Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of figures and tables -- List of abbreviations -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Chinese audiences and the cinema of class -- 2 Class on screen and in reality: pre-conditioning audiences -- 3 Let the Bullets Fly: the socialisation of assumptions -- 4 Lost on Journey: prejudice in class relations -- 5 Go Lala Go!: secretaries, shopping and spinsterhood -- 6 House Mania: homeownership, marriageability and masculinity -- 7 The Piano in a Factory: suzhi, industrial heroes and the spectacle of poverty -- 8 Conclusion: class, the film and the filmmaker -- Films list -- Appendix: group discussants -- Let the Bullets Fly -- Lost on Journey -- Go Lala Go! -- House Mania -- The Piano in a Factory -- Index

Winner, 2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Chinese Film Classics, 1922–1949 is an essential guide to the first golden age of Chinese cinema. Offering detailed introductions to fourteen films, this study highlights the creative achievements of Chinese filmmakers in the decades leading up to 1949, when the Communists won the civil war and began nationalizing cultural industries. Christopher Rea reveals the uniqueness and complexity of Republican China’s cinematic masterworks, from the comedies and melodramas of the silent era to the talkies and musicals of the 1930s and 1940s. Each chapter appraises the artistry of a single film, highlighting its outstanding formal elements, from cinematography to editing to sound design. Examples include the slapstick gags of Laborer’s Love (1922), Ruan Lingyu’s star turn in Goddess (1934), Zhou Xuan’s mesmerizing performance in Street Angels (1937), Eileen Chang’s urbane comedy of manners Long Live the Missus! (1947), the wartime epic Spring River Flows East (1947), and Fei Mu’s acclaimed work of cinematic lyricism, Spring in a Small Town (1948). Rea shares new insights and archival discoveries about famous films, while explaining their significance in relation to politics, society, and global cinema. Lavishly illustrated and featuring extensive guides to further viewings and readings, Chinese Film Classics, 1922–1949 offers an accessible tour of China’s early contributions to the cinematic arts.

China’s commercial film industry can be used as a map to understand how class is interwoven into the imaginations that inform and influence social change in Chinese society. Film consumption is important in this process, particularly for young adult urbanites that are China’s primary commercial cinema patrons. This book investigates the web between the representation of class themes in Chinese film narratives, local audience reception to these films, and the socialisation of China’s contemporary class society. Bringing together textual analyses of narratives from five commercially exhibited films: Let the Bullets Fly (Jiang: 2010), Lost on Journey (Yip: 2011), Go Lala Go! (Xu: 2011), House Mania (Sun: 2011) and The Piano in the Factory (Zheng: 2011); and the reception of 179 Chinese audiences from varying class positions, it investigates the extent to which fictional narratives inform and reflect current class identities in present-day China. Through group discussions in Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Lanzhou and Taiyuan, the author searches for audiences beyond major cities that are typically the focus of film consumption studies in China. As such, the book reveals not only how deeply and widespread the socialisation of China’s class society has become in the imaginations of Chinese audiences, but also what appears to be a preference of both audiences and filmmakers for the continuation of China’s new class society. Revealing the extent to which cinema continues to play a key role in the socialisation of class structures in contemporary Chinese society, this book will be important for students and scholars of Chinese Studies, Film Studies, Communication Studies, as well as observers of China’s film industry.

Hsiu-Chang Deppman puts landmark contemporary Chinese films in the context of their literary origins & explores how the best Chinese directors adapt fictional narratives & styles for film.

This is the first major work on pre-1949 Chinese cinema in English. As such, it represents a major contribution to existing discussions of both Chinese cinema and national cinema, and is an indispensible basic resource for scholars interested in Chinese film history. The book analyses the wide variety of conceptions of "Chinese national cinema" between the early years of the 20th century and 1949, and contrasts these to conceptions of national cinema in Europe and China. After years of exhausting primary historical research, the author has been able to bring to light sources hitherto not widely available. The author argues that questions and debates about the status and meaning of the "national" in "Chinese national cinema" are central to any consideration of cinema during this period, and addresses the issue of Chinese nationalism as part of a complex history of cinema within the early modern Chinese nation.

DIVAn anthology that explores film works by the "urban generation,"--filmmakers who operate outside of "mainstream" (officially sanctioned) Chinese cinema -- whose impact has been enormous./div

Chinese Cinemas: International Perspectives examines the impact the rapid expansion of Chinese filmmaking in mainland China has had on independent and popular Chinese cinemas both in and outside of China. While the large Chinese markets are coveted by Hollywood, the commercial film industry within the People’s Republic of China has undergone rapid expansion since the 1990s. Its own production, distribution and exhibition capacities have increased exponentially in the past 20 years, producing box-office success both domestically and abroad. This volume gathers the work of a range of established scholars and newer voices on Chinese cinemas to address questions that interrogate both Chinese films and the place and space of Chinese cinemas within the contemporary global film industries, including the impact on independent filmmaking both within and outside of China; the place of Chinese cinemas produced outside of China; and the significance of new internal and external distribution and exhibition patterns on recent conceptions of Chinese cinemas. This is an ideal book for students and researchers interested in Chinese and Asian Cinema, as well as for students studying topics such as World Cinema and Asian Studies.