Media Review: Ten Years

Offical trailer of Ten Years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4zebygSaZE

Ten years (十年) was released in 2015 which constituted by five short stories happening in 2025, directed by five different new directors, included Extras(浮瓜), Season of the End (冬蟬), Dialect (方言), Self-immolator (自焚者)and Local Egg (本地蛋). It claimed the undesirable future of Hong Kong, this essay will focus on Self-immolator and Local Egg.

Self-immolator

Self-immolator is an unexpected old lady, and there is a prolonged shot of umbrella burning in the film. Umbrella became the iconography that reminiscent of Umbrella Revolution occurred in 2014, burning umbrella metaphor failure of revolution. It recalled Hong Kong people’s collective memory and aroused the resonance audiences, especially for those who joined or concerned on Umbrella Revolution. The value and culture identity of Hong Kong, such as public relations was threatened, the police are using violence to crackdown on demonstrators, just like the beating of Ken Tsang and other incidents of police brutality during Umbrella Revolution. When there are political issues, people hope British will speak for their right under the previous colony background, so that the self-immolation was occurred near British Consulate-General. On the other hand, it’s also a nostalgia that they miss the golden time under the governance of British. If The Sino-British Joint Declaration no longer trustable to safeguard the interests of HongKongers, they will feel powerless, lose hope for the future and become radical.

Local Egg

The government predetermined children to join Youth Guards, whose get orders to check whether the shops use the words enumerate on the censor list. Sam sold the eggs which produced in Hong Kong, but the Youths Guards said “Local” is fouled while “Local” means “Hong Kong”, want to removal local consciousness of Hong Kong or control the thought. This is equal to the case of LCSD suspected political censorship of the troupe "The Nonsensemakers (糊塗戲班)" to publish "Taipei National University of the Arts” on the program directory, request removal of the word "national". This story alerts people should keep their critical thinking, protect their local culture and values. The dressing of Youth Guards like Red Guards, which was the iconography that represented to the youths inspired by the cult of Mao Zedong, and the thought control during the Cultural Revolution. This iconography reflected that if the National Education Branch was established in Hong Kong, the children might be brainwashed during lessons, Cultural Revolution maybe appear again. Moreover, the government impeded the operation of local production industries, Hong Kong gradually lose the ability to self-sufficiency, and the local culture was damaged.

Public screening of Ten Years

After the experienced setbacks of Umbrella Revolution, the social contradictions is growing, people need a platform to express their demand and emotion. Therefore, when Ten Years provided the same values of HongKongers, it got their recognition and won the Best Film at 2016 Hong Kong Film Awards with high box office, even though Ten Years used low-cost production, non-famous actors and new directors. Besides released in the theaters, Ten Years also released in the community places, such as universities, streets, church, etc. Public screening make watching film from create a person’s individual memory become collective memories of those HongKongers. Although, the film provided a pessimistic future, but used “Not too late” to encourage people to change the current status, do not wait till it is too late to change the society, the directors hope more people can lead to an awakening among the masses, care more about Hong Kong identity.

Asian Studies (Year 3)

Student name: WANG Ling, Ann

Student ID:10556531/21619886

Reference:

Assmann, J., & Czaplicka, J. (1995). Collective memory and cultural identity.New German Critique, (65), 125-133.

Pennebaker, J. W., Paez, D., & Rim, B. (2013). Collective memory of political events: Social psychological perspectives. Psychology Press.