天佑我城,诡魅无疆

BY M小魚

鬼之為言歸也。

——《爾雅》

太平之世,人鬼相分;今日之世,人鬼相雜。

——馮夢龍《喻世明言》

“此生的紛亂無明與他生的神秘幽遠何其不同，而在兩個境界間，但見新魂舊鬼穿梭徘徊，不忍歸去，不能歸來”。

——王德威

一種反抗。一種吞噬。一種再生。一種殺人見血。一種焚屍不滅跡。一種愛。一種恨。愛極生恨。恨極生愛。最後，它們是一種輪回說。

——夏宇《逆毛撫摸》

楔子

可巧，香港之於我初次的文本印象並非其綺麗繁華的都會風情，卻是一番“鬼影幢幢”（Haunting）投射下的浮靡蒼涼——原籍並非香港的小說家施叔青在她的短篇小說“驅魔”中喃喃自語道，向已不相信拯救的愛人索取身體和情愛同寫作一樣乃是為了驅除她心頭魔障……多年以後，施的文字面目模糊，她筆下那座孤城所散發的落寞而腐朽的世紀末氣息卻始終徘徊不去——“驅魔”作於1986年，此時離《中英聯合聲明》的簽訂已過去兩年。日不落帝國的昔日榮光早已漸行漸遠，這一年，時任港督竟在談判期間病歿北京……儘管大陸主流話語舍此無它的“回歸”論調尚未如十年之後那般迫人，驚覺只有“城籍”而無“國籍”的香港人對“過渡期”與“五十年不變”的憂心忡忡卻已令香港掀起第一輪的移民熱潮——政治死線迫近所包含的現實況味令所謂的“歸去來兮”少了若干灑脫的詩意，多了幾分虛空的愁緒；歷史的風雲際會為這座城市埋下即溫柔又暴烈的伏筆，卻已無力成全再一場轟轟烈烈的傾城之戀，這似是“浮城”無法逃脫的命運，“我城”的居民不得不淪陷於歷史與國族寓言的夾縫之間收拾起天真面孔預備倒數並守侯這新的一場“失去”：失城——失去此城，失落之城，消失中的城。

然而反觀八十年代的香港影壇，港式商業電影也逐漸在類型和明星的雙軌上演繹出自身日後被電影學家David Bordwell稱為“盡皆過火，儘是癲狂”的大眾影史傳奇——那也算香港電影的高調年代：功夫武俠尚未式衰，但見新派英雄一身道義披掛上陣，戰而不死，似不曾迷惑，不曾老去彷徨，光影中仿若絲毫未見現實狀況下的頹然和沉重——1985年，成龍的“警察故事”大賣，此片不單由成龍自導自演，他在片中的所有驚險動作皆由他自己完成，此片一出即奠定了成龍功夫巨星的地位；次年，吳宇森的“英雄本色”讓周潤發的小馬哥深入人心，吳氏的柔情暴力也為香港黑幫類型片帶來新的電影語言，其作品中情義並重的黑幫英雄形象也成為後來者模仿的標靶；而1989年由王晶執導，劉德華和周潤發主演的“賭神”票房更是高達4000多萬，也由此開啟了香港的賭片時代……這一片繁華喧囂實難令人與前番所述糾結傷感的城市故事相連，然香港電影一面經營著這廂入世的精彩熱鬧，其實卻從未曾放棄過其鬼聲魅影的敍事傳統：人鬼相雜，陰陽相彙，如若將那些僵屍夜行、鬼魅重訪、幽靈再現的港式恐怖片一一回溯，卻或可從中發現於這人間悵然若失的蛛絲馬跡。

之一

就讓我們承認1980年代中期的茅山道士、清朝遺老甚或借日軍大佐回魂的僵屍雖則盛極一時，它們卻不是香港恐怖片的全部——即便那些念叨著“君要臣死，臣不得不死”、頭戴頂帶花翎雙手平鋪做跳躍狀的東方僵屍們使得香港CULT電影別有東方風味（據內地影評人魏君子說，林正英之流在影片中所專的正是民間道教所謂“茅山術”），但正如香港影評人吳昊所言，“香港的僵屍電影只是功夫片的借屍還魂”：恐怖本非港式僵屍電影所專，在人鬼相搏中重新展示功夫拳腳的鋪陳，甚或加上插科打諢的誇張笑料，僵屍終了不過一件異類的擺設而已。

僵屍縱橫的嘉年華鬧劇固然可歎可笑，其魅力卻終敵不過二三個世紀以前蒲松齡先生筆下的花妖狐妹與陰陽相隔的幻魅奇情。1987年，阮繼志編劇，徐克監製、程小東導演的“倩女幽魂”雖有一代大導演李翰祥1959年同名的邵氏影片珠玉在前，卻依舊成為後人難以逾越的經典。然聶小倩與寧采臣的傳說儘管動人，後人畫蛇添足的矯情演繹和發揮之後，蒲氏的古典愛情亦披起故弄玄虛的外衣，聶寧二人人鬼殊途的結合在流行文化的平面處理下最後卻不得不淪為明星效應的一抹蒼白背景而已。

之二

可也是在1987，關錦鵬另闢蹊徑，他在一部叫做“胭脂扣”的電影中還原了小說家李碧華筆下的一段令人悵然的人鬼傳奇：綺紅樓的妓女如花在三十年代的香港與愛人十二少相約殉情，五十多年後，她已是重訪人間的遊魂……一番苦尋，但見物是人非，誰知十二少並未死，他當日苟且偷生，如今已是七十多歲的潦倒老者，於是如花把定情的胭脂扣交還，黯然離去……

