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This paper studies Hong Kong screenwriter and film director Ivy Ho’s works, taking into consideration all the films she has wrote and directed and placing the main focus on Comrades: Almost a Love Story, July Rhapsody, Claustrophobia, and Crossing Hennessy. The study takes a look into the personal experiences and context in creating the films, as well as a discussion of the issue of a Hong Kong identity using the method of film narrative analysis. Having started out as a screenwriter, Ivy Ho took the city of Hong Kong as her source of creativity, with the “issue of identity” acting as a theme throughout many of her films. Unlike previous Hong Kong films and their stereotype of “bei-lau”, Comrades: Almost a Love Story gives a more objective description of Mainland Chinese people in Hong Kong. This film provides a contrast of the constant change in identity of Hong Kong people between “self” and “other” and the memories of immigration. After the transfer of sovereignty to China, Hong Kong experienced a call for national identity and Ivy Ho used July Rhapsody to portray her attitude toward and the reality of a national identity – the lack of choice in political approval and the restricted recognition of their identity reliant on pre-Cultural Revolution China. Screenwriter Ivy Ho takes the perspective of a director to analyze the dimensions of screenwriting and directing and how to merge writing and directing together as one. Not only does Claustrophobia boldly experiment with the form of a changing time period narrative, using reversal antimonies to create the time perception of memory, it also deliberately depicts the effects of claustrophobia on people. After signing the CEPA, which caused a rise in film making collaborations between China and Hong Kong, Hong Kong films were forced to undergo qualitative changes to fulfill the censorship policies and cater to the market in China. As a result, Hong Kong films entered a crisis of losing personal identity. Beginning in 2010, there was a wave of popularity in retro films that pointed toward the way things were in the past, calling upon the Hong Kong people to regain the Hong Kong spirit. Moreover, Ivy Ho’s Crossing Hennessy opens up a new path and offers a solution by constructing a sense of place with spatial memory and calling upon recognition of the Hong Kong identity.
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