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“Cultural Memory, the Trope of ‘Humble Wage Earners,’ and Everyman Heroism in the Hui Brothers’ Comedies and Their Remake”

Jessica Siu-yin Yeung
I attend to the trope of Humble Wage Earners (daa gung zai 打工仔) in the Hui brothers’ comedies and their remake Fantasia (Gwai maa kong soeng kuk 鬼馬狂想曲, 2004) and argue that they preserve a cultural memory of Hong Kong during transitional periods. The trope and its everyman heroism are keys to decoding the social critique in the remake, which can be seen as an archive constructed through pastiche of canonical elements from the originals. The article first contextualizes the Hui brothers’ comedies in the postwar East Asian comedy film and media tradition (1950s–1970s) and considers them as Hong Kong salaryman comedies, which epitomize the trait of everyman heroism as a core element of Hongkonger’s identity. I demonstrate this point through a reading of Fantasia by focusing on how memory is represented and how the trope is remade. The close reading examines the film’s pastiche of the classic elements, influences, and anecdotes of the Hui brothers’ comedies, hence illustrating a remake’s capacity to archive cultural memory, rewrite cultural history, and reexamine identity in a new light.

Keywords cultural memory | cultural history | pastiche | film remake | humble wage earners | the Hui brothers’ comedies | nostalgia cinema | Hong Kong Cantonese comedy film
Publication date
1 Dec 2022 – 31 Jan 2023
Journal title, volume/issue number, page range
Comedies in East Asian Media: Laughing in Bitter Times (a special issue of Archiv orientální), eds. Ta-wei Chi, Elaine Chung, and Jessica Siu-yin Yeung 90.3 (2022): 417–46.
ISSN
ISSN 0044 8699 (Print) ISSN 2787 9461 (Online)
Specialisation
Humanities
Theme
Society
Media
Art and Culture
History