Film Review: Kidnap Ding Ding Don (綁架丁丁當)

(Broadway Circuit 2016)

Release date: June 23, 2016

Director: Chin, Kwok Wai, Wilson

Starring:  Alex Fong
Ivana Wong
Kabby Hui
Bill Chan
Mimi Kung
Hui Shiu Hung
Mimi Chu
Elena Kong
Bob Lam
Emily Kwan
Alycia Chan

Run time: 97 minutes

Class: IIB

Kidnap Ding Ding Don 綁架丁丁噹 (2016) Official Hong Kong Trailer

“Kidnap Ding Ding Don” (綁架丁丁當) is a Hong Kong localised film, directed by Chin, Kwok Wai, Wilson. The story is about an amnesia police, Don (played by Alex Fong) wake up in a village house and found a girl who is tied by someone. The girl calls Ding Ding (played by Ivana Wong) and she is very capricious. She cheats Don that he is the kidnapper; and then threatens him to continue the kidnapping, to get attention from her dad. The film genre is belonging comedy, but it is meaningful that involves many affections, between the father and daughter, husband and wife, man and woman.

The film is very localised and full of Hong Kong people’s collective memory. It is about some memories that have been recalled, recognised and localised (Halbwachs 1992, p. 38). For example, the name of film “Ding Don”. On the surface, it includes the main actor and actress’s name, Ding and Don. However, it is meaningful to Hong Kong people that “Ding Don” also stands for a famous cartoon character. In Hong Kong, “Doraemon” was translated to “Ding Don” in the early period. Each Hong Kong people ever watched and knew about this cartoon. In the film, the actor’s head has a “Ding Don” potion tape, which is affixed by the actress. This prop is appeared in the plot again and again, till the film end. Here, the prop becomes iconography, “a familiar stock of images or motifs” and it involves the fixed connotations (Chandler 1997). It can represent the relationship between actor and actress still together, just like the relationship between Nobita and Doraemon.

Another connotation of the name is about the character setting of the actress. Ding Ding can represent Nobita, it is a never grow up character, always rely on Doraemon. It just like Ding Ding, she still not grows up, very capricious; and hopes to gain her father’s love. She plays a kidnapping game to attract her father’s attention.

Furthermore, the neighbours’ relationship is very close in this film. It is about Hong Kong people’s nostalgic imagination and collective memory. The director tries to create a “social framework”, and then, place some individual thought and the collective memory of it (Halbwachs 1992, p. 38). In the film, the background is a village in Sai Kung. The community is very small; the neighbours are easy to get in touch with each other. The co-stars are very outstanding, the gossipy housewives, played by Mimi Chu and Elena Kong; the Indonesian Maid, Juliana; and the owner of a food stall. All the characters are living very close, especially the housewives always gossiping the things happened in the village. For example, Mimi Chu and Elena Kong have ever gone to the Ding Ding’s house, to search the gossip news. Also, they ever invited Ding and Don to have dinner together. 

This detailed information is sculpted a very familiar plot in the past Hong Kong society. It was trying to shape a close relationship between neighbours, just like “The House of 72 Tenants”. It provides an image to audiences that the neighbours’ relationship is very close in the past, and some old Hong Kong village will keep this habit, like neighbours will invite each other to have dinner. It actually happens in the old generation, which is their collective memory.

References

Broadway Circuit 2016, Kidnap Ding Ding Don, image. Available from: www.cinema.com.hk/en/movie/details/8965. [26 March 2017].

Chandler, D 1997, An introduction to genre theory, ResearchGate. Available from: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/chandler_genre_theory.pdf. [30 March 2017].

Halbwachs, M 1992, On collective memory, trans. LA Coser, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Kidnap Ding Ding Don 2016, Kidnap Ding Ding Don Official Hong Kong Trailer HD 1080, YouTube video, 24 August. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkFjJQN59o. [26 March 2017].