Diaspora, Migrations, and Cultural Identity in Comrades: Almost a Love Story

Abstract

Comrades: Almost a Love Story is a film by Hongkongese director Peter Chan, that tells the story of two Chinese Mainlanders who move to Hong Kong drawn by the economic possibilities offered by the city, and eventually fall in love. The film explores the themes of cultural identity, individual migrations, and Chinese diaspora. While Chinese transnational cinemas have been analysed extensively, less attention has been dedicated to this specific film. Making use of a post-structuralist textual analysis approach, the paper studies various elements of the film to understand how the characters perceive their own cultural identity and interpret diaspora and migration experiences, linking them to the context in which the film was produced: the year before the 1997 Hong Kong handover.