For one of our projects early this year, we were tasked with designing a period-appropriate prop for a mini-script we would come up with on our own set in a time period no later than the 1990s. I decided to design a cereal box used in a scene set in 1980's Hong Kong.
Aware of how Asian cultures tended to be portrayed in exaggerated and exoticized manners in western media, I sat down to watch some of the movies made by Hong Kong directors during that time as research.
the two that i found online available to watch were Allen Fong's Ah Ying (1983) and Angie Chen's Maybe It’s Love (1984). Watching those movies, alongside finding stills and clips from some other similar movies helped me figure out how to portray period elements from a less well known culture in a more authentic and sensitive way. I found the production design of Ah Ying particularly helpful as it showed how families in Hong Kong lived in the 80s, particularly the family of the titular character, who were not well-to-do but still lived with comforts in their home like soft furnishings, multiple electrical appliances, record players with record collections, and liquor cabinets.
Angie Chen's Maybe It’s Love (1984) gave me some good insight into a feminine framing of Asian women's roles in society. Both these films also highlighted some interesting points about Hong Kong locals' relationship with colonialism and the resulting encroachment of Western values, which ended up inspiring some of my final design for my prop. Reading up on Angie Chen also led me to research on other movies about Hong Kong women and their portrayal in the media of film, in particular The World of Suzie Wong (Dir. Richard Quine, 1960) and My Name Ain't Suzie (Dir. Angie Chen, 1985), the latter being a film made by Angie Chen in response to the former.
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