The Cinema of Ann Hui

Aesthetics, Gender, and Displacement

A central figure in Hong Kong cinema since her debut with The Secret (1979), Ann Hui was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 77th Venice International Film Festival in 2020. This book explores her distinctive narrative strategies and visual style, with particular attention to gender representation and the depiction of displacement within diasporic communities.

Bringing together essays by an international group of contributors, the volume offers a comprehensive analysis of Hui's filmmaking, from early televisual works such as The Boy from Vietnam (1978), to her recent documentary Elegies (2023). The chapters situate her formal and aesthetic choices within the specific historical and cultural conditions of Hong Kong and its film industry, demonstrating how her cinema is shaped by, and responds to, these contexts.

The book also explores Hui's sustained engagement with gender and sexuality in films including Summer Snow (1995), All About Love (2010) and Our Time Will Come (2017), underscoring her creative agency as a female auteur. By reworking Chinese aesthetic traditions to reimagine femininity and female subjectivity, Hui’s films are positioned here as open-ended and multifaceted. In doing so, the volume deepens our understanding of Hong Kong and Chinese-language cinema, the representation of women on screen, and the ongoing reconfiguration of Hong Kong’s cultural identity through the work of a globally recognised filmmaker.

Contributor: Zhaoyu Zhu (Edited by), Weiting Fan (Edited by), Xueyan Cheng (Edited by)

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