《爾雅》有雲，鬼之為言歸也。雖則此處的“歸”乃歸向大化，暗含“離開”之意，但通俗解釋中卻將這“歸”字理解成為鬼魅的“回歸”，按照王德威的理解這種顛倒卻別有深意——在“胭脂扣”中，如花的“故人歸來”蓋因她尚有一個遺憾遺落世間，故她與十二少在現世的重逢不能不說是一個三重的幻境，除去時空交錯，尚有陰陽相隔——恰是好一個“如夢如幻月，若即若離花”。

五十年前如花與十二少交好之際，二人橫臥於大床之上吸大煙纏綿的樣貌已然鬼氣十足；五十年之後如花以鬼魅的姿態來到報社登尋人啟事（“十二少，三八一一，老地方等你，如花”），竟是借現世的媒介成全了一場鬼魂為活人招魂的詭魅（Uncanny）表演——而對如花來說，“歸來”本身正是一趟曖昧的幻遊，她所見聞皆是如此熟悉而又陌生，屬於她的香港以及石塘咀乃至十二少都化為虛空，故這場愛戀不過是以虛空糾纏虛空，以詭魅召喚詭魅。誠然王德威對李碧華小說的評價也可以套用於此：“如花以她的尋死和還魂，見證時光消逝，人間情愛與恩義只能是想像中的美德，如幻似魅的寄託”。

之三

且看再一出“還魂”故事。

在2002年與韓國導演金知雲、泰國導演朗斯尼美畢達合作的“三更”（Three Dimensions）系列中，陳可辛的末篇“回家”雖多被認為是以恐怖片包裝了一出愛情悲劇（細膩婉致的愛情影片正是其擅長），我卻以為影片結尾處最出其不意的一場歸來（The Impossible Homecoming）恰是反向詮釋了“故人歸來”的命理——此番不是靈魂回訪，而是死者復活的臨界奇跡。

影片以一間詭秘照相館中身著紅衣的小女孩看人照相為始，滿牆的照片令觀者悚然，也不由得憶起“小島驚魂”中為死者拍照的恐怖民俗。全片暗淡壓抑的色調亦令觀者無法分辨生者與遊魂。這鬼氣森森中，黎明所飾演的中藥醫師如例行驅魔儀式一般為三年前死去的妻子用草藥洗澡，並且相信她可以在三天內復活……末了，故人依舊故去，逆轉陰陽的大傳奇終究在關鍵的時刻坍塌於無形，一切都仿佛未曾發生過，大概因為這城市，已不再相信所謂奇跡——一出本可發展為戀屍的奇談被不動聲色地演繹作疏離都市空間中無家可歸的幽閉夢魘，生與死的差距看似只在一線之間，卻成為永劫。

之四

2004年，陳果為陳可辛監製的“三更”系列之二執導筒，依舊從李碧華那裏尋得靈感獻上一道“詭魅”的大菜——“餃子”：女明星想回復青春，便食嬰兒骨肉作成的人肉餃子，咀嚼嘖嘖有聲，本已令人心驚肉跳；誰知更加讓人悚然的是白靈飾演的媚姨這個畫皮般的不老怪物——此番鬼魅敍述，不但以媚姨其形媚惑於世，也以她即興的革命歌曲“洪湖水”賦予其聲；如論者指出那般，陳果的“餃子”甚至借媚姨的口為中國社會未曾間斷過的“人吃人”話語（Cannibalism）正名。

影片之中，人肉不是忌諱，卻是解藥；食人肉本身成為一種招魂，一種悼亡：於媚姨而言，其紅衛兵時期的老照片即是幽靈重現的明證。而她與女明星丈夫雲雨之狀，看上去也並非纏綿悱惻，卻是色欲浮動的人鬼相搏，又似是借屍還魂——而陰陽相交，早在蒲松齡那裏便已是女鬼還陽的伎倆：此之謂招魂。

對過氣女明星來說，食人肉即是宣告她這具活死人的誕生，其效用正同于古埃及木乃伊的embalming，香料防腐，從此不會擔心年華老去——她用尚未得以出世的嬰孩的肉和骨，為自己作了墓：此之謂悼亡。

“餃子”之料不可謂不激烈，不可謂不暴力，如此這般，陳果抑或是李碧華將一個冷酷的國族寓言通過一趟趟肢體橫陳、血肉模糊地鋪陳開來。此之謂殺人見血，吞骨噬肉，老靈魂披了人皮重現世間拉人入夥，詭魅之極。

之五

若論“回家”，不得不提的是鄭保瑞2005年的作品“怪物”，其英文片名是“Home，Sweet Home”，若熟悉影片情節，大抵會覺得不無諷刺，因為我以為此片所記述的，正是一出家園不再、人心隔絕的慘烈都市傳說。

片中舒淇扮演的女主人滿懷期待與丈夫、兒子一道搬入新家，誰知這大廈的黑暗角落卻埋藏著另外一家三口的辛酸過往。林嘉欣所扮演的另外一位母親實非亡魂，她的角色卻令人想起當年的紅色話劇《白毛女》，其中號稱“舊社會把人變成鬼，新社會把鬼變成人”……此處引據並非要糾結於所謂“新/舊社會”的政治文化意味，然而正如論者指出的那樣，編劇司徒錦源有意在“怪物”中將棚戶區的大陸移民塑造成香港社會的弱勢群體。然在林嘉欣家破人亡、精神崩潰之後，執念於等待愛子歸家的她卻成為棲身在大廈幽昧處半人半鬼的怪物，後更是闖人宅、奪人子——弱者化作厲鬼，作祟於他人幸福家園之中，港人家亦不家，若此種解讀放置於後97的語境之中，當別有深意。

