The case of Hong Kong – acquired by the British under treaty, and restored to Chinese sovereignty in what some perceived as merely a shift from colonial to neo-colonial rule – always seemed a special case in the debate over post-colonialism. In NTQ53 (February 1998) Frank Bren looked primarily from an artistic and administrative viewpoint at the connections between film and theatre in the former colony: in the article which follows, Yun Tong Luk explores the social and cultural significance of two influential local productions, staged almost a decade apart – one, We're Hong Kong, shortly after the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, the other; Tales of the Walled City, coinciding with the moment of Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese rule. He points out the uniqueness of post-colonial experience in the territory, and examines the ambivalent attitudes of the Hong Kong people before and after the change of sovereignty.
