Stories about somewhere else: Mobility and ‘spatial others’ in Hong Kong cinema

As a migrant city, Hong Kong has produced numerous diasporic films that portray physical mobility and fluid identity as the city’s cultural style. This cultural picture has changed since the 2000s with the rise of localism. As the debate about localism has grown heated, the concepts of mobility and fluidity have seemingly become obsolete. Many Hong Kongers have emigrated to other countries due to the changes in the contemporary political climate, which urges us to read these films in a new context. This article focuses on the works of Wong Kar-wai and Ann Hui, who have consistently made films about journeys and ‘spatial others’. By analysing Wong’s In the Mood for Love (2000) and The Grandmaster (2013), and Hui’s Song of the Exile (1990) and The Golden Era (2014), I illustrate how these films construct a local identity in relation to mobility and why they offer new insights into the debate about Hong Kong’s contemporary culture. Bringing these films into dialogue with the localist discourses, I argue that mobility should be reconsidered a crucial component in the construction of local culture and identity in modern-day Hong Kong. Copyright © 2023 Asian Studies Association of Australia.