPhone app and Tuzki Milk Mogul Facebook game. Wang, on the other hand, has since published a second book using a different character, and no longer posts about Tuzki on her personal blog (though the rabbit still makes an appearance in the sidebar).
On the surface, the story of Tuzki may seem like a happy one: Time Warner has landed itself with one of China’s hottest licensed characters and Wang has become a celebrity illustrator with a solid fan following.
Yet, in reality, the story of Tuzki is a case study of failure in the cartoon industry in China. Nothing Wang or Time Warner has made rivals the sheer impact and unique personality of the early Tuzki emoticons. The animated commercial ads are cute, comics strips enjoyable and mobile apps popular, but none possess the same draw or distinct mark of the original. And what’s worse, none have added more depth to the Tuzki character. At this rate, the charismatic, mouth-less rabbit may never transcend its status as an massively-popular internet fad of 2007. Tuzki may forever remain as mysterious as when he first appeared, an expressive rabbit-like creature without a mouth but with some really great moves.
The Postgal Workshop (猫室) has become the champion of homegrown animation in Hong Kong. Its recent comic book and animated shorts series, Din Dong (癲噹), went from being a local indie favorite to being aired on Japanese TV. Din Dong is a parody of the popular Japanese cartoon, Doraemon (ドラえもん). The characters are named after those in Doraemon (in fact “Din Dong” is a pun on what Doraemon was called in Hong Kong before its phonetically correct name change in 1999) and the story is set in an ambiguously Asian village beset by the financial recession.
Despite an interesting premise, Din Dong, like many of the Postgal Workshop’s animated works, suffers from mediocre writing, relying way too readily on cute gags and silly endings. When applied to ads, as it was for Hong Kong’s blockbuster apm shopping mall, the animation thrives from its unique look and feel. When applied to story-driven works like Din Dong, the writing and dialogue feel out of sync with the exceptional Postgal animation style.
Advertisers employ Postgal to make sure they connect with the young demographic. I suspect RTHK (the social issues, government-funded broadcasting organization in Hong Kong) reached out to them for the similar reasons. In 2008, they commissioned Postgal to create an animated episode of their Hong Kong Connection (鏗鏘集) documentary series. This unlikely collaboration created one of Postgal’s best works to date by forcing them play serious and incorporate new voices.
The animated episode is called Hidden Elders (隱蔽老人) and describes the plight of forgotten or “hidden” senior residents in Hong Kong. The juxtaposition of serious subject matter and frivolous animation style livens up a normally-dry subject matter. Additionally, the sequencing and writing adds a surprisingly effective layer of wit and charm. On the other hand, weaknesses in writing do remain in a few spot (don’t tell me I didn’t warn you about the vapid Star Ferry reference at the end) and there’s a dearth of information about which aspects were fictionalized and which weren’t.
Despite its shortcomings, Hidden Elders is a joy to watch, and captures the city of Hong Kong in spirited cartoon form. It definitely meets its goal of making Hong Kong Connection accessible to new audiences, while spinning the documentary formula on its head. For its efforts, Postgal was awarded the Grand Prize at the 10th Tokyo Broadcasting System’s DigiCon6 Awards in 2008.
And guess what? We’ve subtitled the full episode of Hong Kong Connection: Hidden Elders in English for your viewing pleasure below.
The story begins with a movie called 四大天王 (Heavenly Kings), which is a Hong Kong-based movie produced by semi-famous actors about semi-famous actors starting a boy band. It’s a touch satirical. (It is also actor Daniel Wu’s directorial debut.)
The boy band itself is half-real, which means that they did go out and perform, but the songs are satirical and purposely horrible (I think?). I can’t quite figure out how much of it was just a fancy marketing vehicle for the movie.
Boy band and movie aside, the team (pictured above) have also decided to start a social networking sites to “promote artists” in Hong Kong, enlisting the help of one of the Rotten Tomatoes co-founders.
Even though it’s never explicitly defined, their use of the term “artist” seems to fall closer to the Hong Kong usage (actors/actresses or singers) rather than the broader dictionary definition.
For example, on the boy band’s last performance, they cited 16 axioms:
We are worried about our future
We have 300 directors, but only 30 films
So many singers, where are the bands?
Music is not just KTV
Quality productions will win back our audience
We need to innovate, not copy and follow
Hong Kong needs to keep its identity
Care about Hong Kong, Care about the entertainment industry
A healthy creative environment requires diversity
Invest in our future
Without independent productions, the mainstream will not progress
Support Indie music / indie films
Unfortunately, the social networking site, Alive Not Dead, just seems like another MySpace clone. Despite what they say, the pitch seems to be: Look! Famous artists are on here! You should join too! (There is a profile picture for Jet Li on the front page.)
And the project? So far, it still looks like the plaything of a group of well-connected people in the industry, but only time will tell if it takes off.
88 Bar is a group blog about technology, media and design in the Greater China region. All of our posts are curated from the various perspectives of our authors. More...
Our authors
Jason Li (designer) has worked as an interaction designer, illustrator and researcher. Originally from Hong Kong, he has also lived in Canada, the US and Spain. He's writing a graphic novel in his spare time.
Tricia Wang (sociologist) observes how technology makes us human. Her ethnographic research follows youth and migrants as they process information and desire, remaking cities and rural areas.
Jin Ge aka Jingle is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and NGO organizer based in Shanghai. Jin does sociological research and produces multi-media content on the subjects of Internet subcultures and grass-root organizations in China.
An Xiao Mina is an American design strategist, new media artist and digital community builder. She uses technology to build and empower communities through design and artistic expression.
Lyn Jeffery (cultural anthropologist) is a research director at the Institute for the Future. She has spent more than 20 years living, working, and doing research in China.
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