East Asian Action Cinema

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Successfully analyse specific filmic texts, situating this analysis in aesthetic and cultural context.
• Engage critically with a range of theoretical material.
• Apply different theoretical models and concepts to a variety of filmic texts.
• Understand and use a range of specialised terms and concepts.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Contemporary Hong Kong cinema since 1997 and broad awareness of previous movements/developments in HK cinema.
• Debates surrounding the relationship between auteur and genre.
• Key concepts of transnational and Asian cinema.
• The diversity and recurrence of themes and styles in the work of one director.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Organise your time successfully, respecting and meeting deadlines.
• Coherently and persuasively argue your ideas, verbally and in written form.
• Write effectively, accurately and critically in an appropriate academic style.
• Independently identify and locate appropriate critical resources.
• Participate productively in and, where appropriate, lead academic discussion.

The module will explore issues in East Asian action cinema, by examining the work of Johnnie To.

Johnnie To Kei-Fung has directed films for Hong Kong television and cinema since the 1970s, but has become internationally more acknowledged only since the late 1980s. Since 2000, he has become one of Hong Kong's most prominent and prolific filmmakers, and his films are increasingly showcased at international festivals.

Possessing a distinctive visual flair, To’s films (mostly produced by his independent company Milkyway Image) represent a contemporary Hong Kong cinema that defies distinctions between popular genre and art cinema, mobilising both domestic cultural traditions and international influences and references (especially with classical Hollywood, but also with European film). As such, To’s oeuvre is ideally suited to discuss questions of authorship, genre, and the intersection between the local and the global in contemporary world

cinema. The module will focus on close readings of a selected group of To’s films including, for example, PTU (2003), Breaking News (2004), Election (2005, and its sequel, 2006), Mad Detective (2007), Sparrow (2007), and Vengeance (2009). This selection will enable you to perceive and analyse the continuities within To’s work, but also get a sense of the cultural distinctiveness of contemporary Hong Kong cinema. The focus of this module will enable you to study a particular example of world cinema in depth.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

• Plenary sessions to deal with general themes and concepts, ideas.
• Seminars involving student led presentations, whole class and small group discussions. These will centre more on close textual readings.
• Weekly screenings of selected films.
• One to one consultation with tutor.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Ackbar Abbas (1997). Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. University of Minnesota Press.

Michael Ingham (2009). Johnnie To Kei-Fung’s PTU. Hong Kong UP.

Leon Hunt, Leung Wing-Fai, eds (2008). East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film. I.B.Tauris.

Stephen Teo (2007). Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film. HK University Press.

Meaghan Morris, Siu Leung Li, Stephen Ching-Kiu Chan, eds (2006). Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema. Duke UP.

David Bordwell (2000). Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Harvard UP.

Anne Tereska Ciecko, ed (2006). Contemporary Asian Cinema: Popular Culture in a Global Frame. Berg.

Assessment strategy

Assessments designed to provide informal, on-going feedback:

• You will be invited to discuss preparation for formal assessment with the tutor.
• You will be invited to discuss your work in progress, including seminar presentations and contributions, with the tutor.
• Guidance on all forms of assessment will be supplied in initial module documentation and in class.
• Written feedback on assignment cover sheets.
• Discussion of completed assignments in tutorials.Note on assessments for MA level work
• Topics chosen for the assignments should allow a great degree of focus and detail, whether of analysis, examination of and commentary on facts, critical insight, independent argument, or other factors.
• Conversely, assignments should demonstrate a broad knowledge and understanding of context, a confident use of analytical and critical tools, and a mature handling of argument and materials.
• Optimal standards of presentation are required, in terms of spelling, punctuation, and grammar; sophistication of vocabulary; provision of footnotes; inclusion of full bibliographical and related details; physical appearance of work, etc.

In short, MA level students should aspire at all times to the highest possible levels of work.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External