Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T18:26:04.126Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Releasing Masculinity for a More Just World: Lessons on How to “Be Water” in Hong Kong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2021

Charlie Yi Zhang Open the ORCID record for Charlie Yi Zhang [Opens in a new window]
Charlie Yi Zhang*
Affiliation:
Charlie Yi Zhang (charlie.zhang@uky.edu) is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky.
Get access

Abstract

This article develops a feminist reading of the biographical action series featuring Ip Man, the Wing Chun grand master lionized for mentoring Bruce Lee, as a set of culturally inflected practices in order to probe the sociohistorical structure that embeds and overdetermines these productions and allows for new, subversive potentialities. Building upon situated engagement, my analysis traces how the hypermasculine violent yanggang aesthetic tradition takes on new life by reclaiming women's voices in the Ip Man film franchise. I also identify the ways in which this filmic remaking of Ip's life story builds an alternative embodiment that unsettles musculature as the ground of colonialist/nationalist dominance and lays the basis for a new horizon of justice encapsulated by the flexible and elastic “Be Water” sensibility. As human beings are facing the common threat posed by prevailing toxic masculinity, these lessons, I argue, are crucial for us to find a path through the turbulence and build a more peaceful world.

Keywords

“Be Water” philosophyBruce LeeHong KongIp Manjusticemasculinity
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 683 - 704
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Abbas, M. Ackbar. 1997. Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2012. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 25th anniversary ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
BBC News. 2017. “Wolf Warrior 2: The Nationalist Action Film Storming China.” China Blog, August 4. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40811952 (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Berlant, Lauren, and Stuart, Kathleen. 2019. The Hundreds. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bowman, Paul. 2015. “Return of the Dragon: Handover, Hong Kong Cinema, and Chinese Ethno-Nationalism.” In A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Cheung, Esther M. K., Marchetti, Gina, and Yau, Esther C. M., 307–21. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brown, Bill. 1997. “Global Bodies/Postnationalities: Charles Johnson's Consumer Culture.” Representations, no. 58 (Spring): 24–48.10.2307/2928822CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownell, Susan. 1995. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People's Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carroll, John M. 2007. A Concise History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cheung, Esther M. K. 2015. “The Urban Maze: Crisis and Topography in Hong Kong Cinema.” In A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Cheung, Esther M. K., Marchetti, Gina, and Yau, Esther C. M., 51–70. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chow, Rey. 1992. “Between Colonizers: Hong Kong's Postcolonial Self-Writing in the 1990s.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 2 (2): 151–70.Google Scholar
Chu, Karen. 2019. “Hong Kong Protestors Boycott ‘Ip Man 4’ for Donnie Yen and Producer's Pro-Beijing Stance.” The Hollywood Reporter, December 23. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hong-kong-protestors-boycott-ip-man-4-1264759 (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Chun, Allen. 1997. “Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity.” boundary 2 23 (2): 111–38.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. 2004. “Globalization, Imperialism, and Masculinities.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by Kimmel, Michael S., Hearn, Jeff, and Connell, R. W., 71–89. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Coughlin, Con. 2019. “Hong Kong is the Frontline in a New Cold War between China and the West.” The Telegraph, November 19. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/19/increasingly-aggressive-trump-administration-now-views-china/ (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Desser, David. 2000. “The Kung Fu Craze: Hong Kong Cinema's First American Reception.” In The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity, edited by Fu, Poshek and Desser, David, 19–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desser, David. 2005a. “Fists of Legend: Constructing Chinese Identity in the Hong Kong Cinema.” In Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics, edited by Lu, Sheldon H. and Yeh, Emilie Yueh-yu, 288–91. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Desser, David. 