Trans-Asian circuits of cinema and media exchange between Australia and Asia

This chapter maps trans-Asian circuits of cinema and media exchange between Australia and Asia in the last decade. It examines how three different film practices – the official co-production, the runaway production, and the independent production – map out the terrain of contemporary Asian Australian film relations. Through an assessment of the blockbuster China-Australia co-production, The Whistleblower (Xue Xiaolu 2019), an eco-thriller with action spanning across Australia, Asia, and Africa, I examine how a rich network of media exchange has formed between Australia and China to construct a nascent trans-Asian imaginary. Focusing on Dustin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), shot at Fox Studios, Sydney, I consider the transmedia potential of the Marvel Universe to the concept of trans-Asia. Finally, through an examination of Joy Hopwood’s Rhapsody of Love (2020), described as “crazy middle-class Asians,” I explore the concept of translocality and the transposition of the romantic comedy genre to an Asian Australian context.