在舒淇與丈夫的孤軍奮戰中，住戶旁人始終不信她的鬼言鬼語，警察亦疏于配合，後來即便她重新尋到孩子，這幢美麗大廈對她來說卻已無“家園”的溫馨，此為“家亦不家”的另一種詮釋。

與怪物遭遇的陰魂不散（Haunting），都市生活冰冷而疏離的傷痛印記，失去家園的重蹈覆轍，究竟何者更加令人難以承受，或都已未可知。

之六

1999年，同樣不乏恐怖片傳統的日本推出一部帶有末世色彩的影片“午夜凶鈴”（開篇）。似乎正是因應了世人面對世紀末迫近手足無措的惶惑心態，這部既無眩目特效又無絲毫血腥場面的影片卻以長髮躡行的怨靈從一台電視機中爬出達到高潮，一時成為彼時亞洲影壇最熱門的驚悚作品。其詭秘綻放於東方式的意會而不可言傳，即便敍事看似波瀾不驚，鬼魅卻早已呼之欲出。而陰柔的怨靈以眼示人的舉動之所以如此駭人，難道不正是因為它是亡者還給生者的一個眼色，一種注視麼？這個注視或可稱為淒厲，卻又是來自幽秘彼方的某種挑釁；接住這個眼神比被死神注視更銳利、更直接，更令人毛骨悚然，而那個凝視直擊內心，無法擺脫，亦如影隨形。

不知香港出生、泰國發展的彭發彭順兄弟是否因為這個眼神得到啟發，他們隨後亦借自己的女主角一雙“鬼眼”，帶觀者由這雙眼看這人鬼相雜的世間。2002年，由李心潔主演的“見鬼”大獲好評；彭氏兄弟越戰越勇，2004年推出“見鬼2”，表現不俗。

其實彭氏兄弟在“見鬼”系列以前本身已是亞洲電影業界的非凡藝匠：哥哥彭順是出色的菲林調色師，而弟弟彭發的剪輯功夫亦屬一流——與舊式的“做鬼”相比，彭氏的靈異套路未見得一鳴驚人，然而他們諳熟各路驚悚元素，善利用與鏡頭天生的曖昧成全光影中的一片陰冷幽閉和鬼氣不絕：影子、鏡子、鏡子裏似是而非面孔；昏暗的走廊，身後的哭泣，觸不到的撫摩，喘息，與魂靈的對望與擦肩；魔咒、預言，末世的先知和為宿命的殘酷獻身……

“見鬼”首部中，失明少女汶得到一雙他人捐贈的眼角膜，本以為手術後可以華麗新生，卻不曾料從此鋪展於她眼前的世界卻是這般險象環生……遭遇亡魂固然可怖，其於世間的獨自徘徊卻是夙願未了，即歸不去，也返不得——這等異類的無根漂泊（rootlessness），竟也夾雜著人類在都市巨變中冒險碰壁的一番失魂落魄。在片末的一場戲中，人們災禍臨頭，卻嬉笑如常，爆炸隨即發生，汶無力回天，此番驚天動地的特效演繹固然可觀，大劫難後的淒迷蒼涼卻懾人心，亦可看作一出現代的警世傳奇。

到了“見鬼2”，生死的糾結輪轉與靈魂的前世今生都化作一名孕婦的離奇遭遇。腹中蠢蠢欲動的胎兒亦不再純粹，他竟化身作一個關於“死”的圈套，一個關於“生”的詭計，他是遊魂野鬼塵世間最後的寄託，是徘徊的終站，也成為輪回的起點。不過頗為殘酷的，即是目睹並且洞悉這迴圈無盡，以及這生死勾當的醜惡。

在好萊塢的經典影片“沈默的羔羊”中，茱蒂佛斯特所扮演的女幹探在地下室的一片混沌中被兇犯注視，卻毫不知情，那場在黑暗中摸索和較量的戲碼，至今仍然被引為影史懸疑場景中最令人窒息的一幕；然而對彭氏兄弟來說，恐怖之源卻恰恰存在於女主角所被賦予的“注視”的力量：這番天分，實在來得太過沉重。

和“歸去來兮”的魂靈恍然於既非故土又非異鄉的家園中漂泊遊蕩相比，擁有“陰陽眼”的各色主角不僅因這個天賦的詛咒而成為亡靈與生者溝通的媒介，卻也成為彌塞亞式的悲劇性人物：見證兩種境界的並存，雖知曉塵世的醜陋，卻不堪於冥界的畸態，是為最痛苦。

之七

於是在這樣一雙眼的注視下，香港這座城的美景紛呈被種種詭態（Grotesque）離析；這雙眼所觀，竟是這城市在經歷如許的政經文化動盪和變遷之後所顯露的滄桑面目；浮華光豔的國際大都會宛若空城一座，居民逃遁、分裂、畏縮，或不知所蹤；“家”不能療傷，無法遮蔽，卻是鬼影幢幢、十面埋伏……凡此種種“幽靈人間”的症候，究竟是鬼魅作祟還是人心入魔，無人可答。

當年香港電影新浪潮的主將許鞍華1979年一部“瘋劫”已顯露其驚悚功力（次年她有更加貼近恐怖類型片的“撞到正”問世）；2001年許執導“幽靈人間”，卻是噱頭十足——許氏靈光凋謝，厲氣頗不如前；到是2002年在許鞍華退為監製、鄺文偉導演的“幽靈人間之鬼味人間”中谷祖琳以小鳳仙扮相飄忽在街頭，令人感到似曾相識（déjà vu），好一陣心驚肉跳。

