Chinese Cinema

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingjin Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Film History ◽  
Chinese Cinema ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
Important Player ◽  
The Face

Chinese cinema in this bibliography covers Chinese-language cinema, including films in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taiwanese (or Minnan dialect) as well as Sinophone productions by the Chinese diasporas. To save space, hereafter “China” refers to mainland China, also known as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1949. Chinese cinema has become an important player in world cinema since the 1980s for several reasons. First, three new-wave film movements emerged in three geopolitical territories during the 1980s: the Hong Kong New Wave, Taiwan New Cinema, and China’s Fifth Generation. Second, leading international film festivals have regularly awarded top prizes to Chinese cinema since the 1980s, and some Chinese films have entered art-house theaters in the West. Third, academic interests in Chinese studies and film studies have increased in recent decades as new theories and methodologies have gradually transformed disciplinary scholarship. Nonetheless, the development of Chinese cinema does not follow a straight line of progress; rather, it has seen ups and downs and unexpected turns. From the early 1990s to the late 1990s, a previously vibrant Taiwan film industry quickly disappeared in the face of Hollywood advancement. Also during the 1990s, Hong Kong cinema lost much of its market share in Taiwan, and its annual feature productions dropped from 242 in 1993 to 143 in 1994; the average number has stayed around fifty in 2006–2009. By contrast, feature productions in China increased from 88 per year in 2001 to 526 in 2010. What is most impressive is the growth of China’s exhibition market. Its annual total box office revenues skyrocketed from RMB 840 million in 2001 to RMB 10,200 million in 2010. Much of this growth has come from Chinese blockbuster films, almost always involving coproductions with Hong Kong. The spectacular growth of Chinese cinema explains recent attention to research in Industry and Market, but other exciting areas of Chinese film studies include film history (especially China before 1949), Gender and Sexuality, and Genre and Types. Martial arts films are considered a significant Chinese contribution to world cinema, and recent independent productions of Documentary films in China have received multidisciplinary attention. As scholars and filmmakers extend their vision beyond national borders, a new area has emerged in Diaspora, Sinophone, Transregional, which further complicates the question of Nation and Nationalism in Chinese cinema.

scholarly journals Pixels, Police, and Batons

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Cameron L. White
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Film History ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
Frequent Form ◽  
Productive Potential

The 2019 Hong Kong protests witnessed not only sustained physical demonstrations by locals, but also a swell of online digital media that recorded and remixed conflicts between protestors and police. By documenting key moving images that circulated throughout social media and the film festival circuit, White’s essay reorients Hong Kong film studies’ relationship with the digital. Although cinema played a secondary role in the 2019 protests compared to digital media, numerous intertextual linkages demonstrate the productive potential of considering the two together. Special attention is given to the cops-and-robbers genre, a linchpin in local film history and a frequent form of choice for Hong Kong-mainland China coproductions. While the troubled representation of police in 2019 and beyond suggests that the future of the genre is unstable, the ingenuity of recent digital media demonstrates Hong Kong’s enduring potential for moving image innovation.

Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Cinematic Doubles, Oedipal Triangles, and China's Moral Voice (with DVD). By Jerome Silbergeld. [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004. 160 pp. £22.95. ISBN 0-295-98417-1.]

2005 ◽  
Vol 182 ◽  
pp. 454-456
Author(s):  
Chris Berry
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Moral Voice ◽  
History Approach ◽  
Contemporary Chinese Cinema ◽  
Contemporary Chinese ◽  
Chinese Face

Jerome Silbergeld introduced an art history approach into Chinese film studies with China into Film: Frames of Reference in Contemporary Chinese Cinema in 2000. Hitchcock with a Chinese Face goes further. Like an art historian selecting three seemingly disparate paintings and demonstrating their links, Silbergeld chooses a film each from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, but argues that they pursue similar aesthetic and political directions. The result is a virtuoso display of intense textual and inter-textual exegesis, informed by an in-depth knowledge of the pre-modern Chinese arts, contemporary Chinese political culture, and globally circulated Western culture (including Hitchcock). It is also a challenge to the discipline of film studies itself.The three films Silbergeld selects for analysis are Lou Ye's 2000 film from mainland China, Suzhou River (Suzhou he); Yim Ho's 1994 Hong Kong film, The Day the Sun Turned Cold (Tianguo nizi); and the final part of Hou Hsiao Hsien's 1995 Taiwan trilogy, Good Men, Good Women (Hao nan, hao nü,). He acknowledges that the project began as a personal indulgence allowing him to explore further some of his favourite films. However, his engagement with the films leads him to argue that each one, in its own way, deconstructs the commonly circulated idea of a unified Chinese culture, engages powerfully with morality, is narratively complex and anti-commercial, mobilizes a cosmopolitan knowledge of world cinema, and displays an unusual degree of interest in individual psychology and oedipality. The latter elements help to ground the comparisons to Hitchcock (as well as to Hamlet, Dostoevsky, Faulkner and others).

