Crouching Tiger

[Lori Hitchcock]

I think, perhaps, audience laughter can also be attributed, in part, to
the real split in audience makeup for the film.  Specifically, while it
has attracted the so-called "art film crowd" here in the US, it has also
simultaneously attracted what's been called the "fan-boy" (something along
the lines of otaku) crowd as well.  This particular audience, with
relation to Hong Kong film, is often characterized (broadly-speaking, of
course) by their often-ironic perspective on Hong Kong film.  That is,
some among this particular audience approach HK film as "so bad it's
good," reveling in what are percieved as its excesses (including flying
swordsmen, transgendered bad guys, etc.).  

>From this perspective, at least as I noticed laughter in the audience
during the times I've seen the film, it seems as though such moments as
when the undercover inspector gets hit in the head with the very sharp
weapon (which got a big laugh from some very specific people in the
audience), are being "read" from this ironic perspective.  I would suggest
that it's not so much lack of familiarity with the genre, in this case, as
it is an audience-specific framework within which the film is understood.

To make this perhaps more relevant to Kinejapan (although it's not film),
what I'm arguing puts me in mind of the reception given to a visiting
Takarazuka troupe in London a few years ago.  For those of you who live in
Kansai, you know that Takarazuka, among many of its Japanese fans, is
received in a particularly un-ironic way; that is, many fans take the
shows and their stars quite seriously.  When one of the troupes traveled
to London, they apparently found a bit of a following there, but largely
(based on what I read) based on an extremely ironic appreciation of the
campy qualities seen in the show.

I would further suggest that this, and the interesting discussions that
have been taking place here concerning CTHK/Ghost Dog, etc., point to a
need to consider the role of audiences in constructing meaning in film.
That is, to sort-of paraphrase and lift ideas from Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto (in
Kurosawa and other essays on the state of Japanese film studies in the
US), it might serve us well to begin a more concentrated study of how
recent theoretical work on film spectatorship applies in the East Asian
(Japanese) context.

Lori