The Reform and Opening-up of China since the late 1970s has not only transformed the economic and political situation of the country but also transformed the Chinese film industry. This volume focuses on the 40 years of the history of Chinese film in the post-Mao era. As all aspects of film production, distribution, and exhibition have been commercialized, Chinese film has become an industry of immense scale and has grown by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, contemporary Chinese film is marked by a new zeitgeist, with Chinese film closely integrated with Chinese society and the economy. The author argues that the Chinese film industry clearly stands at a turning point where the future of Chinese film and the way to further awaken, change, and shape film production have become important issues worth consideration in contemporary film history. The book will be an essential reading for scholars and students in film studies, Chinese studies, cultural studies and media studies, helping readers to develop a comprehensive understanding of Chinese film.

Since 1949, Chinese film has been greatly influenced by a variety of historical, cultural, and political events in the history of the People’s Republic of China. This volume explores the development of Chinese film from 1949 to 1976. This volume restores Chinese film to its original historical form and assesses its complex relationship with society, politics, culture, and art in the Maoist period. The 17-year films, Cultural Revolution-era films, the influence of model operas, and the documentary newsreels of Xinwen Jianbao are discussed. Combining a macro-perspective with a micro-perspective, the author analyzes the special characteristics of Chinese film in this period and showcases the inheritance and differences between earlier Chinese film and Chinese film in the newly founded the People’s Republic of China. The book will be essential reading for scholars and students in film studies, Chinese studies, cultural studies, and media studies, helping readers develop a comprehensive understanding of Chinese film.

The early years of the history of Chinese film have lately been the subject of resurgent interest and a growing body of scholarship has come to recognise and identify an extraordinarily diverse and complex period. This volume explores the development of Chinese film from 1896 to 1949. The volume covers the screening of foreign films in Shanghai, Hong Kong and other coastal cities in China, the technological and industrial development of Chinese national cinema, key filmmakers and actors of early Chinese cinema, changing modes of representation and narration, as well as the social and cultural contexts within which early Chinese films were produced and circulated. The relationship between the War of Resistance against Japan and the Chinese civil war and Chinese film is also explored. The book will be essential reading for scholars and students in film studies, Chinese studies, cultural studies and media studies, helping readers develop a comprehensive understanding of Chinese film.

This book examines Chinese film in the twenty-first century. Organized around the themes "movements," "genres," and "intermedia," it reflects on how Chinese cinema has changed, adapted, and evolved over past decades and prognosticates as to its future trajectories. It considers how established film genres in China have adapted and transformed themselves, and discusses current shifts in documentary filmmaking, the ethos and practices of "grassroots intellectual" independent filmmakers, and the adaption of foreign film genres to serve the ideological and political needs of the present. It also explores how film is drawing on the socio-historical and political contexts of the past to create new cinematic discourses and the ways film is providing a voice to previously marginalised ethnic groups. In addition, the book analyses the influences of past aesthetic traditions on the creative and artistic expressions of twenty-first-century films and cinema’s relation to other media forms, including folktales, moving image installations, architecture, and painting. Throughout, the book assesses how Chinese films have been conceptualized, examined, and communicated domestically and abroad and emphasizes the importance of new directions in Chinese film, thus highlighting the plurality, vitality, and hybridity of Chinese cinema in the twenty-first century. Chapter 10 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Focusing on transculturality, this edited volume explores how the role of translation and the idea of (un)translatability in the transformative complementation of different civilizations facilitates the transcultural connection between Chinese and other cultures in the modern era. Bringing together established international scholars and emerging new voices, this collection explores the linguistic, social, and cultural implications of translation and transculturality. The 13 chapters not only discuss the translation of literature, but also break new ground by addressing the translation of cinema, performance, and the visual arts, which are active bearers of modern and contemporary culture that are often neglected by academics. Through an engagement with these diverse fields, the title aims not only to reflect on how translation has reproduced values, concepts, and cultural forms, but also to stimulate the emergence of new possibilities in the dynamic transcultural interplay between China and the diverse national, cultural-linguistic, and contexts of Europe, the Americas, and Asia. It shows how cultures have been appropriated, misunderstood, transformed, and reconstructed through processes of linguistic mediation, as well as how knowledge, understanding, and connections have been generated through transculturality. The book will be a must read for scholars and students of translation studies, transcultural studies, and Chinese studies.