2005b. “Making Movies Male; Zhang Che and the Shaw Brothers Martial Arts Movies, 1965–1975.” In Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Pang, Laikwan and Wong, Day, 17–34. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979. Translated by Burchell, Graham. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fu, Poshek. 2000. “The 1960s: Modernity, Youth Culture, and Hong Kong Cantonese Cinema.” In The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity, edited by Fu, Poshek and Desser, David, 71–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fu, Poshek, and Desser, David. 2000. “Introduction.” In The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity, edited by Fu, Poshek and Desser, David, 1–11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halberstam, Jack. (1998) 2018. Female Masculinity. 20th anniversary ed. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–99.10.2307/3178066CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández, Javier C. 2020. “Harsh Penalties, Vaguely Defined Crimes: Hong Kong's Security Law Explained.” New York Times, updated July 13. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/world/asia/hong-kong-security-law-explain.html (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Higgins, Andrew. 2019. “China's Theory for Hong Kong Protests: Secret American Meddling.” New York Times, August 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/world/asia/hong-kong-black-hand.html (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Hung, Natalia Chan-sui. 2000. “Rewriting History: Hong Kong Nostalgia Cinema and Its Social Practice.” In The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity, edited by Fu, Poshek and Desser, David, 252–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ip, Ching, and Heimberger, Ron. 2001. Ip Man: Portrait of a Kung Fu Mater. Translated by Eric Li. Springville, UT: King Dragon Press.Google Scholar
Kato, M. T. 2007. From Kung Fu to Hip Hop: Globalization, Revolution, and Popular Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Lanthier, Joseph Jon. 2011. “Review: Ip Man 2—Legend of the Grandmaster.” Slant, January 23. https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/ip-man-2-legend-of-the-grandmaster/ (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Leung, Hon-chu. 2004. “Politics of Incorporation and Exclusion: Immigration and Citizenship Issues.” In Remaking Citizenship in Hong Kong: Community, Nation, and the Global City, edited by Ku, Agnes S. and Pun, Ngai, 97–114. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lew, Linda. 2019. “The Hongkongers from Ethnic Minorities Who Thank Protest Movement for Helping Them Finally Feel Part of the City.” South China Morning Post, October 30. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3035258/hongkongers-ethnic-minorities-who-thank-protest-movement (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Li, Fion, Leigh, Karen, and Marlow, Iain. 2020. “Why Hong Kong Is Still Protesting and Where It May Go: Quick Take.” Washington Post, February 11. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-hong-kong-is-still-protesting-and-where-it-may-go-quicktake/2020/02/10/fd1d016c-4bc2-11ea-967b-e074d302c7d4_story.html (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Liu, Petrus. 2015. Queer Marxism in Two Chinas. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lo, Kwai-cheung. 2005. Chinese Face/Off: The Transnational Popular Culture of Hong Kong. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Lo, Kwai-cheung. 2015. “Hong Kong Cinema as Ethnic Borderland.” In A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Cheung, Esther M. K., Marchetti, Gina, and Yau, Esther C. M., 71–88. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lu, Sheldon H. 2000. “Filming Diaspora and Identity: Hong Kong and 1997.” In The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity, edited by Fu, Poshek and Desser, David, 273–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luo, Benny. 2016. “Donnie Yen Is Cool, but His Mother Is MUCH Cooler.” NextShark, December 20. https://nextshark.com/bow-sim-mark-donnie-yen-mother/ (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2015. “Beyond Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the Post-apartheid Transition in South Africa.” Politics & Society 43 (1): 61–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Joane. 1998. “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21 (2): 242–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ong, Aihwa. 2006. Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Pang, Laikwan. 2005. “Post-1997 Hong Kong Masculinity.” In Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Pang, Laikwan and Wong, Day, 35–56. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Ramzy, Austin. 2019. “In Hong Kong, Unity between Peaceful and Radical Protestors. For Now.” New York Times, September 27. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-violence.html (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Rodriguez, Hector. 1997. “Hong Kong Popular Culture as an Interpretive Arena: The Huang Feihong Film Series.” Screen 38 (1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rofel, Lisa. 2007. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Singh, Julietta. 2018. Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Song, Geng, and Hird, Derek. 2014. Men and Masculinities in Contemporary China. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
