Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
Hong Kong Cinema and Sinophone Transnationalisms
by Tan See-Kam
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
Examines new sinophone modes of filmic address in Hong Kong cinema in the 20th century, enabling a developing cosmopolitanism to emerge
• Examines new sinophone modes of filmic address in Hong Kong cinema in the 20th century
• Explores the Sinophone, queering strategies, and cosmopolitanism through textual analysis of key genres and figures in Hong Kong film history, including the Shaw Brothers and Tsui Hark
• Historicizes the Sinophone by locating its articulations in specific industrial contexts, and through historical cases of genre, stardom, and authorship
Hong Kong Cinema and Sinophone Transnationalisms explores the intricate complexity of selected films and film-making practices from 1930s Hong Kong (and Shanghai) to the later ‘new wave’ phenomenon of the 1980s. The result is a Sinophone cinema that created some very different ways of understanding ‘China’ and ‘Chineseness’, developing their own ‘cosmopolitan dreaming’ within the cultural and economic changes of those times.
Exploring sinification and its multiple manifestations in film, the book examines cinematic genres including Huangmei Opera films, qiqing (strange or queer romance) films, fanchuaners (professional cross-sex performers) in film, Hong Kong’s Bond Movies (bangpian), erotic (fengyue) films, and New Wave Hong Kong cinema. In doing so, this book lays fruitful foundations for further understanding the development and changing faces of Hong Kong films and sinophone transnationalism in the even more complex and changing times of today.
About the Author:
Dr See Kam Tan is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Macau.
Press Reviews:
Tan offers a welcome and insightful survey of Hong Kong and Shanghai cinema from the 1930s to the 1980s, arguing for changing concepts of "nation," "China," and "Chineseness." [...] The book offers a thorough analysis of Sinophone culture and cinema through a nonessentialist lens, resulting in a model for transnational cinema studies, rejecting the "nation" as a model for organization. Recommended.– K. J. Wetmore Jr., Loyola Marymount University, CHOICE
Tan See Kam’s seriously sensational lens highlights the long golden age of Hong Kong cinema before 1984 as a source of thrilling new possibilities; this dynamic core culture of the Chinese diaspora attracted viewers in their millions by shaking up the values and norms of not only the Chinese homeland but also Western modernity.– Chris Berry, King's College London
This very welcome addition to the scholarship on transnational Chinese cinema provides the needed depth and breadth to appreciate the expansive historical and geographic sweep of Chinese-language film with Hong Kong at its beating heart. Tan deftly moves from Shanghai roots through cross-dressing operatic romances, softcore court intrigues, James Bond-style spy stories, and swordplay actioners as they circulate through Hong Kong and throughout the Chinese diaspora. Culminating with Tsui Hark’s New Wave Chinese-accented cosmopolitanism, this book highlights the continuing importance of Hong Kong at a cinematic crossroads that connects Asia to the rest of the world.– Gina Marchetti, author of Citing China: Politics, Postmodernism, and World Cinema
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
> From the same author:
Chinese Connections (2009)
Critical Perspectives on Film, Identity, and Diaspora
Dir. Tan See-Kam, Peter X. Feng and Gina Marchetti
> On a related topic:
Beyond Bruce Lee (2013)
Chasing the Dragon Through Film, Philosophy, and Popular Culture
by Paul Bowman
Chinese Face/off (2005)
The Transnational Popular Culture Of Hong Kong
Main Melody Films (2022)
Hong Kong Directors in Mainland China
Early Film Culture in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Republican China (2018)
Kaleidoscopic Histories
Dir. Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh
Back