之八

《詩·小雅·何人斯》有雲，為鬼為蜮,則不可得。

彭氏兄弟2006年度頗受好評的作品究竟是作“鬼蜮”抑是“鬼域”解似乎都顯得不是那麼重要了，英文名Re-Cycle一語雙關，頗費心機。

文學批評者有論“書寫即招魂”——這句話放在“鬼域”的女主角徐尋身上，卻成為一個恐怖的注腳。徐尋迷途不知所往的另類空間為世間被遺棄的事物聚集之處，此地混沌蕪雜，曖昧幽暗，既散落有形的物件，遺落無形的回憶，還有形狀可怖的棄嬰隧道鬼聲啾啾，以及無人憶起的遊魂野鬼乞求憐憫……CG場景所模擬出的幻滅天際所勾勒的正是人類面對自身的無力；仿佛蒼涼破敗的童話主題公園中，巨大的摩天輪象徵生命輪回，暗合CYCLE之意，這也許是影片給觀者帶來的最具神采的影像之一。

如若拋開文化層面的剖析，單就影片本身來看，其情節單薄難以獨力支撐導演以另類的眼光探究社會問題的野心；敍事貌似複雜，卻虛晃一槍，連構思都疑似日本動畫大師宮崎俊的“千與千尋”，女性，冒險，環保，記憶的累積與回溯，以姓名的再次確指作為歸去的路……其“詭魅”敍述之外，卻需要女作家和自己尚未出生的女兒相逢這樣的矯情時刻來留得人心；過於雜糅的鏡像風格以及浮于表面的人文關注使影片中的幽魂魅影不過如同匆匆過客，他們經歷了被世間遺忘的漫長痛苦，卻又要面對再次的消失（Re-Disappearing），不知可否公平。

十年一戲——亂舞春秋

BY SHERRY

當被朋友邀請對香港電影十年做一個回顧時，腦袋裏的第一個念頭確是十年指的是97回歸到07年這十年，那麼那些我曾深愛的電影如《新不了情》、《金枝玉葉》、《胭脂扣》都有了超過十年的歷史，忍不住對著她跑題地感慨了一句老土的“How time flies!”

或許是身在其中的緣故，十年中從沒有刻意留意過哪一部電影是哪一年的作品，參評的是哪一屆金像獎，於是殺盡腦細胞地構思要怎樣的一篇文章才能道盡我眼中的香港電影十年同時又不讓滿篇的口水話勞傷了讀者的神經。可惜腦細胞被我逼得死的死逃的逃之後，我任沒有結論，於是我從我沒有能夠得出結論這件事中得出了一個結論，ie這不是我的問題。

當我終於都看清了這十年都有些啥時，卻發現不幸的是十年來前半期是創作與票房的低谷，後半期是《無間道》橫空出世之後的跟風時代。不幸中的萬幸是雖然前半期沒什麼太能上臺面的佳作，但是卻基本繼承了香港電影雖不是佳章但偶有佳句的好（？）傳統，比如《G4特工》《宋家王朝》《流星雨》《西元2000》；而後期只能點燈才能看到五指的黑漆漆一片的黑幫題材電影中快要被沒頂卻因專業精神態度還算人才輩出好片雲集，比如《七劍》《三岔口》《龍城歲月》。

其實一篇文稿字數那麼有限，把十年來發行的電影數一遍大概都得占去兩篇文稿的位置，我回想著這十年來看過的現在我仍能牢記名字導演出彩鏡頭的電影，其實沒有多少。細數起來，我以什麼樣的標準來甄選出色的好電影，選出示我喜歡的電影還是學術上真正的好電影？要有劇情不失原創性連貫性注重現反映現實情調人文關懷，導演要誠心盡責能展示細節能調動大場面還得慧眼識得好劇本好演員，表演要真實投入而爆發力十足還得和演員自身形象氣質貼合有說服力…這些看看每年的金像獎提名名單對香港電影十年就能瞭解個大概，而我自己更想說的是，一部好電影往往需要做到其中至少兩點才能讓人意識到這是一部值得看下去的電影進而發現她出彩閃光的地方。舉個例子來說，《Johnny’s Memory》是那種劇情讓人眼前一亮卻可惜不足以照亮其他部分帶來的一片黑暗的電影，最終結局只能被其他讓芸芸眾觀眾一黑到底的電影所淹沒。《三岔口》《狗咬狗》《無間道2》《槍王》和《暗花》都是具備好劇本好導演好表演三者中至少兩項的電影，而我將劇情當作它們最出彩的地方。說起好劇本，忍不住想嘲笑一下《英雄》，那時候這部電影的情節被罵得一文不值，但其實在看過《十面埋伏》《無極》之後發現，《英雄》還是很出色，這或許就是中國老話裏說的，不怕貨比貨，就怕不識貨。這裏說遠了，其實我想說像這些電影，用明星名導造勢，借大場面及武打出位，反映了中國的一大國情，沒什麼技術含量，基本採用人海戰術，卻對電影業沒有什麼深遠意義更不會引發什麼共鳴，唯一的觀眾定位是任何一位不是色盲的人。這裏說到《無間道2》，個人喜好一定要強調一下，我將它的劇本創作當作一個高峰，作為本土電影的一分子，編劇在其中講述故事的功力毋庸置疑，但其實真正讓我大吃一驚的故事與一個城市變遷密不透風的結合以及作為一部前傳電影在劇情的連貫及人物的塑造方面展示出的才華讓我深信了羅丹某年某月某日說過的那句話，“生活中並不缺少美，而是缺少發現美的電眼睛”，這話放在《無間2》的編劇功力上，可以說是香港電影並不缺少好的原創劇本，而是缺少能充分展現劇本魅力的電影。只有一部從前期籌備中期攝製後期發行都成功的電影才能使我這樣的非專業人士注意到它真正出彩的地方。

