How East Asian Films are Reshaping National Identities: Essays on the Cinemas of China, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong

This collection of essays explores the mosaic of East Asian cinema by focusing on issues of identity, history and trans-regional cultural flow withnin this dynamic region. The argument of the editors is firstly, cinematic cross-pollination within East Asian film has been a constant since 1945, and second, any discussion of the complex identity of East Asia and its national cinemas must consider regional historical issues. These arguments run counter to recent literature published in the field of East Asian cinema that claim responses to Western globalization and modernization are the shaping forces for Asian cultural identity.

Foreword by Hyangjin Lee; Acknowledgements; Introduction
1. “Natural Culturalism in Narayamabushi-kô (The Ballad of Narayama): A Study of Sh?hei Imamura’s Thematic Concerns” by Lee Wood Hung (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
2. “History, Film and National Myth: The Opium War Revisited by Martin Gieselmann (University of Heidelberg)
3. “Cinematic Representations of the Chinese Cultural Revolution” by Ming-May Jessie Chen (Providence University, Taiwan)
4. “After the Fin de Siècle: the Post-Nostalgic Imagination in Qianyan wanyu (Ordinary Heroes) and Fruit Chan’s Xilu xiang (Little Cheung)”
5. “Neither Here Nor There: Positive Responses to Modernity in South Korean Film” by Michael Gibb (City University of Hong Kong) and Andrew Jackson (London University)
6. “The New Cinematic Language of South Korean Film” by Andrew Jackson (London University)
7. “The Little (Chinese) Mermaid, or Importing “Western” Femininity in Lou Ye’s Suzhou he (Suzhou River)” by Sean Metzger (Duke University)
8. “The Mainland ‘Other’ in the Hong Kong Commercial Mainstream: Political Change and Cultural Adaptation” by Vivian Lee (University of Victoria, Canada)
9. “Minorities in Japan as Seen in Recent Japanese Cinema” by Dave White (Tokai Gakuen University, Nagoya)
10. “From Musicals to Martial Arts: Fifty Years of Hong-Kong Japanese Cinematic Cooperation” by Kinnia Yau Shuk Ting (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
11. “History of Japanese Pornographic Films in Hong Kong and Their Impact on Hong Kong Category 3 Films” by Benjamin Wai-ming Ng (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
12. “Asia the Invincible: Discourses of Regionalism in Dong fang bu bai 2: zhi feng yun zai qi (The East is Red) and Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)” by Olivia Khoo (University of New South Wales, Australia)
13. “Transnational Popular Culture and the Tension of Regional Identity: A Ban on Chun guang zha xie (Happy Together) in South Korea” by Lee Hyung-sook (University of Southern California)
Index