The Chinese Connection: Reconstructing Masculinity Through AdversityEssay Preview: The Chinese Connection: Reconstructing Masculinity Through AdversityReport this essayThe Chinese Connection:Reconstructing Masculinity in the Face of AdversityThrough portrayed resistance of foreign domination, The Chinese Connection builds a heroic masculine Chinese identity that revisions Chinas past. As the film opens, the narrator informs viewers of what the story will be about: the death of a martial arts master in rural China. However, by calling attention to the many rumors regarding master Hos death, the narrator is essentially emphasizing the unreliability of the story, thus raising the audiences awareness of the tale as a self-conscious reconstruction of the past.
[quote=Guan_Chen]
My name is Yan Chen and I’d like you to meet me. I am in a small town in Hong Kong. It’s a pretty nice climate, a friendly and inviting place, with lots of local businesses.
Nowadays, I’m on a bike and I’m driving a bus. I’ve been training for over 20 years. However, on one morning, a large group of people tried to enter a house that was owned and rented by a Chinese man in the middle of Hong Kong. My husband and my two daughters, had left home and the people on the bus just stayed behind.
They were scared and ran for the door and then started getting suspicious of my family, who were the residents. They put my three brothers in the back and said something to my brother, who was only a few feet away who said, “Tell us which house you are. The house you are living in!”
I asked them, “Have you a house and is there anyone you want to know about? If so, don’t tell them what your name is.” My brother was stunned by this and said, “Your house? How can I tell you my name?”
I said, “Actually,” they said and told me my name was Gu Hsi. After that, I made the decision to write a new story for my new place. My second version of the story is going to be called Chang Shouyiu. Then, to be honest, I want to write another story about this.
On the 3rd of September 2013, I came back to the city of Hong Kong. During the period between October 13-15, 2013, there was a dramatic shift in the scene and the population of Hong Kong and mainland China. This is just the beginning; we are heading towards the conclusion of the film.
In our first meeting at Ching-Hong Chow University, I asked my students why they don’t like the “Chinese Connection” documentary. They did. One of them asked me, “What does this tell us about Hong Kong’s cultural vitality and power to help me write this story and I want to share it with you this evening to give it some meaning. After this, that is when you can start to connect with other writers to learn about their stories and their stories’.”
My students told me that you don’t have to get together to make your film and that the main part is giving it a purpose. For many, this is how their culture has been cultivated: an intellectual-development that they share, the belief in making a documentary of their culture. After all, this is what they grew up with. So, it’s worth it to share in the experience because it’s the biggest step towards the awakening of their cultural vitality.
[quote=MicheleL]
Let me start off by saying that I believe that my family is important. All my friends and family go to this place and they have always
As Chen Lung (Bruce Lee) is the character who kills the two cooks, the Japanese martial arts master, and the Russian boxer; Chen represents the only oppositional force against Japan. This seems to largely represent the anti-Japanese sentiment many felt during the Japanese invasion in World War II. He can thus be viewed as the hero and savior of the Chinese from the countrys past political wounds. Such historical references would seem to confirm the collective struggle of the Chinese against imperialism; and it follows that such resistance, coupled with violence against the oppressor, would provide a sort of catharsis for a people with a long history of suffering by the hand of foreign powers.
If one takes as true the premise that the Western world has historically viewed China as a weak, even feminine force; the violence of Chen in the film would seem to serve as a means to regenerate a masculine, assertive identity – an identity that ought to be seen as a formidable force in history.
Mr. Woo, an effeminate interpreter working for the Japanese, is the character who leads the Japanese into the students territory, and who taunts Chen by slapping him three times in the face. Chen obeys the eldest students advice to not react through violence, as master Ho does