劇本是香港電影十年來最讓我驚歎的部分，不斷有影片因為它緊扣心弦的情節，出乎意料的轉折和出彩人物刻畫語言文字讓我感慨不已，這點從這些年出口好萊塢的數量上就可見一般，這是香港電影業界的驕傲，是大陸電影甚至歐美電影都要學習的地方（每次美國發行俠字輩的電影我都想唱Jackson 的Speechless）。

導演功力除了越來越讓人敬佩的杜琪峰，不斷實踐創新的徐克，幾乎全能的劉偉強、麥家輝，成名多年的關錦鵬、爾冬升、陳可辛、王家衛，溫婉力量張婉婷、張艾嘉那些新面孔更讓我喜愛，讓恐怖風格化彭氏兄弟，導編功游達志(《暗花》)、爆發力鄭保瑞（《狗咬狗》）、邊緣羅志良（《槍王》）、真實陳果（妓女三部曲），百變陳嘉上、怪才彭浩翔（《伊莎貝拉》）…他們雖然還沒有達到創作清一色高水準高票房高肯定，但是作為香港電影傳承中最為關鍵一環，十年來他們的努力與收穫不可忽視。

表演方面沒有太多新鮮面孔，讓人記住的更不多了，說先不得不提的是李燦森，他的演出沒有讓我失望過，即使我的期待值一直不停上漲，他的表演功力也一直在進步。我個人很喜歡陳冠希，但這部代表他是一個好演員，相對來講，與他早期的作品比，他在《無間道2》中的表演差強人意，在《狗咬狗》還算驚豔。吳彥組身上寄託了太多的希望，至今為止他的表現都算可圈可點，希望他不要辜負眾望。李心潔在《見鬼》中的表演與郭老天王在《三岔口》中的進步都是最讓我吃驚的，可惜小妮子只能算是超常發揮了一回，幸好郭老天王還能勉強稱作量變與質變。劉青雲加冕影帝沒有讓我太興奮，個人來講用, 《我要成名》這樣一部電影登頂，還不如當個無冕之王，不過我倒是頗有信心者不會他唯一一部獲獎電影。

要為一個出色的藝術團隊十年的表現寫一份詳細的分析報告之於我來說是不可能的，十年來無數好電影後面凝聚著無數電影人的努力，除了叫得出的名字的各腕兒，在國際上揚名出彩的個人，香港電影的輝煌需要英雄也少不了貢獻著並可能失敗的狗熊。如果說為他的十年作一個蓋棺定論的話，我想搖著大旗喊一句“下個十年要更好！”告訴Sophia一句，“下個十年再多幾部我喜歡，要寫的時候記得住的電影吧！”

Queering Hong Kong Cinema:Lan Yu and Happy Together featuring Laura Mulvey

By Oscar Wild

In a note in her famous paper, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey states, “There are films with a woman as main protagonist, of course. To analyze this phenomenon seriously here would take me too far afield” (Mulvey 40). From this particular statement, we understand that her essay focuses on narratives featuring male protagonists, and thus develops a set of theories, namely voyeuristic pleasures of looking that come from scopophilia, the darkness of the auditorium, the cinema having structures of fascinations, the to-be-looked-at-ness of the passive females, the identifications with the male protagonists, the castration anxiety of the male unconscious, etc. These are all derived from the basic principle that men are the bearers of the look and women are the objects of the gaze. Such a rationale, as Mulvey notes herself, excludes those films having females as main protagonists. I would try to argue here that there seems to be a total omission of a noticeable aspect of narrative cinema in Mulvey’s account – gay films.

I refer to gay films here as the mode of male with male in queer movies, which distinguishes it from lesbian films in the could-be-problematic, vaguely termed homosexual cinema. Needless to say, gay films consist of men, while the roles and presentations of women are certainly less important. If, according to Mulvey, visual pleasure in narrative cinema is largely generated from (heterosexual) gender relations, gay films would then become non-pleasurable at all – since the object of the gaze – women – is out of the realm. However, one can never deny the influences and imperativeness of gay films in narrative cinema. “Without homosexuals there would be no Hollywood, no theatre, no Arts.” (Murray 157). Elizabeth Taylor’s pronouncement is quoted by Raymond Murray in Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. Indeed, queer studies conducted by homosexuals as well as non-homosexuals have been gaining importance. Gay films as cultural texts are no longer alternatives but central to issues worth examining. Whether Taylor’s saying is plausible or not; gay films are definitely included in narrative cinema, not to mention their engendered visual pleasures notwithstanding heterosexual gender relations.

Hong Kong, for instance, is a cinematic site where a remarkable number of gay movies have been made. With a more open and less conservative motion picture market nowadays, these kinds of films not only succeed in the marketplace, but have also been dissolving into Hong Kong popular culture. This essay, therefore, aims at revising and evaluating Mulvey’s essay and examining its applicability to gay films as part of narrative cinema. I will also consider two Hong Kong gay films – Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together (1997) and Stanley Kwan’s Lan Yu (2001), to see how they attain visual pleasure without the specific type of gender relations posited by Mulvey, and lastly, why the two gay films have or have not achieved popularity in Hong Kong popular culture.

Let me firstly summarize the plots of the two films under discussion. In Happy Together, Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung) are lovers when they go to Argentina from Hong Kong. Something goes wrong when they are seeking adventure by car.. On the road, Ho walks away from Lai, who then works as a doorman at a tango bar in Buenos Aires to save enough money for his rental of a small flat as well as a ticket to go back home. Eventually Ho reenters Lai’s life after all his suffering and one-night-stands, and Lai offers Ho a bed but refuses to reengage in a sexual relationship with him. Stability and domesticity do not suit Ho, who sooner or later spends nights again outside. Lai quits his job and works in a Chinese restaurant’s kitchen. There, he meets a Taiwanese kid, Chang (Chang Chen), with whom he subtly and unconsciously falls in love. Meanwhile, Ho’s life continues to crumble and collapse.

