Vicissitudes of the Underworld: Spatiality and Political Discourse in Hong Kong Gangster Films

As an essential genre of Hong Kong cinema, gangster films embody an implicit layer of political discourse. Focusing on spatiality, this article traces the transformation of this genre in the past decades and explores how gangster films construct political discourses of Hong Kong. Several representative gangster films made in the first two decades of the twenty-first century are discussed: the Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002, 2003, 2003), the Election series (2005, 2006), and Trivisa (2016). These films employ various spatial and narrative elements to convey political messages, capture collective emotions, and portray the vicissitudes of the city.