Three Arguments about the Opium War

The Taiwanese philosopher-filmmaker James T. Hong (*1972) work: “Three Arguments about the Opium-War” (2015) is an inquiry into the competing narratives and contradictory logics embedded into what constitutes “history”. The dual-channel film juxtaposes footage of sites from the historical Opium Wars with contemporary views of Hong Kong’s harbor and cityscape. Each channel is accompanied by textual components: the war sites are overlaid with distanced narration describing how certain socio-political conditions pave the way for colonization, as well as the impossibility of any population having the same uniform political views. The recent Hong Kong footage features text justifying the British colonization of China, focusing on opium as a fitting punishment for perceived Chinese transgressions.