Critics frequently describe the influence of "America," through Hollywood and other cultural industries, as a form of cultural imperialism. This unidirectional model of interaction does not address, however, the counter-flows of Chinese-language films into the American film market or the influence of Chinese filmmakers, film stars, and aesthetics in Hollywood. The aim of this collection is to (re)consider the complex dynamics of transnational cultural flows between American and Chinese-language film industries. The goal is to bring a more historical perspective to the subject, focusing as much on the Hollywood influence on early Shanghai or postwar Hong Kong films as on the intensifying flows between American and Chinese-language cinemas in recent decades. Contributors emphasize the processes of appropriation and reception involved in transnational cultural practices, examining film production, distribution, and reception.

Zhang Yimou's first film, Red Sorghum, took the Golden Bear Award in 1988 at the Berlin International Film Festival. Since then Chinese films have continued to arrest worldwide attention and capture major film awards, winning an international following that continues to grow. Transnational Chinese Cinemas spans nearly the entire length of twentieth-century Chinese film history. The volume traces the evolution of Chinese national cinema, and demonstrates that gender identity has been central to its formation. Femininity, masculinity and sexuality have been an integral part of the filmic discourses of modernity, nationhood, and history. This volume represents the most comprehensive, wide-ranging, and up-to-date study of China's major cinematic traditions. It is an indispensable source book for modern Chinese and Asian history, politics, literature, and culture.

Critics frequently describe the influence of "America," through Hollywood and other cultural industries, as a form of cultural imperialism. This unidirectional model of interaction does not address, however, the counter-flows of Chinese-language films into the American film market or the influence of Chinese filmmakers, film stars, and aesthetics in Hollywood. The aim of this collection is to (re)consider the complex dynamics of transnational cultural flows between American and Chinese-language film industries. The goal is to bring a more historical perspective to the subject, focusing as much on the Hollywood influence on early Shanghai or postwar Hong Kong films as on the intensifying flows between American and Chinese-language cinemas in recent decades. Contributors emphasize the processes of appropriation and reception involved in transnational cultural practices, examining film production, distribution, and reception.

Ever since film was brought into China at the end of the nineteenth century, translation has conquered language, ideological and cultural barriers and facilitated the dissemination of films in China. Offering fresh visions and innovative studies on various important issues, including mistranslation, the dubbing of Hong Kong kung fu films, the dubbing of foreign films in China, the subtitling of Chinese dialect films, the subtitling of independent Chinese documentaries, and a vivid personal account of the translation and distribution of Chinese cinemas in France, this book aims to generate international dialogue by presenting diverse approaches to the translation and dissemination of Chinese cinemas. This book builds on previous research and further expands the horizons of the subfield, with the hope that this intervention will suggest new possibilities and territories for the study of the translation of Chinese cinemas. Translated foreign films have become an integral part of Chinese cinemas and translated Chinese films have in turn enriched the concept of world cinema. In many ways, it is a timely publication in the context of the globalization of the film industry - as Chinese films increasingly go global. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Chinese Cinemas.

What does it mean for a cinematic work to be "Chinese"? Does it refer specifically to a work's subject, or does it also reflect considerations of language, ethnicity, nationality, ideology, or political orientation? Such questions make any single approach to a vast field like "Chinese cinema" difficult at best. Accordingly, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas situates the term more broadly among various different phases, genres, and distinct national configurations, while taking care to address the consequences of grouping together so many disparate histories under a single banner. Offering both a platform for cross-disciplinary dialogue and a mapping of Chinese cinema as an expanded field, this Handbook presents thirty-three essays by leading researchers and scholars intent on yielding new insights and new analyses using three different methodologies. Chapters in Part I investigate the historical periodizations of the field through changing notions of national and political identity — all the way from the industry's beginnings in the 1920s up to its current forms in contemporary Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the global diaspora. Chapters in Part II feature studies centered on the field's taxonomical formalities, including such topics as the role of the Chinese opera in technological innovation, the political logic of the "Maoist film," and the psychoanalytic formula of the kung fu action film. Finally, in Part III, focus is given to the structural elements that comprise a work's production, distribution, and reception to reveal the broader cinematic apparatuses within which these works are positioned. Taken together, the multipronged approach supports a wider platform beyond the geopolitical and linguistic limitations in existing scholarship. Expertly edited to illustrate a representative set of up to date topics and approaches, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas provides a vital addition to a burgeoning field still in its formative stages.

Introduction : revisiting the field of Chinese ecocinema / Haomin Gong -- Mapping Taiwanese ecodocumentary landscape : politics of aesthetics and environmental ethics in Taiwanese ecodocumentaries / Kuei-fen Chiu -- Nature in the city : a study of Hong Kong Independent Eco-Cinema and Eco-Film Festival / Winnie L. M. Yee -- Three ecologies of cinema, migration, and the sea : Anchorage prohibited and Luzon / Elizebath Wijaya -- Tracing extraction in contemporary Chinese cinema : Tie Xi Qu and the politics of the resource image / Pietari Kääpä -- Chai Jing's Under the Dome : A Multimedia Documentary in the digital age / Shuqin Cui -- Global animal capital and animal garbage : documentary redemption and hope / Chia-ju Chang -- Transcendence and transgression : reading wolf totem as environmental world literature/cinema? / Haomin Gong -- Fabulating animals-human affinity : towards an ethics of care in monster hunt and mermaid / Fiona Yuk-wa Law -- Sinification by greening : politics, nature, and ethnic borderlands in Maoist ecocinema / Cheng Li -- No man's land : cco-Western in contemporary Chinese cinema / Kun Qian

In a work that will force scholars to re-evaluate how they approach Sinophone studies, Wai-Siam Hee demonstrates that many of the major issues raised by contemporary Sinophone studies were already hotly debated in the popular culture surrounding Chinese-language films made in Singapore and Malaya during the Cold War. Despite the high political stakes, the feature films, propaganda films, newsreels, documentaries, newspaper articles, memoirs, and other published materials of the time dealt in sophisticated ways with issues some mistakenly believe are only modern concerns. In the process, the book offers an alternative history to the often taken-for-granted versions of film and national history that sanction anything relating to the Malayan Communist Party during the early period of independence in the region as anti-nationalist. Drawing exhaustively on material from Asian, European, and North American archives, the author unfolds the complexities produced by British colonialism and anti-communism, identity struggles of the Chinese Malayans, American anti-communism, and transnational Sinophone cultural interactions. Hee shows how Sinophone multilingualism and the role of the local, in addition to other theoretical problems, were both illustrated and practised in Cold War Sinophone cinema. Remapping the Sinophone: The Cultural Production of Chinese-Language Cinema in Singapore and Malaya before and during the Cold War deftly shows how contemporary Sinophone studies can only move forward by looking backwards. ‘Sound and refreshingly original. Remapping the Sinophone is an important book that will change the ways in which scholars tackle Sinophone studies, and it will exert profound influence on related scholarship published in both the Sinophone and the Anglophone world.’ —Shu-mei Shih, UCLA / The University of Hong Kong ‘Remapping the Sinophone offers a fresh perspective to Sinophone studies by mapping out the relevance of early Chinese-language cinema in Singapore and Malaya to the burgeoning field. Wai-Siam Hee’s examination of this lesser known cultural history in Southeast Asia through the critical lens of the Cold War is a necessary intervention to our understanding of Sinophone Cinema as a pluralistic form.’ —E. K. Tan, SUNY Stony Brook