Kung Fu : negotiating nationalism and modernity
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Cultural Studies
Publication Date
1-1-2001
Volume
15
Issue
3/4
First Page
515
Last Page
542
Publisher
Routledge
Keywords
Colonial condition, cultural imagination, hybrid identity, liminal space, kung fu cinema, male body, nationalism, self-negation
Abstract
'Kung fu', as a cultural imaginary consecrated in Hong Kong cinema since the 1970s, was constituted in a flux of nationalism. This paper argues that the kung fu imaginary found in Hong Kong kung fu cinema is imbued with an underlying self-dismantling operation that denies its own effectiveness in modern life, and betrays an 'originary' moment of heterogeneity, an origin of itself as already 'impurely Chinese'. Having been British-colonized, westernized, capitalist-polluted and culturally hybrid, Hong Kong's relation with 'Chineseness' is at best an ambivalent one. This ambivalence embodies a critical significance of Hong Kong as a defusing hybrid other within a dominant centralizing Chinese ideology, which is itself showing signs of falling apart through complex changes imposed by global capital. Hong Kong's kung fu imaginary, which operates in a self-negating mode, is instructive when read as a tactic of intervention at the historical turn from colonial modernity to the city's reluctant return to the fatherland. The kung fu imaginary enacts a continuous unveiling of its own incoherence, and registers Hong Kong's anxious process of self-invention. If Hong Kong's colonial history makes the city a troublesome supplement, then the 'Hong Kong cultural imaginary' will always be latently subversive, taking to task delusive forms of 'unitary national imagination'.
DOI
10.1080/095023800110046687
Print ISSN
09502386
E-ISSN
14664348
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Li, S. L. (2001). Kung Fu: Negotiating nationalism and modernity. Cultural Studies, 15(3/4), 515-542. doi: 10.1080/095023800110046687