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.Instead ofunifying the couple through the concrete representations of heterosex-uality in classical cinema, the kiss, an embrace and/or marriage,Cinderella and Her Little Angels ends with the joyous repair of the stormdamaged orphanage as the locus of generic plenitude.The pleasure ofnarrative closure is diverted away from couple formation and insteadonto the building of bridges between the community of female orphansand the fashion and clothing world.The orphanage takes precedenceover the couple, as does the female mannequin take the place of actualbodily contact in dance or romance between the male and female lead.However, in the final moments of Cinderella and Her Little Angels, ina shot-reverse-shot structure between Xiaolin and Danning, and theshop manager and orphan madam, the film makes a formal gesturetowards closing the gap between two potential couples, although it issomething that must be inferred in the story s future rather than in thefilm s plot.Cinderella and Her Little Angels resists the actual representation ofcouple formation.The possibility of reading any kind of union basedon gendered oppositions is through the formal function of shot-reverse-shot as a formal displacement for the union that cannot be representedwithin a single shot.In the Brides of June musical number, a charityfashion show in which numerous types of national wedding costumeand ceremony are displayed, Xiaolin and Danning are unified but onlywithin the confined limits of role-playing in the number s fantasy ofmarriage which, unlike the American musical, does not later translateto anything beyond what the number can only represent as wishfulthinking.The number is rarely used to cement a coupling; therefore,the Hong Kong musical avoids the collapsing of the ideology of het-erosexuality into the generic pleasures of song and dance.Individuals 03 EA Cinema_041-056 25/1/08 09:14 Page 5050 East Asian Cinemasdo sing about each other, but rarely do they get to dance together orduet in a way that works through the oppositions and differencesbetween genders intrinsic to the Hollywood musical.Furthermore, inthe Hong Kong musical there is no equivalent to the Ginger Rogers andFred Astaire pairing.The absence of a consistent pairing thus confirmsthat the heterosexual couple are not a dominant structural conventionof the musical s Hong Kong variation.Fashioning Modernity and the Musical NumberI have established that the number in the Hong Kong musical is notnecessarily tied to the dual-focus narrative structure pointing towardsa significant difference between the Hollywood and Hong Kong ver-sions of the genre.In addition to the question of couple formation,there is another set of significant differences in the function of themusical number.One of the first and most notable differences betweenthe Hollywood and Hong Kong musical is the absence of complexdance choreography, and in many instances such as in Huang Tang sCinderella and Her Little Angels there is no dancing at all.The absenceof dance and choreography in the musical is a revelation since HongKong cinema has gained its international reputation through thesophisticated and complex staging of fight choreography in the martialarts film.It is also worth noting that the ability of female martial artsperformers to succeed in the genre is often understood as a consequenceof their background in dance.Furthermore, the action scenes in wuxiafilms with graceful choreography, from Come Drink With Me (King Hu,HK, 1966) to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, HK/China/US/Taiwan, 2000), are often described as balletic.Aside from theromantic Austen-esque plotting of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, oneof the many reasons given for its apparent appeal for female audiencesoften alienated by the martial arts genre obsession with masculinity wasthat the scenes of action and combat were experienced as embodyingthe representation and sensation of dance on screen [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Instead ofunifying the couple through the concrete representations of heterosex-uality in classical cinema, the kiss, an embrace and/or marriage,Cinderella and Her Little Angels ends with the joyous repair of the stormdamaged orphanage as the locus of generic plenitude.The pleasure ofnarrative closure is diverted away from couple formation and insteadonto the building of bridges between the community of female orphansand the fashion and clothing world.The orphanage takes precedenceover the couple, as does the female mannequin take the place of actualbodily contact in dance or romance between the male and female lead.However, in the final moments of Cinderella and Her Little Angels, ina shot-reverse-shot structure between Xiaolin and Danning, and theshop manager and orphan madam, the film makes a formal gesturetowards closing the gap between two potential couples, although it issomething that must be inferred in the story s future rather than in thefilm s plot.Cinderella and Her Little Angels resists the actual representation ofcouple formation.The possibility of reading any kind of union basedon gendered oppositions is through the formal function of shot-reverse-shot as a formal displacement for the union that cannot be representedwithin a single shot.In the Brides of June musical number, a charityfashion show in which numerous types of national wedding costumeand ceremony are displayed, Xiaolin and Danning are unified but onlywithin the confined limits of role-playing in the number s fantasy ofmarriage which, unlike the American musical, does not later translateto anything beyond what the number can only represent as wishfulthinking.The number is rarely used to cement a coupling; therefore,the Hong Kong musical avoids the collapsing of the ideology of het-erosexuality into the generic pleasures of song and dance.Individuals 03 EA Cinema_041-056 25/1/08 09:14 Page 5050 East Asian Cinemasdo sing about each other, but rarely do they get to dance together orduet in a way that works through the oppositions and differencesbetween genders intrinsic to the Hollywood musical.Furthermore, inthe Hong Kong musical there is no equivalent to the Ginger Rogers andFred Astaire pairing.The absence of a consistent pairing thus confirmsthat the heterosexual couple are not a dominant structural conventionof the musical s Hong Kong variation.Fashioning Modernity and the Musical NumberI have established that the number in the Hong Kong musical is notnecessarily tied to the dual-focus narrative structure pointing towardsa significant difference between the Hollywood and Hong Kong ver-sions of the genre.In addition to the question of couple formation,there is another set of significant differences in the function of themusical number.One of the first and most notable differences betweenthe Hollywood and Hong Kong musical is the absence of complexdance choreography, and in many instances such as in Huang Tang sCinderella and Her Little Angels there is no dancing at all.The absenceof dance and choreography in the musical is a revelation since HongKong cinema has gained its international reputation through thesophisticated and complex staging of fight choreography in the martialarts film.It is also worth noting that the ability of female martial artsperformers to succeed in the genre is often understood as a consequenceof their background in dance.Furthermore, the action scenes in wuxiafilms with graceful choreography, from Come Drink With Me (King Hu,HK, 1966) to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, HK/China/US/Taiwan, 2000), are often described as balletic.Aside from theromantic Austen-esque plotting of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, oneof the many reasons given for its apparent appeal for female audiencesoften alienated by the martial arts genre obsession with masculinity wasthat the scenes of action and combat were experienced as embodyingthe representation and sensation of dance on screen [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]