Media Review: Brick Slaves (樓奴)

Source: http://www.ihktv.com/brick-slaves.html

Being a small but prosperous international city, Hong Kong has been notorious for the sky-high prices and rents of real estate properties. Purchasing a house is almost an impossible mission to ordinary people with average incomes. Even for subdivided units or public housing, many families still have to struggle and strive to complete the mortgage payment, which sadly is not the only heavy financial burden Hong Kong people have to overcome.

Source: https://i.ytimg.com/

Brick Slaves, a 2015 Hong Kong television series produced by TVB, starring Vincent Wong, Selena Li, Evergreen Mak and Eliza Sam as the main leads, puts such cases onto the TV screen. The drama tells the story of white-collar workers competing like slaves merely for a tiny apartment. This televisual text depicts the lives of ‘brick slaves’ in a comedic yet realistic point of view, revealing the imminent issue of unbearably high property prices and thus the plight of urban people in Hong Kong. The drama series voices out for the citizens who are personally suffering from similar challenges in reality, therefore the choice of theme caught social significance in relations to such particular local culture. So Brick Slaves successfully inspires sympathy in the audiences who could easily and fully interpret the media text.

 

Source: http://zhongwen.astro.com/

The drama constructs two “collections” of people, the old-fashioned and traditional minded characters, in contrast to the new generation with innovative thinking. The characters played by Vincent Wong and Evergreen Mak profoundly believe in the importance of having “a roof over head”, and for which they spare no pains and compromise to the reality for the sake of servicing mortgages. In reality, even in the face of the fierce real estate market, most of the Hongkongers still have a ray of hope to realize the dream of owning a property in the lifetime, and this collective value and social practice have been articulated into the drama. It also contains a heavy social context that elaborates at length on the difficulties and hard life of ‘brick slaves’.

Source: http://zhongwen.astro.com/

Opposite to ‘brick slaves’, the new generation is represented by the university students played by Eliza Sam and Matthew Ho, who firmly refuse to be “mortgage slave” or desert their ideals. They hold the belief that it is not compulsory to purchase their own housing properties, and actually preferred using such expense to enhance the quality of life. In real life, under the increasing pressure from real estate market, this collection of younger generations has been growing in numbers. The drama has therefore well-captured the struggling dilemma between these two distinctive membership categories, which clearly portrays the two contrasting cultural ideologies in modern Hong Kong society.

 Source: http://img.gaoqingkong.com/

While the contrasting ideologies were nicely reflected in the drama characters to intrigue audiences, Brick Slaves has failed to reveal the entire picture of housing issues in Hong Kong. The content of scripts has subtly prevent from offending established economic power and system, which in this case are the real estate entrepreneurship and the beneficiaries of the market. Besides the cultural attachment for “roof over head” highlighted in the drama, property speculation and investment has been the other well-known mainstream purpose to purchase housing. However such ideas were not brought up or emphasized in the drama content, so as to avoid entering the critical discussion about the social responsibilities of estate market beneficiaries to the major group of ‘brick slaves’ in Hong Kong society.

Source: http://zhongwen.astro.com/

Without offending any of the potential audiences, the drama addresses a widely heterogeneous group of Hong Kong audience through clinging on to broadly shared cultural element and context. The story started with a beginning narration that actually mirrors the dominant assumption in modern Hong Kong, which is simply to buy estate and then settle down. Initially, the leading character Jack Lau follows the widespread belief and chooses to give up freedom and quality of life in return for “stability”. He eventually realizes the huge cost of being ‘brick slaves’ and lays down the heavy burden to chasing down his dream. This shift demonstrates the comparison between the two ideologies; leaving a room for the viewers to reconsider the true meaning of “home”.

Source: http://zhongwen.astro.com/

To summarize, the television drama Brick Slaves has revealed the Hong Kong housing issues in social and cultural aspects. It has successfully captured the two contrasting collections of opposing ideologies, albeit simplified and aimed to avoid offending established power. It therefore is a nice representation of local cultural text.

References

Local TV Drama "Brick Slaves" reveals the poor reality of purchasing property in Hong Kong. (2015, September 21). Retrieved April 14, 2016, from http://www.72177.com/hot/201509/212079041.htm

Sung, C. (2015, July 30). "Brick Slaves" voices for Hong Kong citizens - Actors debated in opposite groups. Retrieved April 14, 2016, from http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/15/7/30/n4491955.htm

Word Count: 732

Student Name: Cheng Yuen Yee, Abbie

Student Number: 10560467, 21620335