Ambiguous Agency: Commercial Surrogacy in Yi Shu’s A Complicated Story and Its Film Adaptation

Abstract

"This paper discusses the novel Yige fuza gushi 一個複雜故事 (A Complicated Story, 2006) by Yi Shu 亦舒 (Isabel Nee Yeh-su 倪亦舒, 1946- ), and its film adaptation (2013) of the same title by Kiwi Chow 周冠威 (1979- ), a male Hong Kong film director. I argue that both works depict the protagonist’s ambiguous manifestation of agency in the face of commercial surrogacy, which signifies the commodification of the female body, children, and origins of human beings in a capitalist society, and also represents the deconstruction of the biological paradigm that challenges the nuclear family model and heterosexual norms. The surrogate mother shows her persistence and courage against her adverse life circumstances and acknowledges her homosexual orientation. The female protagonist of Yi Shu’s novel finds her partner by travelling from a Chinese city to a small town in British Columbia in Canada, where homosexuality is less stigmatized. In the film adaptation, however, Kiwi Chow shifts the focus from sex and sexuality to politics by emphasizing the dynamic relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China, presenting the increasing geopolitical conflicts across borders."