Discussing Takeshi Kaneshiro: the pan-Asian star image on fan forums1

Chapter 5 focuses on the half-Taiwanese (Chinese), half-Japanese Takeshi Kaneshiro and his star image on fan forums, where his mixed ethnic identity becomes a central feature of his transnational stardom. This chapter pursues to show how such an identity renders the Chineseness and how the icon embodies onscreen ambivalent and unstable. As the chapter continues to elucidate, the impact of fan manipulation on Kaneshiro’s fluid persona is shown by the exploitation of his half-Japanese identity for charity by some Japan-based fan sites. This chapter, eventually, anchors its argument on the malleability fans find in Kaneshiro’s star persona, which embody either Chineseness or Japaneseness.

Conclusion

This chapter advances a theoretical formulation of Chineseness in participatory cyberculture. Subsequent to the brief revisit of the analyses from previous chapters, a concluding remark engages to Pierre Levy’s theory of cyberculture and David Rodowick’s (2007) theory of the so-called new media image to argue that the open cyber setting enables dynamic fans’ reworking of star texts and multiple ways of approaching Chineseness. The star presence becomes highly abstract that carries no historical essence or stable meanings of the ‘Chinese’. A new, hybrid mode of Chineseness as cine-cyber imaginary which is capricious and unstable emerges, redefining star personae in the Web-based environment. This chapter finally highlights how the entire book provides insight for further explorations of stardom and the pertinent phenomena in global digital culture by cogently uncovering the dynamics and debates of a vital relationship between Chinese stardom, web technologies, and fan discourse.

‘Flickering’ Jackie Chan: the actor-ambassadorial persona on photo-sharing sites

This chapter focuses on Jackie Chan, analysing his cyber presence oscillating in the interstices of ethnically Chinese image and a cosmopolitan goodwill appeal. The discussion shows that Flickr hosts official photo albums featuring Jackie Chan’s movies and goodwill events whereas these visual images present Chan as a still-thriving martial artist and a patriotic ambassador. Such goodwill image is, arguably, a token to retain the star value and to ‘apologise’ after a public mistake. Furthermore, considering his star personae was once anchored in martial prowess and kinetic agility, giving him a strong ethnic branding, such ethnically branded image has become increasingly universal. This chapter, therefore, argues that the image functions crucial to his bridging role between his nation and the world.

Blogging Donnie Yen: remaking the martial arts body as a cyber-intertext

This chapter inquires Donnie Yen’s martial arts body in blogosphere. It analyses that Yen’s kinetic body, often the focus of bloggers’ interest, is not only the corporeal entity that appears in individual films he starred in and become famous for, such as SPL: Sha Po Lang, Ip Man, and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen. It is also an outcome of sundry participatory forces, bridging the martial arts body to the elements in extra-diegetic settings such as Hollywood sci-fi genre, martial arts culture and hip hop culture. It, hence, appears as an intertextual phenomenon which bloggers keep reworking and renegotiating Chinese nationalism in tandem with cyber legends of Ip Man, Bruce Lee, and Chen Zhen. This chapter also pursues to discuss how the Chinese body of Yen is further questioned and complicated when users mix symbolic components drawn from Chinese or non-Chinese systems, and how the offscreen existence of Yen shows both resonance and incongruity to his screen personae complicating his martial arts image. This chapter ultimately argues that these new forms allow bloggers to revisit, represent, and contend the ethnic representation of Yen.

YouTubing Zhang Ziyi: Chinese female stardom in fan videos on video-sharing sites

This chapter probes the celebrity image of Zhang Ziyi on YouTube, of which users negotiate her debatable appeal, as situated in the politics of cultural nationalism, by sharing and commenting on Zhang’s notoriety on the Web. This chapter outlines the trajectory of Zhang’s star-making: her international fame began with her performance in the martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000); her English-speaking flair and her amourous encounters become a point of fan attention as she grows internationally well-known; she spoke broken English in front of press and public; her public personality is dogged by a series of quasi-sex scandals. This chapter, then, explains how these episodes give rise to viewers’ collective sympathy and antipathy of the star’s nationalistic presence. This chapter also postulates that Zhang’s hard work of improving her English, nevertheless, proves her upward mobility in global stardom. Taken together, the YouTube videos entail complexity of the star presence in ethnic, national and linguistic terms in the global visual circuit.

‘Friending’ Jet Li on Facebook: the celebrity-philanthropist persona in online social networks

This chapter investigates Jet Li’s celebrity-philanthropist personality in online social networks. The discussion emphasises on a Facebook fan page named under Jet Li, presumably is run by the actor to promote not only his movie but, more noticeably, his charity The One Foundation. It argues that his charity has a slogan, ‘One Foundation, One Family,’ evoking a world community in which human compassion and decency should extend to everyone, undermining the ‘Chinese’ element and bespeak a kind of ‘world’ awareness. As this chapter pursues to explain, the star presence in the cyber-network becomes a venue for the possible philanthropic mobilisation, displaying ambivalence of the notion of Chineseness.

Introduction

This introductory chapter delineates the picture of stardom in participatory cyberspace, epitomised by Web 2.0. It then concentrates on Chinese icons who have established their status in cinema and have transited to the Web, exploring the changing mode of star-making. It hypothesises the cine-cyber imaginary that conceptually informs the Chineseness in the global cyber setting. It also demonstrates how user participation is adopted as new methodology of studying Chinese stardom.