ASIA 325 (24W): One-Armed Swordsman – Choose-your-own-adventure Storybook
By Adrienne Lee, Amber Lee, Dastan Ryskulov, Wenxin Song, and Colin Yee
Project Rationale:
“Through this interactive format, we explore three central themes: the tension between brotherhood and autonomy, the expansion of female character development, and the production contexts surrounding the original film. Additionally, our project interrogates the moral ambiguity woven into the narrative, challenging the conventional binary between good and evil.
One of the core objectives of our project was to transform a traditionally linear narrative into one that allows for reader agency. By adapting the choose-your-own-adventure format, we invite the audience to take an active role in shaping the story’s direction. This format creates room for multiple perspectives and outcomes rather than limiting the characters to a single, heroic, and predetermined arc.
In the original film, viewers engage with the story purely from a distant observer’s standpoint. Our adaptation narrows that distance, offering a more immersive experience by allowing readers to step into the shoes of the characters. They are now able to make decisions that not only shape each character’s journey, but also reflect the reader’s own values and interpretations.
Each branching storyline leads to a distinctly different path and ending, many of which diverge from the original “universe”. These alternative narratives imagine what the characters’ lives might have looked like if they had more personal freedom and choice. For example, the protagonist, Fang Gang, is portrayed in the original film as bound by duty and tradition, with little room for his own desires. In our project, we ask: What if he had a choice? What if he pursued peace instead of vengeance? What if his priorities conflicted with the expectations placed upon him?”
ASIA 325 (24W): Letters of Doomed Fate – A Reflective Reimagining of Made in Hong Kong
By Reiana Co, Margaux Leguay, Qiao Li, Haowei Lian, and Marvin Wong
Project Rationale:
“Our project is a mixed-media creation entitled Letters of Doomed Fate, based on the 1997 independent film Made in Hong Kong, directed by Fruit Chan. It is a series of personal letters written in the voice of the four leads and one secondary character – Autumn Moon, Ping, Susan, Sylvester and a revival gang-leader (Brother Chan) – as first-person commentaries of their deaths. Each letter is accompanied by a graphic poster situating each of these pivotal moments in their narratives, rendered in a visual aesthetic that echoes the raw, gritty look of the film. These will be physically bound together by a red thread, a visual metaphor of the inescapable bond of their fates. The underlying theme of our work is fated paths: Fate in Made in Hong Kong is not some intangible abstraction but a material effect of coming of age in a society that has betrayed its youth – economically, affectively, and structurally. The characters do not merely die; they are aggravated systematically by the world around them. The suicide notes in the film are narrative and emotional benchmarks; they mark not only death but expression, confession, and memorial. By expanding this theme, we seek to magnify the voices that are most frequently silenced or ignored. Our project gives the characters a voice as self-narrating authors of their own demise, we give them back agency.”
ASIA324 (24W): From Ashes to Threads – Wartime and Modern Outfit Interpretations
By Marcus Fung, Samantha Teng, Elise Yip, Anita Zhu, and Claudia Jianing Zhu
Project rationale:
“Our project was inspired by Eileen Chang’s story From the Ashes, which shows how war reshapes lives, not in the big battles, but through everyday, mundane moments. Chang focuses on how individuals talk, eat, dress, or even joke as bombs fall, showing the emotional weight of ordinary experiences during crisis. Our group wanted to continue exploring this idea by imagining what war meant for each of the characters: how they endured it, and how it shaped their identities. Using fashion as our medium, we designed wartime and modern-day outfits for five characters: Eileen Chang, Sureika, Evelyn, Mr. France, and Fatima to express their experiences, personalities, and emotional journeys through clothing.
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Through the medium of fashion, we transformed Eileen Chang’s characters’ wartime struggles into wearable stories. From Sureika’s beauty-as-survival to Fatima’s refusal to submit, clothes became armor and identity. In bridging past and present together, we illustrate how survival is in the everyday experiences we live.”
ASIA324 (24W): Photography Series – A Creative Response to Ronald Mar’s “Street in the Sun”
By Jocelyn Chu, Caitlin Khong, Gavin Lau, Erica Leung, and Jensen Li
Project rationale:
“Our photography series captures the protagonist’s struggle in Street in the Sun and focuses on two major themes which are illusion of power and his internal conflict. In the story, he gets swept up in the riot, mistaking the chaos around him for purpose and power. For a moment, he feels like he’s in control, but it’s all an illusion because his power isn’t real. Our photos highlight this with one shot of him after the crowd disperses, making it clear that without the mob, he’s just another lost and scared person. The blurred motion in our images reflects his shaky sense of self, showing how quickly his confidence crumbles.”
ASIA324 (24W): Visual Storytelling – A Creative Response to Liu Yichang’s “Intersection”
By Vanessa Lee, Casandra Lowe, Hazel Sin, and Audrey Sun
Project Rationale:
“Our creative exploration of Liu Yichang’s Intersection aimed to translate the text’s fragmented, modernist narrative into a visual language that resonates with contemporary audiences. We chose the comic medium to mirror the novel’s structural complexity while making its themes tangible through color, panel design, and layered imagery. Reflecting on this process, several key insights emerged about the interplay between literature and visual art and the challenges of reimagining a layered narrative in a new form. The comic format is suited to dissecting the novel’s dual narratives. By dividing the story into red (Ah Xing) and blue (Chunyu Bai) perspectives, we could spatially contrast their subjective realities while preserving the tension between connection and isolation. We discovered how art and literature can converse across media in this creative process.”
ASIA324 (24W): Designs & Letters – A Creative Response to Jin Yong’s The Book and The Sword
By Alyssa Cheng, Nicholas Chiu, Jessie Liu, Nathan Pak, and James Preddy
Project Rationale:
“For our team, we decided that we wanted to come up with something fun and sort of exciting for our creative project. After all sharing some interest in two ideas that we discussed; designing outfits for the story’s characters and also writing letters that were shared between characters, we thought why can we not include both topics which we had interest in. To pair the two topics together, we decided to design the outfits and write letters to/from the same characters, including Li Yuanzhi, Li Kexiu, and Lu Feiqing.
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Furthermore, our team was inspired by the fact that Jin Yong’s work features powerful female characters, like Li Yuanzhi, who is not only a character to await romance, but has her own personal aspirations and strong will that guide her to master her craft of martial arts.”