In Lan Yu, a simple love story is told, provided that one is able to accept that the relationship involves two men instead of the love being a heterosexual one. The film is set in Beijing, where Chen Handong (Hu Jun) is a mature businessman with a more or less wavering tendency to homosexuality and marries a woman by the middle of the film. He sort of ‘takes care’ of a desperate college boy from the countryside, Lan Yu (Liu Ye), who is going to do anything for money to support his studies. Eventually they develop a rather fine relationship, incorporating wild and passionate sex. This lasts until Handong has an affair with another teenage boy and his subsequent surprising marriage with a translator Jingping (Su Jin). Lan Yu then decides to leave Handong. After many years, the two of them are together again, becoming even closer and cherishing each other more than before. The film ends with the tragic, heartbreaking death of Lan Yu.

With reference to the above plot summary, one can easily notice the almost absence of women. In Lan Yu, we have at least Handong’s wife though the role she plays is not a crucial one. In Happy Together, we have no female protagonists at all. A point worth mentioning hereby is that Shirley Kwan, a semi-retired and low profile Hong Kong singer, was originally casted in Happy Together. Her role is comparable to that of Chang, the Taiwanese kid whom Lai encounters in the kitchen. Without really appropriate reasons, Wong Kar-wai decided to cut all of Kwan’s parts. Although Wong does not fully reveal his mentality behind in doing so, I would argue that this very act can already provide a refutation of Mulvey, who has written, “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure […] [Women] can be said to connote to-be-look-at-ness.” (Mulvey 33) The exclusion of Shirley Kwan owing to Wong’s decision has an impact here. If Wong buys Mulvey’s approach, or, in a macro sense, if visual pleasure obtained from narrative cinema does follow the route suggested by Mulvey, then Kwan’s part would definitely be kept and preserved, since she might be the only female protagonist in Happy Together “to be looked at”, to employ Mulvey’s terminology.

However, Wong does not do so. He abandons Shirley Kwan and embraces Chang Chen at the same time. Expectedly he would not believe that the male gaze, be it determining or not, projects its fantasy onto women. That particular male gaze is from the viewpoint of Lai Yiu-Fai who is, significantly, gay. It becomes natural for him/Wong to choose Chang to (problematically) gaze at instead of Kwan. Thus, the pleasure in looking in gay films as one of the instances of narrative cinema is not essentially spilt between the passive female and the active male. As proven by Happy Together, the males can be both active and passive: Active in the sense and in Mulvey’s stand that men are still, in cases of gay films, bearers of the look; and passive in a way that the males are being gazed at equally as women do in most of the narrative cinema, and the “to-be-looked-at-ness” from Mulvey’s account does not just apply to female protagonists. The above argument evidentially rebuts Mulvey’s saying that “[t]he presence of women is an indispensable element of spectacle” (Mulvey 33).

Recalling the last paragraph, I have claimed that the gaze from a male (Lai) to another male (Chang) is problematic. What I meant by problematic there was not the (gay) gaze between two male protagonists, but rather, the nature of the gaze itself. There is nothing wrong with two men looking at one another, given that they are gay or whatsoever. The point I would like to make is: Why is Mulvey so adamant in the notion of the gaze? Is the gaze with which she is obsessed that obligatory in contributing to visual pleasure in narrative cinema? What about those, gay films for instances, that lack certain gender relations as prerequisites as required by her theories? Let’s move on to Lan Yu in connection with Mulvey’s insistence of the gaze.

“[Freud] associated scopophilia with taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze.” (Mulvey 30) Mulvey goes in line with Freud that “looking itself is a source of pleasure” (Mulvey 30). I cannot totally agree with that. I would say yes to the assertion that in a heterosexual relationship, or, in a broader sense, in heterosexual narrative cinema, female protagonists being depicted as objects of gaze might be appealing and ‘visually pleasurable’ to (male) spectators. Yet, I would argue that visual pleasure in narrative cinema is not exclusively attained by the gaze. Referring back to Freud’s allegation, there are, as a matter of fact, gazes that are not curious or manipulated at all. The gay couple in Lan Yu is thus helpful in elaborating my claim.

If one tries to integrate Mulvey’s ideas into the observation of Lan Yu, it would turn out to be a mismatching. If it is really a pleasure in looking at and taking people i.e. the (female) protagonists as objects of gaze, Lan Yu and Handong certainly do not have anything to do with eroticism (at least to straight viewers). Shall we then follow Mulvey’s extension of her point that, since this group of heterosexual audiences may not find something that “continues to exist as the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another person as object” (Mulvey 31), Lan Yu therefore does not constitute to any sort of visual pleasure? Perhaps it is a good idea to twist an angle from Mulvey’s over-reliance on gender relations and the gaze in achieving visual pleasure to the many moments in the film that contribute to the construction of gender-unrelated and ‘visually pleasurable’ elements, as well as a sense of voyeurism (in Mulvey’s terminologies) that all have nothing to do with the problematic gaze.

