Marco Wan on Law, Film, and Trans Identity in Hong Kong (International Journal of Constitutional Law)

"Law, film, and trans identity in Hong Kong"

Marco Wan

International Journal of Constitutional Law, Volume 21, Issue 2

Published: 01 June 2023

Abstract: This article examines the construction of trans identity in Hong Kong law and cinema. By juxtaposing the key Hong Kong court cases on trans rights and some recent feature films on trans experience, it argues that film can reproduce and reinforce the understanding of identity in the court cases, and that they can unwittingly perpetuate the dynamic of exclusion enacted in those cases. Law and popular film may seem to be distinct discursive domains, but their constructions of trans identity are in fact intertwined. The article contends that to break out of these limiting identity formulations, we need to move beyond the dominant imaginaries of law and popular culture. It offers one way of doing so by turning to independent queer filmmaking as a forum for articulating and recognizing alternative trans subjectivities.

New Book: Film and Constitutional Controversy: Visualizing Hong Kong Identity in the Age of 'One Country, Two Systems' (Marco Wan)

Film and Constitutional Controversy: Visualizing Hong Kong Identity in the Age of 'One Country, Two Systems'
Marco Wan

Published in February 2021

Cambridge University Press

300 pp.

Book description: In modern-day Hong Kong, major constitutional controversies have caused people to demonstrate on the streets, immigrate to other countries, occupy major thoroughfares, and even engage in violence. These controversies have such great resonance because they put pressure on a cultural identity made possible by, and inseparable from, the 'One Country, Two Systems' framework. Hong Kong is also a city synonymous with film, ranging from commercial gangster movies to the art cinema of Wong Kar-wai. This book argues that while the importance of constitutional controversies for the process of self-formation may not be readily discernible in court judgments and legislative enactments, it is registered in the diverse modes of expression found in Hong Kong cinema. It contends that film gives form to the ways in which Hong Kong identity is articulated, placed under stress, bolstered, and transformed in light of disputes about the nature and meaning of the city's constitutional documents.

Reviews: 

‘Few books I know of interweave cinema and law as intelligently as Film and Constitutional Controversy in elucidating Hong Kong's post-1997 identity crisis. For anyone concerned with contemporary Hong Kong, China, and the wide-ranging legacies of British colonialism, Marco Wan's informative, judicious account is a must-read. It has so much to tell us about the practical conundrums, allegorical fantasies, and popular affects stemming from this singular historical situation.'

     Rey Chow - Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature, Duke University

‘Marco Wan's Film and Constitutional Controversy is a fascinating contribution that makes creative use of the nexus between film, culture, and law to trace Hong Kong's unique historical trajectory. At the same time, Wan draws on Hong Kong's singular relationship to the rule of law to offer fresh insights into how film and law can be mutually illuminating.'

     Michel Rosenfeld - University Professor of Law and Comparative Democracy, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University

 

Yahong Li on Reminiscing About the Golden Age: An Analysis of Efforts to Revive the Hong Kong Film Industry Through the Lens of Copyright Protection (new book chapter)

"Reminiscing About the Golden Age: An Analysis of Efforts to Revive the Hong Kong Film Industry Through the Lens of Copyright Protection"

Yahong Li

in Liu, Kung-Chung, Racherla, Uday (eds), Innovation, Economic Development, and Intellectual Property in India and China (Springer, 2019), pp. 145-172

Abstract: The Hong Kong film industry portrayed itself as an international film powerhouse during its golden age.  Its light was dimmed on account of the industry's director-centered production system, prevailing investor pressure, weak infrastructure, political and economic conditions, popularity of foreign films, and rampant piracy. The Hong Kong government established infrastructural solutions and financial remedies to alleviate the industry's plight.  Despite those laudable efforts, success has been limited.  The key to restoring film industry to its former glory lies in reforming the traditional Hong Kong copyright framework, including reconstructing the copyright ownership rule, providing breathing space for secondary creation, and decriminalizing individual, noncommercial online sharing.

New Book: Law and New Media: West of Everything (Edinburgh University Press)

Law and New Media: West of Everything
Edited by Christian Delage, Peter Goodrich, Marco Wan
Edinburgh University Press

May 2019, 280 pp.

Description: In this volume, international specialists from new and established domains of law, media, film and virtual studies address the emergence of the jurist in the era of digital transmission. Examining the jurisprudence of new visual technologies – from the cinema of the early twentieth century to the social media of our own time – this volume explores the multiple intersections of these visual technologies and the law from the theoretical insight they generate to the nature of law to the impact they have on doctrinal development.

     Part One tracks the media, the technologies and apparatuses of modern law. It looks specifically at the acoustics of architecture, emblematic texts, films of trials, the prohibition of cameras in courtrooms and the rules of contempt, televised reporting of law, and the multiple fora and chat rooms of Facebook, vblogs, #hashtag law and the mobile-optimised web. Part Two examines the jurisprudential questions raised by new visual and virtual reality technologies of the 21st century. Will social media lead to social law? The force of legal remediation? Virtual courts and online judges? Paperless trials? Electronic discovery? All of these developments impact how we conceive of the practice of law.

Key Features

• Includes an international range of contributions and coverage, from the United States and Europe to the Middle East and China
• Presents a firm historical foundation for considering the connections between law and new forms of media
• Includes a range of contributions from established scholars and promising new voices in the field
• Examines a wide range of new media, from online platforms to virtual reality.

Contributors

Michele Castaneda, Brown University; Emanuele Coccia, EHSS Paris; Christian Delage, Université Paris 8 & Director of IHTP; Claire Demoulin, Université Paris 8 & IHTP; Daniela Gandorfer, Princeton University; Peter Goodrich, Cardozo Law and NYU Abu Dhabi; Thibaud Guichard, Université Paris 8; Christopher Hutton, University of Hong Kong; William MacNeil, Southern Cross University; Antoine Rocipon, Université Paris 8 & IHTP; Raja Sakrani, University of Bonn; Laurent de Sutter, University of Brussels; Marco Wan, University of Hong Kong

Marco Wan Examines Hong Kong Identity in Insanity, a Film by David Lee (Law, Culture & Humanities)

"Dissent, Cultural Schizophrenia and Hong Kong Identity in David Lee’s Insanity"
Marco Wan

Law, Culture and the Humanities
April 2017, published online

Abstract: How does film capture the zeitgeist of a time of cultural and political conflict? This article investigates the relationship between Hong Kong cinema, identity and dissent in David Lee’s Insanity (2015). Drawing on the notion of cultural schizophrenia as posited by Frederic Jameson and reworked by a number of Hong Kong scholars, it argues that Lee’s film about clinical schizophrenia can be interpreted as a representation of the cultural schizophrenia characteristic of Hong Kong identity at the current time.

Congratulations to RGC Research Grant Awardees (Faculty of Law)

Congratulations to Shahla Ali, Antonio Da Roza, Peter Chau, Hualing Fu, Marco Wan and Richard Wu on their successful 2015-2016 General Research Fund grants awarded by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council.  A range of interesting projects are funded including projects on civil mediation reform, unrepresented civil litigants, criminal punishment philosophy, Chinese public interest lawyers, law and film in Hong Kong, and a comparative study in Asia of law students' perception of values.  This year's excellent results represent a success rate of 55 per cent and a total amount of funding of more than HK$3.6 million.