How Chinese Youth Cinema Develops? Reviewing Chinese Youth Genre in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, 1950s-2000s

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-67
Author(s):  
Nam Wang Changsong ◽  
Rohani Hashim
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Young People ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Film History ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Chinese Cinema ◽  
Chinese Youth ◽  
Martial Art ◽  
Film Content ◽  
Youth Films

Objective - This study considers Chinese youth cinema as a historical object that represents the gamut of social practices and styles of production. Methodology/Technique - The authors examine the historical development of young people for tracing how different social and historical contexts interpret the Chinese young people's world. Findings - The youth films produced in the major Chinese regions—Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong—illustrate how much social practices dominated the film content and style. For instance, youth genre in Hong Kong, once prevalent in the Cantonese cinema of the mid and late 1960s, blended musical and melodrama by dormant with the rise of martial art films. Novelty - This study attempts to elaborate some films featuring young people in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and to review the histories of youth cinema in these Chinese regions. The Chinese youth film outlines how, in Chinese communities, the category of youth historically functions as a significant site of ideological inscription that displays its struggles towards an idealized future. Type of Paper: Review Keywords : Chinese cinema; Film history; Hong Kong; Mainland China; Taiwan; Youth genre

Toward Critical Patriotism: Student Resistance to Political Education in Hong Kong and China. By Gregory P. Fairbrother. [Hong Kong University Press, 2003. x+218 pp. £26.95. ISBN 962-209-622-0.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 178 ◽  
pp. 521-523
Author(s):  
Agnes S. Ku
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Weak Sense ◽  
Student Resistance ◽  
Hong Kong Students ◽  
The Face ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Legitimacy Crisis

Fairbrother's Toward Critical Patriotism is a timely publication in the “Hong Kong Culture and Society” series: political squabbles and conflicts over the idea of patriotism in the context of the national security legislation in Hong Kong are inflamed following the spectacular mass demonstration by 500,000 people on 1 July 2003. As the author points out, patriotism and nationalism are relatively recent historical phenomena in China. In mainland China, Marxist-Leninism became the guiding ideology after 1949. Yet, from the early 1980s, in the face of a legitimacy crisis, the leadership shifted toward patriotism as a unifying and justificatory ideology while professing ultimate objectives in line with Marxist principles. In Hong Kong, civic education had been de-emphasized under the ideology of de-politicization by the colonial government until the handover in the 1990s. The book rejects the typical characterization of Hong Kong students as simply having a weak sense of patriotism and nationalism, and of mainland students as patriotic dupes under the state and presents a more nuanced analysis.

French Cinema

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ginette Vincendeau
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Film History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
New Wave ◽  
French Cinema ◽  
Ethnic And Cultural Identity ◽  
Andre Bazin ◽  
The 1960S

As befits the country of the cinema’s official “birth,” France boasts a long tradition of writing on film. In the 1920s, avant-garde filmmakers such as Louis Delluc and Jean Epstein started theorizing cinema’s specificity as a medium, while in the 1930s debates turned political. During that decade critics and historians, such as Georges Sadoul, began also to reflect on film history. Major works on French cinema, however, started to appear only after World War II. A first wave emerged from the postwar cultural effervescence and the rise of cinephilia, with new journals such as Cahiers du Cinéma and Positif. Film critic André Bazin and his disciples (among them future New Wave filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard) developed the politique des auteurs and wrote the first “serious” monographs about filmmakers—mostly American and French. In their wake auteurist works took off in the 1960s, as well as reflections on movements such as the New Wave and French cinema as a whole. A second wave followed the rise of academic film studies in the 1970s, initially with the accent on theory, and saw the internationalization of French cinema studies. In the 1980s and 1990s a “historical turn” generated influential studies—survey histories, anthologies, and accounts of specific periods and movements—in the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. Echoing the continuing spread of film studies courses and the buoyancy of French cinema, a third wave followed, with a discernible shift toward cultural and ideological approaches. In particular, issues of gender, ethnic, and cultural identity came to the fore, as well as film and philosophy, together with a marked interest in contemporary cinema. The enduring strength of auteurism means that some areas, notably popular genres, are still underexplored. Nevertheless, French cinema is now remarkably well mapped out.

scholarly journals Chinese Film Studies Online: Technological Innovations, Pedagogical Challenges, and Teaching Chinese-Language Cinema in the Digital Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Gina Marchetti
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Massive Open Online Course ◽  
Flipped Classrooms ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education, online initiatives have moved from the periphery to the very heart of teaching and learning across disciplines. However, the profession has just begun to consider the full impact these new technologies have on the way we research and teach Chinese-language cinema. Using the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and University of Hong Kong Common Core campus-based course, Hong Kong Cinema through a Global Lens, as my principal case study, I explore some of the ways in which the digital revolution has transformed research on and teaching about Hong Kong film. From surveying the types of material available for research to exploring the differences between MOOCs and flipped classrooms, this essay considers the positive implications and potential drawbacks of these new technologies in global, regional, and local educational contexts.