Richard Dyer suggested in Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film that straight actors/actresses are more promising to show the positive images of homosexuality. He says, “The imagery selected to show lesbian/gay life as positive depended upon prior assumptions about whether what is positive about it is the degree to which it is like straight life or the degree to which it differs from.” (263) Subconsciously, Stanley Kwan, director of Lan Yu, might be brought to the determination of portraying two gay men on screen who are actually straight. In an interview conducted by Ming Pao, an authoritative Hong Kong newspaper, it is reported that Liu Ye has a girlfriend and Hu Jun is married. Kwan speaks in the same interview that he did refuse some gay actors in the casting held in Beijing’s Central Theatre Academy. There, he finally found his ideal Lan Yu – Liu Ye – whose outstanding performance in his debut Postman in the Mountain (1999) Kwan found gratifying. Likewise, the casting of Hu Jun for Chen Handong was similar. Hu graduated nine years earlier than Liu in the same Academy coincidentally; he thus has a longer and more detailed history and experience.

All these above are closely related to the creation of visual pleasure, even out of the sphere of gender relations. To shed light on Dyer’s concepts, audiences can be conformed and identified to these straight actors who act as gays through a smoother access, so that the difference between the two parties is narrowed down. These channels or accessibility to audiences can be expressed, as Dyer points out, by “scenes of everyday domesticity and playful interaction” (Dyer 264). This serves as an echo to the many normal, daily, close-to-life activities of Lan Yu and Handong throughout Lan Yu, ranging from driving out to the countryside and searching for a flat and Lan Yu’s career as an architect plus Handong’s corruptions in his business, to their sometimes little, close, sexy and intimate chats about each other’s penis size.

Here, the visual pleasure comes mainly from two sources. First, in accordance with Mulvey’s voyeuristic approach, viewers are just like peepers who are situated in an “extreme contrast between the darkness in the auditorium (which also isolates the spectators from one another) and the brilliance of the shifting patterns of light and shade on the screen” (Mulvey 31) as she insightfully highlights. Spectators in the auditorium simply sneak and look into the secret, unrevealed, mysterious yet romantically built relationship between Lan Yu and Handong. These may or may not entail the love/sex scenes in which they explicitly show their sexual organs – it depends on one’s interpretation whether this particular depiction leads to visual pleasure – presumably gay audiences find these scenes more, so to speak, tempting. Secondly, spectatorship that engages in visual pleasure is also gained by acknowledging the sentiments and what is (naturally) going on in the gay circle – a proclamation that love out there is nothing distant and dissimilar from that of the heterosexual world.

After comprehending the not-that-necessary and overwhelming nature of gender relations and particularly the gaze in constituting visual pleasure in narrative cinema, observant readers should then pay special attention to Mulvey on what she says about identification too. She asserts, “As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look onto that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence.” (Mulvey, 34) From her statement, we once again arrive at Mulvey’s conceptions that visual pleasure of (male) spectators is to be gained merely by their identifications with the male protagonists. As she points out, they participate in the actors’ powers and possess the female characters, so that an ultimate supremacy is obtained. Even for heterosexual cinema, I do not completely appreciate Mulvey’s account. Not all men, in fact, are presented as strong and powerful whereas, by the same logic, not all women are weak and vulnerable figures. Under these circumstances, if male protagonists are shown on screen, Mulvey would probably fail in fostering those male viewers to identify with them. One major weakness of Mulvey’s premise, I would then say, is her overemphasis on the males. It turns out that the women are barely objects of gaze, and what’s more, female audiences have got nothing to identify with at all (so why do they go for a movie and/or why bother watching a film?). In contrast, I will try to point at some identifications in the two gay films in question equally shared by the both genders, which in some way do not only generate (visual) pleasure, but also verify once again that gender relations are not a must in narrative cinema to contribute to any sort of visual pleasure at all.

A nostalgic mood is channeled throughout Happy Together and its characters, detailing the pathological relationship between two homosexuals in despair. It is classic Wong Kar-wai, obsessed by metaphorical musings of repetitious romance. Audiences are invited to ride on the romantic yet painful love journey of Lai Yiu-Fai and Ho Po-Wing, which involves repetitious reunions and departures. It is this seemingly unrealistic yet reachable and approachable relationship, occurrences and happenings that tend to receive identification from viewers, be they male or female. What matters, instead of hackneyed gender relations, is the tedious relationship between Lai and Ho that is typical of any heterosexual relationship. This is certainly an aspect where spectatorship is warmly welcomed and received.

As for Lan Yu, if we follow Mulvey that we are to identify with the male protagonists so as to ‘control’ the female character, i.e. Handong’s wife, the argument seems not that plausible. First, her character does not appear frequently and there is hardly anything to ‘control’ about her. Second, when compared with Lan Yu, she is not involved very much with Handong. To tell the truth, gender relations as constantly emphasized by Mulvey could, in fact, be homosexual relations apart from heterosexual ones. To identify with Lan Yu/Hangdong, (visual) pleasure gained in spectatorship is the dreamy and idealistic love between two men that is comparably analogous to that of any ‘normal’ love in most of the viewers’ eyes. Stanley Kwan reinforced this mentality in the interview mentioned above: “Lan Yu is not simply the name of Lan Yu. It also means a blue universe [literally Lan in Chinese is the color blue; Yu is the Universe]. Why can’t we view love in a more extensive angle?” (Ming Pao, my own translation). Again, it is demonstrable that the gaze which leads to her notion of identification in Mulvey’s assertion is not an inevitable element in generating visual pleasure in narrative cinema, to me, be it gay films or not.

Throughout my paper, I have been disapproving of Mulvey’s analysis as I think that her stand is too confined to the arena of male dominance in regard to females as objects of gaze, especially when this is applied to gay films. Nonetheless, I would like to end my discussion by concurring with her affirmation on the cinema’s structure of fascination, which is to account for the diverging popularity of Happy Together and Lan Yu, and whether they are absorbed into Hong Kong popular culture. Mulvey indicates that “the cinema has structures of fascination strong enough to allow temporary loss of ego while simultaneously reinforcing the ego […] the stars centering both screen presence and screen story as they act out a complex process of likeness and difference (the glamorous impersonates the ordinary).” (Mulvey 32)

This is one of the few areas I find myself agreeing with Mulvey. The fascination of narrative cinema comes from the film stars who are apparently so close to us (we are sitting back and actually looking at them), yet at the same time they seem to be a bit far away from us because of their stardom. That is what Mulvey terms as the “likeness and difference” between audiences and the stars on screen. Putting aside the matter of ego formation, the use of stars in narrative cinema is of great importance in attaining the gaze and gender relations in Mulvey’s essay, and in achieving visual pleasure in (gay) films as well as their popularity.

