This collection examines the exchange of Asian identities taking place at the levels of both film production and film reception amongst pan-Pacific cinemas. The authors consider, on the one hand, texts that exhibit what Mette Hjort refers to as, "marked transnationality," and on the other, the polysemic nature of transnational film texts by examining the release and reception of these films. The topics explored in this collection include the innovation of Hollywood generic formulas into 1950's and 1960's Hong Kong and Japanese films; the examination of Thai and Japanese raced and gendered identity in Asian and American films; the reception of Hollywood films in pre-1949 China and millennial Japan; the production and performance of Asian adoptee identity and subjectivity; the political implications and interpretations of migrating Chinese female stars; and the production and reception of pan-Pacific co-productions. .

This collection examines the exchange of Asian identities taking place at the levels of both film production and film reception amongst pan-Pacific cinemas. The authors consider, on the one hand, texts that exhibit what Mette Hjort refers to as, "marked transnationality," and on the other, the polysemic nature of transnational film texts by examining the release and reception of these films. The topics explored in this collection include the innovation of Hollywood generic formulas into 1950's and 1960's Hong Kong and Japanese films; the examination of Thai and Japanese raced and gendered identity in Asian and American films; the reception of Hollywood films in pre-1949 China and millennial Japan; the production and performance of Asian adoptee identity and subjectivity; the political implications and interpretations of migrating Chinese female stars; and the production and reception of pan-Pacific co-productions. .

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.

An emerging interest in a British East and Southeast Asian identity after decades of political and social exclusion has coincided with periods of economic and political challenges in the UK. In Migration and Identity in British East and Southeast Asian Cinema, Leung Wing-Fai argues that this explosive context has created rich and diverse forms of storytelling and an accented cinematic language. By offering close readings of key contemporary films and positioning them in a wider slate of releases by British East and Southeast Asian filmmakers alongside Anglophone film histories in the Global North, this book sheds light on a developing field and engenders new ways of understanding British cinema and society. The author explores changing representational politics in contemporary cinema and argues for the cinematic visibility of a hitherto silenced community. Drawing on theoretical frames from sociological, film and cultural studies to critically engage with the textual and visual language of the case studies, Leung claims the place of British East and Southeast Asian Cinema as a film and cultural movement. Highlighting diversity among the British East and Southeast Asian community, pushing boundaries in its intersectional approach to ethnicity, race, gender and sexuality, and proposing a critical framework for academic studies on diasporic film-making in the UK, this nuanced and innovative study will interest researchers, teachers and students in a range of Humanities and Liberal Arts subjects, including Film and Media Studies, Regional/Area Studies (Asia), and arts, cultural and creative productions from the East and Southeast Asian diaspora.

In Chinese Cinema: Identity, Power, and Globalization, a variety of scholars explore the history, aesthetics, and politics of Chinese cinema as the Chinese film industry grapples with its place as the second largest film industry in the world. Exploring the various ways that Chinese cinema engages with global politics, market forces, and film cultures, this edited volume places Chinese cinema against an array of contexts informing the contours of Chinese cinema today. The book also demonstrates that Chinese cinema in the global context is informed by the intersections and tensions found in Chinese and world politics, national and international co-productions, the local and global in representing Chineseness, and the lived experiences of social and political movements versus screened politics in Chinese film culture. This work is a pioneer investigation of the topic and will inspire future research by other scholars of film studies. “This edited volume offers a much-needed account of alternative ways of envisioning Chinese cinema in the special context of China and the world. Its vigorous theoretical framework, which puts emphasis on interactions in the context of China and the world, will complement and update publications in related areas.” —Yiu-Wai Chu, The University of Hong Kong; author of Main Melody Films: Hong Kong Directors in Mainland China “Chinese Cinema: Identity, Power, and Globalization offers a collection of studies of modern Chinese films and their global connections, with a contemporary emphasis. Its authors’ insightful analyses of films—famous, obscure, and new to the twenty-first-century screen—elucidate numerous contextual factors relevant for understanding the history and aesthetics of Chinese cinemas.” —Christopher Rea, The University of British Columbia; author of Chinese Film Classics, 1922–1949

Finalist for the 2014 ForeWord IndieFab Book of the Year Award in the Women's Studies Category Bronze Medalist, 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Women Issues Category Winnerof the 2015 Emily Toth Award presented by the Popular Culture Association & American Culture Association Warrior Women considers the significance of Chinese female action stars in martial arts films produced across a range of national and transnational contexts. Lisa Funnell examines the impact of the 1997 transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule on the representation of Chinese identities—Hong Kong Chinese, mainland Chinese, Chinese American, Chinese Canadian—in action films produced domestically in Hong Kong and, increasingly, in cooperation with mainland China and Hollywood. Hong Kong cinema has offered space for the development of transnational Chinese screen identities that challenge the racial stereotypes historically associated with the Asian female body in the West. The ethnic/national differentiation of transnational Chinese female stars—such as Pei Pei Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gong Li, Lucy Liu, Shu Qi, Michelle Yeoh, and Zhang Ziyi—is considered part of the ongoing negotiation of social, cultural, and geopolitical identities in the Chinese-speaking world.

The Cold War was a distinct and crucial period in Hong Kong's evolution and in its relations with China and the rest of the world. Hong Kong was a window through which the West could monitor what was happening in China and an outlet that China could use to keep in touch with the outside world. Exploring the many complexities of Cold War politics from a global and interdisciplinary perspective, Hong Kong in the Cold War shows how Hong Kong attained and honed a pragmatic tradition that bridged the abyss between such opposite ideas as capitalism and communism, thus maintaining a compromise between China and the rest of the world. The chapters are written by nine leading international scholars and address issues of diplomacy and politics, finance and economics, intelligence and propaganda, refugees and humanitarianism, tourism and popular culture, and their lasting impact on Hong Kong. Far from simply describing a historical period, these essays show that Hong Kong's unique Cold War experience may provide a viable blueprint for modern-day China to develop a similar model of good governance and may in fact hold the key to the successful implementation of the One Country Two Systems idea. “This is a timely collection of essays on the role of Hong Kong in a global context and its multifaceted relationship with mainland China. It is emerging at a particularly appropriate moment when the local community has been provoked to reflect on its common fate under the notion of ‘one country, two systems.’” —Ray Yep, City University of Hong Kong “Hong Kong, the ‘Berlin of the East,’ was transformed by the Cold War, an existential conflict between capitalism and communism. Consequently, this fine volume is a must-read for political, cultural, and economic historians of Hong Kong. International historians should also add this collection of essays and cutting-edge empirical studies to their reading lists: it will enrich their understandings of the Global Cold War.” —David Clayton, University of York

Provides a transnational perspective on some of the complex cultural effects of emerging global capitalisms and modernities in the Asia Pacific region.