The Encyclopedia of Chinese Film, one of the first ever encyclopedias in this area, provides alphabetically organized entries on directors, genres, themes, and actors and actresses from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as 300 film synopses. Great care has been taken to provide solid cultural and historical context to the facts. The alphabetical entries are preceded by a substantial historical section, incorporating material on the the main studios and analysing the impact of Chinese film abroad as well as at home in recent years. This Encyclopedia meets the needs, equally, of * the film studies scholar * the student of Chinese culture * the specialist in Chinese film * the curious viewer wanting to know more. Additional features include: * comprehensive cross-references and suggestions for further reading * a list of relevant websites * a chronology of films and a classified contents list * three indexes - (one of film and tv titles with directors names and year of release, one of names including actors, writers, directors and producers and one of studios, all with pinyin romanizations) * a glossary of pinyin romanizations, Chinese characters and English equivalents to aid the specialist in moving between Chinese titles and English translations.

This book explores how Chinese films constructed an image of China in the 1980s through analyzing the characters, composition of space, and conflict patterns of the films. It also examines the relationship between the representations in Chinese cinema and the realities of Chinese society. The study analyzes the imagery, metaphors, and cultural values of Chinese films in the 1980s to discover the common creative focus of Chinese film directors at the time. It also examines the specific creative elements and cultural significance of Chinese cinema in the 1980s. This book is neither a “period history” of Chinese cinema in the 80s, nor a thematic study of the “fifth generation”. Rather, it is an analysis of films as narrative texts that reflected on history. It uses the perspectives revealed by characters, narrative patterns, and conflicts in films of the 1980s to examine how the era was perceived at that time as well as how China’s national future and individuals’ personal futures were being conceptualized. This title will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of Chinese Studies, Contemporary China Studies, Film Studies, and those who are interested in Chinese culture and society in general.

Honourable Mention, Best Monograph Award, BAFTSS Publication Awards 2022 Sheldon Lu's wide-ranging new book investigates how filmmakers and visual artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have envisioned China as it transitions from a socialist to a globalized capitalist state. It examines how the modern nation has been refashioned and re-imagined in order to keep pace with globalization and transnationalism. At the heart of Lu's analysis is a double movement in the relationship between nation and transnationalism in the Chinese post-socialist state. He considers the complexity of how the Chinese economy is integrated in the global capitalist system while also remaining a repressive body politic with mechanisms of control and surveillance. He explores the interrelations of the local, the national, the subnational, and the global as China repositions itself in the world. Lu considers examples from feature and documentary film, mainstream and marginal cinema, and a variety of visual arts: photography, painting, digital video, architecture, and installation. His close case studies include representations of class, masculinity and sexuality in contemporary Taiwanese and Chinese cinema; the figure of the sex worker as a symbol of modernity and mobility; and artists' representations of Beijing at the time of the 2008 Olympics.

The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement is a groundbreaking project unveiling recent documentary film work that has transformed visual culture in China, and brought new immediacy along with a broader base of participation to Chinese media. As a foundational text, this volume provides a much-needed introduction to the topic of Chinese documentary film, the signature mode of contemporary Chinese visual culture. These essays examine how documentary filmmakers have opened up a unique new space of social commentary and critique in an era of rapid social changes amid globalization and marketization. The essays cover topics ranging from cruelty in documentary to the representation of Beijing; gay, lesbian and queer documentary; sound in documentary; the exhibition context in China; authorial intervention and subjectivity; and the distinctive "on the spot" aesthetics of contemporary Chinese documentary. This volume will be critical reading for scholars in disciplines ranging from film and media studies to Chinese studies and Asian studies.