South China Morning Post. 2018. “How Bruce Lee Classic Quote ‘Be Water’ from Fictional US TV Series Came to Be Attributed to Him.” July 17. https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2155586/how-bruce-lee-classic-quote-be-water-fictional-us-tv-series-came-be (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Szeto, Mirana May, and Chen, Yun-chung. 2015. “Hong Kong Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalization and Mainlandization: Hong Kong SAR New Wave as a Cinema of Anxiety.” In A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Cheung, Esther M. K., Marchetti, Gina, and Yau, Esther C. M., 89–115. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tasker, Yvonne. 1997. “Fists of Fury: Discourses of Race and Masculinity in the Martial Arts Cinema.” In Race and the Subject of Masculinities, edited by Stecopoulos, Harry and Uebel, Michael, 315–36. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Teo, Stephen. 2008. “Promise and Perhaps Love: Pan-Asian Production and the Hong Kong-China Interrelationship.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 9 (3): 341–57.10.1080/14649370802184429CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vojković, Sasha. 2009. Yuen Woo Ping's Wing Chun. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey. 2020. Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink. New York: Columbia Global Reports.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welsh, Frank. 1993. A Borrowed Place: The History of Hong Kong. New York: Kodansha USA Inc.Google Scholar
Whiteaker, Chloe. 2019. “The Essential Tool for Hong Kong Protestors? An Umbrella.” Bloomberg, September 20. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-hong-kong-protestors-umbrellas/ (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Wong, Wayne. 2017. “Synthesizing Zhenshi (Authenticity) and Shizan (Combativity): Reinventing Chinese Kung Fu in Donnie Yen's Ip Man Series (2008–2015).” Martial Arts Studies 3:72–89.Google Scholar
Xin, Zhou, and Wang, Orange. 2019. “Hong Kong Protests Fail to Slow City's Role as Foreign Investment Gateway to China, Government Data Shows.” South China Morning Post, September 17. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3027712/hong-kong-protests-fail-slow-citys-role-foreign-investment (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Xuan, Danny, and Little, John. 2015. The Tao of Wing Chun: The History and Principles of China's Most Explosive Martial Arts. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.Google Scholar
Yam, Sharon. 2019. Inconvenient Strangers: Transnational Subjects and the Politics of Citizenship. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yam, Sharon, and Wasserstrom, Jeffrey. 2020. “Hong Kong Is a Local Tragedy, Not a Geopolitical Shuttlecock.” Foreign Policy, August 18. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/18/hong-kong-local-us-china-history/ (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Yan, Lu. 2010. “Limits to Propaganda: Hong Kong's Leftist Media in the Cold War and Beyond.” In The Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds, edited by Zheng, Yangwen, Liu, Hong, and Szonyi, Michael, 95–118. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Yang, William. 2019. “How Hong Kong Protests Are Inspiring Movements Worldwide.” Deutsche Welle, October 22. https://www.dw.com/en/how-hong-kong-protests-are-inspiring-movements-worldwide/a-50935907 (accessed February 8, 2021).Google Scholar
Yau, Esther C. M. 2015. “Watchful Partners, Hidden Currents: Hong Kong Cinema Moving into the Mainland of China.” In A Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Cheung, Esther M. K., Marchetti, Gina, and Yau, Esther C. M., 17–50. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yip, Man-Fung. 2017a. “Closely Watched Films: Surveillance and Postwar Hong Kong Leftist Cinema.” In Surveillance in Asian Cinema: Under Eastern Eyes, edited by Fang, Karen, 33–59. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yip, Man-Fung. 2017b. Martial Arts Cinema and Hong Kong Modernity: Aesthetics, Representation, Circulation. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Charlie Yi. 2014. “Deconstructing the Hyper-Masculine National and Transnational Hegemony in Neoliberal China.” Feminist Studies 40 (1): 13–38.Google Scholar