HKU Bulletin October 2008 (Vol. 10 No. 1)

Haunted by the Past Locating the ghost in Hong Kong films V engeful ghosts bent on terror and destruction have long been a feature of Hong Kong cinema. But a mournful ghostliness can also be found in films outside the horror genre that offer insights into how people relate to their city and their past. Dr Esther Cheung Mee Kwan, Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, has been studying how directors use dark corners, half-seen characters, old buildings and neighbourhoods, intrusions by outsiders, shifts between past and present and other devices to reflect the tensions of Hong Kong’s relationship with its past. “Ghostliness here refers to the state of being haunted by loss of the past and how it comes back to re-visit the people who are living,” she said. “I’ve been looking at how this is represented in the cinematic depiction of space. For example, in some f i lms I’ve noticed a sense of holding on to spaces that may be disappearing or have disappeared.” She most recently applied her theories to three films made when Hong Kong was undergoing critical changes. Ann Hui’s The Secret was made in 1979, while Stanley Kwan’s Rouge and Fruit Chan’s Little Cheung were produced in the late 1990s. During that time span, Hong Kong was transformed from a sleepy British colony whose chief business was manufacturing, to a thriving, hi-tech postcolonial city. “The cultural imaginary, common symbols and values of Hong Kong shifted as much as the socio-economic developments of the city. Hong Kong films are valuable resources for understanding these shifts,” Cheung said. The Secret tells the story of a woman who is given up as a ghost but is in fact alive. It depicts the dark streets and corners of old Western District, as well as the clash between old superstitions and the rationalist approach of young people that was coming to the forefront at the time. Rouge , released in 1997, actually features a ghost but it is a nostalgic film that romanticises the past, a theme easily understood by an audience that was facing the uncertainties of the handover to Chinese sovereignty. Little Cheung , released in 1999, focuses on the lower classes, who are living disjointed lives in old tenement houses and neighbourhoods that have not enjoyed the fruits of Hong Kong’s success. “Fruit Chan, in particular, moves me with his passion for bringing back disappearing spaces on screen. A lot of places are being eliminated and Hong Kong has become a place with no history basically because of this sort of thing,” Cheung said. “There are two things we can do about it – people like activists are trying to preserve some of these spaces and they talk of reinventing Hong Kong space. The other thing is to go to literary and cinematic texts, painting and photography as well, to see how the ghostly city exists in these texts.” Cheung has also applied the ‘ghostly city’ analysis to Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong , which, as with Little Cheung , was particularly revealing about inequalities in the city. “The people inhabiting older or forgot ten spaces in Mong Kok or Sham Shui Po are older people and Filipino maids and new immigrants. They are inhabiting places that more pr ivi leged Hong Kong people want to forget. So ghostliness is also tied to the question o f c l ass d i v i s i on in Hong Kong,” she said. One thing ghostliness is not about, though, at least for Cheung, is ghosts. She has deliberately avoided using her ‘ghostly city’ analogy to analyse horror movies. “I often apologise to my students and colleagues because I simply cannot stand authentic ghost films. Some of them are so scary,” she said. 19 RESEARCH 18 Fighting Cancer Naturally Current treatments o f advanced head and neck cancers have their drawbacks, often entai l ing disf igur ing and r isky surgery, chemotherapy and radiat ion and the disease continues to have one of the lowest five-year survival rates. “In view of this,” said Yuen, “there is an urgent need to establish alternative, more optimal regimes bearing minimal side effects. In recent years dietary substances like those obtained from fruit and vegetables have gained considerable attention for preventing or treating many cancers. “The potential role of dietary substances in treating head and neck cancers is supported by evidence of lower incidences in the United States where the intake of fresh fruit and vegetables is much higher than here in Hong Kong,” he added. Despite a substantial increase in public awareness of the importance of a well-balanced diet, Yuen said people’s knowledge of the benefits of specific foods for cancer prevention was lacking. “Our findings will not only provide a novel therapeutic recipe and renewed hope for head and neck cancer sufferers, it will also show the public that only a slight change in diet can have a dramatic effect on health and cancer prevention.” The team will now go on to further develop lupeol into a clinically applicable anti-cancer drug. New study reveals the power of fruit to combat certain cancers A diet rich in fruit and vegetables has long been thought to ward off sickness. Now a link between fruit and cancer prevention has been firmly established by the discovery that an antioxidant found in figs, mangoes, strawberries and grapes appears to be effective in fighting cancer of the head and neck. According to scientists in the Departments of Surgery and Chemistry the compound, lupeol, is three times more effective than the chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, in curbing the spread of cancer cells in the nasopharynx, nose and mouth. Even more surprising is that, when used in conjunction with chemotherapy, it increases the drug’s potency 40-fold. The findings, published in the journal Cancer Research , reveal that lupeol can significantly suppress the activation of a protein which promotes the growth of cancer cells. Honorary Professor in the Department of Surgery, Anthony Yuen Po Wing said: “This is very encouraging news because lupeol, as a natural antioxidant, has very few side effects and it is much cheaper than conventional treatments.” In a mouse model lupeol was found to have minimal effect on surrounding tissue and on vital organs like the liver and kidneys. Head and neck cancer is the third most common in Hong Kong wi th 2,087 new cases diagnosed in 2004 alone, and 665 deaths. Worldwide an estimated 500,000 people are diagnosed with the cancer every year.