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Film and Constitutional Controversy Ng See-yuen’s The Unwritten Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2021
The Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed between the Chinese and British governments in 1984, set an official date of July 1, 1997 for China’s resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong. Many people in the colony had mixed emotions about the prospect of the handover: The idea of an end to British colonization was a source of national pride, but at the same time the thought of being taken over by a communist state was a cause of great apprehension. In the wake of the Declaration, officials from China intensified their calls on Hong Kongers to “love the motherland.” What did it mean to be told to “love the motherland,” and how can such love be represented in cinematic terms? I posit that Ng See-Yuen’s The Unwritten Law (1985; 法外情) gives visual form to the love between “the motherland” and Hong Kong by allegorizing it as the love between mother and son. I will further contend that Ng’s film, appearing at the moment when decolonization became a certainty, takes part in a critical reflection of the extent to which justice was upheld under the colonial authorities.
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