The Translocalized McDull Series: National Identity and the Politics of Powerlessness

Animation ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Hang Wu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Hybrid Identities ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Animated Films ◽  
Animated Film ◽  
Film Series ◽  
Film Market

The animated film Me & My Mum was released in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2014 and proved to be a huge box office hit, cashing in on the existing McDull animated films that are hailed as the best animations in Hong Kong. Previous scholarship suggests that the McDull animated film series is a symbol of Hong Kong local culture; it serves as a repository of the changing landscapes of Hong Kong and demonstrates hybrid identities. However, this article argues that the McDull animated film series is more translocal than local, a fact which reveals the dynamics of the Hong Kong–mainland China relationship after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. The translocalized McDull series demonstrates an obsession with Chineseness which helps to evoke the national identity. By aestheticizing powerlessness as cuteness through anthropomorphic animals, the McDull series used to be highly political; they grappled with the wounds of society in Hong Kong. However, the articulation of a well-rounded McDull in the translocalized film Me & My Mum indicates that it is conforming to the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology of ideal children while the political power of aestheticizing powerlessness is repressed, revealing the dominant power of the Chinese film market.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-208
Author(s):  
Sangjoon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Chinese Cinema ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
New Era ◽  
City Hall ◽  
Fifth Generation ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
The City

This chapter recounts how Chinese cinema developed rapidly in the new era and how filmmakers were able to denounce the brutality of the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution. It details the beginning of China's Fifth Generation cinema as the first postwar film movement in China to place Chinese cinema on the map of world cinema. It also discusses how the late 1970s brought major transformations in the regional film cultures and industries, such as the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which was launched at the City Hall in in June 1977. The chapter refers to The Man from Hong Kong as the Australian film industry's first attempt to collaborate with its Asian counterparts in the early 1970s. It explains how the entire Filipino film industry had to struggle with the Philippines's first lady, Imelda Marcos, and her ambitious project, the First Manila International Film Festival.

scholarly journals The Historical Roots and Cultural Core of the Chinese Film School

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-113
Author(s):  
Haizhou Wang
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Chinese Art ◽  
Chinese Cinema ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
The World ◽  
Chinese Films

Abstract Chinese cinema has its own unique features, created through nationally distinct methods. Once revealed, these methods make possible the construction of a unique “Chinese film school.” This article explores the historical development of Chinese film arts in order to uncover general trends along its winding path. While being open to the world, the Chinese film school ultimately returns to traditions in Chinese art as a method to construct a unique theory of Chinese film. This methodology has enabled Chinese films to reflect wider developments in world cinema, while also maintaining distinctive Chinese cultural characteristics.

Transnational Chinese Cinemas

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuesong Shao ◽  
Sheldon Lu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Transnational Cinema ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
Chinese Cinemas ◽  
Transnational Film

The term “transnational Chinese cinemas” first appeared in 1997 in the anthology Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. It was coined, theorized, and introduced in the book by editor Sheldon Lu. That was also the first time the phrase “transnational cinema” was used as a book title in world film studies. The immediate occasion for the rise of this concept had to do with the cultural landscape of Greater China and of the world in general in the post-Cold War period. Film coproduction across national and regional borders became a possibility again and was done more frequently. In the case of the Greater Chinese region of the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, filmmakers began to cooperate across the Taiwan Straits to make joint productions; they secured funding and established channels of circulation beyond their immediate territories. Simply put, transnational cinema is a cinema of border crossing, and transnational film studies transcends the unit of the nation state in film analysis. It can be understood as a model of film studies, a critical paradigm, a description of the film industry, and a type of film. The full methodological, historical, and critical implications of transnational Chinese film studies are first outlined in the introduction to the book Transnational Chinese Cinemas. Transnationalism is grasped at the following levels: First, the split of China into the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in modern history and consequently the coexistence of three competing national and local Chinese cinemas; second, the globalization of the production, circulation, and consumption of Chinese film in the age of transnational capitalism since the 1990s; third, the representation and questioning of “China” and “Chineseness” in filmic discourse itself—namely, the cross-examination of the national, cultural, political, ethnic, and gender identity of individuals and communities in the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Chinese diaspora; fourth, a re-viewing of and revisiting the history of Chinese ‘national cinema’ as if to read the ‘prehistory’ of transnational filmic discourse backwards in order to discover the ‘political unconscious’ of filmic discourse—the transnational roots and condition of cinema. Transnational film studies have become a major paradigm in Chinese film studies, along with the models of Chinese national cinema, Chinese-language cinema, and Sinophone cinema. It shares certain assumptions with the other three paradigms but also has its own characteristics and differences. Transnational Chinese film studies have also evolved into a broader study of “transnational visuality.” Transnational visual culture includes feature film, documentary, video, digital media, and visual arts. This situation is especially relevant in the so-called ‘postcinema’ stage when the film medium, the platform of film circulation, and the venue of viewing have changed tremendously. There are also various forms of transnational films. For instance, there exist the commercial-global blockbuster, independent art-house film, and exilic transnational cinema. Transnational cinema emerges and flourishes in the age and condition of globalization and transnational capitalism. However, this does not mean that transnational cinema necessarily serves the interests of transnational capitalism. Such a cinema can be liberating and counterhegemonic as well, depending on the particular situation.

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