Take Happy Together for instance. Wong Kar-wai’s main concern rests on creating a heavy sense of nostalgia, which involves numerous layers of interpretations. As a result, many critics argue that it would be too simple and naïve to consider the movie as a purely gay film. But my point here is the use of stars by him. To me, Wong makes a somewhat commercial decision in casting Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung respectively as Ho Po-Wing and Lai Yiu-Fai, especially the former one who is gay in real life. The choices of these two males are certainly not random. Apart from their frequent appearances in Wong’s films, in Happy Together, they have successfully presented the image of a gay couple and generated the visual pleasure mentioned above to readers.

“It’s fine if straight actors want to play gay roles because I’m a gay actor who also wants to play straight roles” (Murray 375). This is a line from a gay actor, Alexis Arquette, quoted by Raymond Murray in his encyclopedia. Indeed, one of the debates (of gay film being a part of narrative cinema) is about the validity of straight actors playing gay roles, and vice versa. Happy Together provides an answer. For Tony Leung as Lai Yiu-Fai, his staging is not that compulsive. Being irked by the past, he is blinded to oncoming opportunities by miasmas of melancholy. Homosexuals’ serious depressions are densely represented by him. Leslie Cheung, on the other hand, being a genuine gay man himself, plays the role of Ho Po-Wing who leads an emblematically portrayed gay life featuring insecurity and instabilities. His meaningless existence without any memories of the past is to be defined by relationships with others. It is convincing to claim that the portrayal of Leslie Cheung, as an authentic homosexual, makes the characters believable.

In contrast with the “likeness” of Cheung, Tony Leung’s “difference” would be his heterosexuality in real life. The fascination as suggested by Mulvey reaches its climax when Leung, a straight man, is depicted as gay. The tension between likeness and difference and the tension between spectatorship and stardom not only contribute to visual pleasure, but also to the essence of narrative cinema and in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together, where the director has purposefully made use of the portrayal of a gay couple to embody nostalgia, be it homosexually related or not. It is lucid that Wong intentionally utilizes a gay relationship to maintain a distancing between the screen and spectators, since alienation and estrangement are crucial elements in stories that are nostalgically told. Yet, such a gap is also narrowed down at the same time by the starring of Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung, who have been famous and enchanting celebrities in Hong Kong. Mulvey’s notion of “the glamorous impersonates the ordinary” is consequently mechanized, which results in the possibility of this particular gay film penetrating into Hong Kong popular culture.

In contrast to Happy Together, Lan Yu, which features two totally unknown actors Hu Jun and Liu Ye (to Hong Kong audiences at that time), had a lukewarm reception in Hong Kong. Although Happy Together was not that enthusiastically received compared with local mainstream grand productions, it is certainly more popular than Lan Yu. Lan Yu gained its popularity somewhere else – Taiwan, whose viewers are equally unfamiliar with the two actors. It did much better in the box office there than in Hong Kong. On top of that, it captured some significant awards, including the Best Director and the Best Leading Actor (Liu Ye as Lan Yu) in the 38^th Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan on 8^th December 2001. Reasonably, Mulvey’s saying of “the glamorous impersonates the ordinary” does not work within Lan Yu; how and why then that its popularity was gained in Taiwan but not in Hong Kong? This will be another controversial topic that remains to be debated. But one thing for sure is that the visual pleasure, or, in a wider perspective, the successes of Happy Together and Lan Yu have already been established by their awards-winning triumph (Wong Kar-wai was honoured as the Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for the film). Although this may not directly contribute to popularity among mainstream cinema, it once again refutes Mulvey’s insistence on the gaze, gender relations, identification with male protagonists, and females as objects of gaze, etc. as generating visual pleasure in narrative cinema. Gay films absolutely serve as a counterexample to what Mulvey has been arguing.

To sum up, the narrative cinema is indeed filled up with possibilities. Mulvey herself reminds her readers, “The alternative cinema provides a space for a cinema to be born which is radical in both a political and an aesthetic sense and challenges the basic assumptions of the mainstream film.” (Mulvey 29) In this regard, gay films may be considered as one of the alternatives in Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. They do defy the fundamental postulations of her narrative cinema in question, namely, sexist versus feministic narratives; and another form of visual pleasure, not of necessity politically but aesthetically is being altered and transformed into another kind of narrative cinema – gay films. All in all, Mulvey’s paper must have its own stand. It is so influential that many scholars from different streams, ranging from feminists and cultural critics, continue to use her piece of work to explain and illustrate various beliefs, theories and suppositions with the aid of her essay. The authoritative position of Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema is surely undeniable. However, it is also vital to hold a neutral stand when evaluating her piece. Otherwise, visual pleasure in narrative cinema, in omitting gay films, would only be inevitably related to the gaze and gender relations, together with the active males and passive males and their identifications engaged in Mulvey’s paper. A wider perspective and broader perspective shall be employed adjustably after all.

Bibliography

Dyer, Richard (1990). Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film. London: Routledge.

Mulvey, Laura (1990). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, in Patricia Erens (ed.), Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 28-40.

Murray, Raymond (1994). Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. Philadelphia: TLA Publications.