More than Dismemberment: The Fragmented Body in 1960s–1970s Hong Kong Popular Culture

Bodily fragmentation emerged as a significant topos in Hong Kong popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s, as it was produced, circulated, and proliferated across interconnected genres, such as martial arts novels, science fiction, and action films. Existing studies, informed by the notion of a stable and complete body, often interpret imagery such as the one-armed hero as a form of horrific dismemberment produced by violence. This article employs the concept of the “dividual” to capture the body's permeable, divisible, and reconfigurable nature, which is prominent in these works. From this perspective, the mutilation of the human body becomes an opportunity for relational and technological assemblages with nonhuman objects, as particularly exemplified in Chang Cheh's martial arts films and Ni Kuang's science fiction. Situated within a specific historical context shaped by the dynamics of war, industrialization, and postcolonialism, the representation of the fragmented body in 1960s and 1970s Hong Kong popular culture presents not only the dismembered body but also an attempt to negotiate and respond to it. This response involves constructing a dividual Hong Kong body that is constantly open to the process of heterogeneous assemblage and becoming.