Hong Kong Cinema and Sinophone Transnationalisms
- 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.
Acknowledgements
A Note on Language
Glossary I: Chinese-language Film Titles
Glossary II: Chinese-language Names (Persons, Film Companies, etc.)
Glossary III: Chinese-language Terms and Phrases
Illustrations
Preface
I NEW BEGINNINGS
Chapter One - Locating Sinophone Cinema
Chapter Two – The Sinification of Early Shanghai and Hong Kong Cinema
II NEW DIRECTIONS
Chapter Three - Huangmei diao pian
Chapter Four - Caizi/Jiaren Romance in Disguise
Chapter Five - Fanchuan Acting: Cross-dressing and Performative Transexualities
III NEW IMAGINARIES
Chapter Six - Tongzhi Articulations in Fengyue Films
Chapter Seven - Transness: Hong Kong’s Bond Movies (Bangpian)
IV NEW WAVES
Chapter Eight - Tsui Hark: Accented Cinema
Chapter Nine - Tsui Hark: Time-Bomb Cinema
Chapter Ten - Tsui Hark: New Localisms
Afterword
Appendix - A Selection of Chinese-language Opera Film Avatars
Filmography and TV Resources
References
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.
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.
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.
