Remapping the Sensory Topography of Passivity: Body, Space, and Cross-Cultural Care in Hong Kong’s Post-SAR New Wave Cinema

Liu, Guanyu

The University of Hong Kong

Abstract

This study theorizes the surge of local Hong Kong cinema over the past decade—centering on the marginalized groups such as the mentally ill, disabled, and homeless—as the ‘Post-SAR New Wave.’ Integrating human geography and film phenomenology, this study employs a dual methodology of textual analysis and reception studies to explore how these works reconstruct the perceptual forms and ethical connotations of care through the interaction between marginalized bodies and urban spaces. It posits that these films present vulnerable bodies in a state of ‘I cannot,’ a stark departure from the sovereign ‘I can’ subject emphasized in traditional phenomenology. When these bodies encounter obstructions within urban spaces, they remap a ‘sensory topography’ centered on a sense of passivity. By analyzing audience reviews from major film review platforms in both Mainland China and the Anglophone world, this study argues that this sensory topography facilitates a capacity for ‘sensory translation.’ It transforms highly localized urban crises into universally perceptible embodied experiences, thereby endowing these works with potential for crosscultural resonance. This sensory arousal, rooted in passivity, invites audiences to coexperience the vulnerability of the ‘I cannot’ body. In doing so, it challenges the audience’s privileged position as an ‘able-bodied subject’ and a detached spectator, ultimately generating an embodied empathy characterized by ethical tension. Consequently, the potential for care presented by the Post-SAR New Wave transcends local experience, offering a new comparative perspective on how contemporary Hong Kong cinema reshapes the ethics of care and empathy within cross-cultural contexts.

Image Credit: The opening scene of "Time Still Turns the Pages" (Roundtable Pictures, 2023).