9. “My Life as McDull” (dir. Toe Yuen, 2001) by Livia

My Life as Mcdull

Background of the Film

Film Name: My life as Mcdull (2001)

Director: Toe Yuen 

Producer: Brian Tse 

Writer: Brian Tse, Alice Mak

  à 2D + 3D animation

  àlocal animation for children and adults

Awards

à Get 7 awards from Hong Kong, France, Korea, Taiwan 

Other Films of Mcdull

Prince de la Bun (2004)

The Alumni (2006)

Wudong (2009 summer)

 à Mcdull, the character first appeared on children magazine (Yellow Bus) since the 1990s

How do they show Hong Kong’ image? 

Tourist Board	Mcdull
-Cosmopolitan	-Crowded City
-Focus on tourist area	-Focus on resident area
-New modern / historical building	-Old and dirty buildings
-Western and Chinese food expensive food in restaurants	-Bun, Tart cheap food in Cha Chan Tin, Tai Pai Don
-Clean	-Dirty, air pollution

They are showing different aspects of Hong Kong, Mcdull film reflects a

 more real Hong Kong, because it cover all the images in Hong Kong.

 

Reasons:

Tourist board à to attract tourist come HK (with positive and beautiful)

 Mcdull à audiences are Hong Kongers (all the things happened in daily life,

                 incude both the positive and negative)  

Banal nationalism/local patriotism

Show the ‘real’ in Hong Kong

•Our environment is not perfect, but they are something that we familiar with.

      -  learn to appreciate our positive and negative things in society.

Self-aware humor

      - play with Cantonese slang, and its cultural in-joke

        eg. Tart Throwing

       àTry to find something funny in our daily life, using a funny way to see the society. àmaking fun

à       - Reintroducing our place to Hong Kong people to know the place in different ways, such as funny ways

  à Hong Kong become lovely

à proud of our everyday life àlocal sense 

My view on the film

•a meaningful film

    à not only can get the idea of living in Hong Kong, but it let us think how the life should be

•Make “stupid” image become positive

    à promote optimism to Hong Kong people

•Focus on the grassroot/working class people’s live

    àmost of Hong Kong people with the same feeling on the film 

Question

From the point of view of Tourist Board and My Life as Mcdull, which image of Hong Kong you like most? Why?