Chinese Cinema

Chinese cinema is the only non-English language cinema to have a significant global presence. From multiplex blockbusters like Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to festival hits such as Jia Zhangke’s Still Life, Chinese cinema succeeds like no other foreign-language cinema. The interdisciplinary field of Chinese Cinema Studies has boomed alongside these developments and, today, no Asian Studies, Chinese Studies, or Film and Media Studies programme is complete without courses that cover Chinese cinema, including the cinemas of the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the wider Chinese diaspora.

While research in and around Chinese cinema flourishes as never before, not least because of its highly interdisciplinary nature, much of the relevant literature remains inaccessible or is highly specialized and compartmentalized, so that it is difficult for many of those who are interested in the subject to obtain an informed, balanced, and comprehensive overview. This new four-volume collection from Routledge’s acclaimed series, Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, addresses that problem and meets the need for a reference work to help make sense of the subject’s vast and widely dispersed literature, and the continuing explosion in research output.

The materials gathered by the editor, a leading scholar in the field, include major works that explore: aesthetics through key films and directors; film cultural practices, such as consumption, distribution, exhibition, reception and criticism; production practices, for instance, genres, stars, studio structures, and marketing; and cinema’s connection to society and its relationship to issues such as the nation-state, revolution, and gender. The collection’s temporal scope extends from the arrival of cinema via the Lumière Brothers in 1895 to the present day, and it ranges widely across all territories to include full coverage of the films produced by the ethnic Chinese diaspora.

Chinese Cinema is supplemented by a full index and chronological tables of contents. It also includes an introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the gathered materials in their historical and intellectual context.

'This new collection, which comprises four bulky volumes, is the most comprehensive set of essays on Chinese cinema published in English. Berry (King's College London, UK), the editor of the collection, is one of the foremost scholarly authorities who writes and publishes (in English) on Chinese film history and criticism. The set is divided into seven sections and includes major works that explore aesthetics through key films and directors; film cultural practices, such as consumption, distribution, exhibition, reception, and criticism; production practices, including genres, stars, studio structures, and marketing; and cinema's connection to society and its relationship to issues such as the nation-state, revolution, and gender. The list of contributors has almost every major scholar in the field, including Paul Clark, Paul J. Pickowicz, Rey Chow, Stephen Teo, Stan Rosen, June Yip, and many others (including Berry). Although most of the essays are reprinted articles or chapters from previously published books, not all of this material is easily accessible. By publishing all of these works in one convenient title, the publisher has done a great service to the field...these books deserve a place on the shelves of every major research library. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All major research libraries.' - J. M. Hargett, CHOICE