King Hu S Kung Fu Cinematic Art

This scholarly compendium offers a comprehensive analysis of King Hu’s transformative impact on Chinese martial arts cinema. It begins with a foundational examination of King Hu’s directorial influence, setting the stage for an in-depth exploration of his filmography, including critical works like Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen. The volume employs advanced theoretical frameworks, such as David Bordwell’s film poetics, to dissect King Hu’s pervasive influence across generations of filmmakers, and the analysis of cultural translation and subtitling practices further illuminates the global dissemination and reception of Hu’s films. A critical focus is placed on King Hu’s oeuvre, analyzing its adaptability and intertextual resonance within broader artistic milieus. The book also critiques Hu’s representation of women in martial arts cinema, interrogating both progressive and problematic elements. Concluding sections emphasize Hu’s mastery in marrying classical Chinese narrative techniques with visual storytelling, highlighting his enduring legacy in the martial arts genre and global cinematic landscape. This volume asserts King Hu as a pivotal cultural auteur, whose work continues to shape cinematic expression and discourse, making it an essential resource for scholars in film studies and aficionados of wuxia cinema.

A Touch of Zen is one of the first Chinese-language films to gain recognition in an international film festival (the Grand Prix at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival), creating the generic mould for the "crossover" success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in 2000. The film has achieved a cult status over the years but little has been written about it. This first book-length study of the classic martial arts film therefore redresses its critical neglect, and explores its multi-leveled dimensions and mysteries. One of the central features of the film is the enigmatic knight-lady (xia nü) whose quest for revenge leads her to cross paths with a poor scholar whose interest in military strategy seals their alliance. Teo discusses the psychological manifestations and implications of this relationship and concludes that the film's continuing relevance lies in its portrait of sexuality and the feminist desires of the heroine. Teo also analyzes the film's form as an action piece and the director's preoccupation with Zen as a creative inspiration and as a subject in its own right. As such, he argues that the film is a highly unconventional and idiosyncratic work which attempts to transcend its own genre and reach the heights of universal transcendence. Teo grounds his study in both Western and Chinese literary sources, providing a broad and comprehensive treatise based on the film's narrative concepts and symbols.

This is the first comprehensive, fully-researched account of the historical and contemporary development of the traditional martial arts genre in the Chinese cinema known as wuxia (literal translation: martial chivalry) - a genre which audiences around the world became familiar with through the phenomenal 'crossover' hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The book unveils rich layers of the wuxia tradition as it developed in the early Shanghai cinema in the late 1920s, and from the 1950s onwards, in the Hong Kong and Taiwan film industries. Key attractions of the book are analyses of:*The history of the tradition as it began in the Shanghai cinema, its rise and popularity as a serialized form in the silent cinema of the late 1920s, and its eventual prohibition by the government in 1931.*The fantastic characteristics of the genre, their relationship with folklore, myth and religion, and their similarities and differences with the kung fu sub-genre of martial arts cinema.*The protagonists and heroes of the genre, in particular the figure of the female knight-errant.*The chief personalities and masterpieces of the genre - directors such as King Hu, Chu Yuan, Zhang Che, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, and films such as Come Drink With Me (1966), The One-Armed Swordsman (1967), A Touch of Zen (1970-71), Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006).

At the core of Martial Arts Cinema and Hong Kong Modernity: Aesthetics, Representation, Circulation is a fascinating paradox: the martial arts film, long regarded as a vehicle of Chinese cultural nationalism, can also be understood as a mass cultural expression of Hong Kong’s modern urban-industrial society. This important and popular genre, Man-Fung Yip argues, articulates the experiential qualities, the competing social subjectivities and gender discourses, as well as the heightened circulation of capital, people, goods, information, and technologies in Hong Kong of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to providing a novel conceptual framework for the study of Hong Kong martial arts cinema and shedding light on the nexus between social change and cultural/aesthetic form, this book offers perceptive analyses of individual films, including not only the canonical works of King Hu, Chang Cheh, and Bruce Lee, but also many lesser-known ones by Lau Kar-leung and Chor Yuen, among others, that have not been adequately discussed before. Thoroughly researched and lucidly written, Yip’s stimulating study will ignite debates in new directions for both scholars and fans of Chinese-language martial arts cinema. “Yip subjects critical clichés to rigorous examination, moving beyond generalized notions of martial arts cinema’s appeal and offering up informed scrutiny of every facet of the genre. He has the ability to encapsulate these films’ particularities with cogent examples and, at the same time, demonstrate a thorough familiarity with the historical context in which this endlessly fascinating genre arose.” —David Desser, professor emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign “Eschewing a reductive chronology, Yip offers a persuasive, detailed, and sophisticated excavation of martial arts cinema which is read through and in relation to rapid transformation of Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s. An exemplar of critical genre study, this book represents a significant contribution to the discipline.” —Yvonne Tasker, professor of film studies and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of East Anglia

In The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora, Kin-Yan Szeto critically examines three of the most internationally famous martial arts film artists to arise out of the Chinese diaspora and travel far from their homelands to find commercial success in the world at large: Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan. Positing the idea that these filmmakers' success is evidence of a "cosmopolitical awareness" arising from their cross-cultural ideological engagements and geopolitical displacements, Szeto demonstrates how this unique perspective allows these three filmmakers to develop and act in the transnational environment of media production, distribution, and consumption. Beginning with a historical retrospective on Chinese martial arts films as a diasporic film genre and the transnational styles and ideologies of the filmmakers themselves, Szeto uses case studies to explore in depth how the forces of colonialism, Chinese nationalism, and Western imperialism shaped the identities and work of Lee, Woo, and Chan. Addressed in the volume is the groundbreaking martial arts swordplay film that achieves global success-Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon- and its revelations about Hollywood representations of Asians, as well as concepts of male and female masculinity in the swordplay film tradition. Also investigated is the invigoration of contemporary gangster, thriller, and war films by John Woo, whose combination of artistic and historical contexts has contributed to his global success. Szeto then dissects Chan's mimetic representation of masculinity in his films, and the influences of his Chinese theater and martial arts training on his work. Szeto outlines the similarities and differences between the three artists' films, especially their treatments of gender, sexuality, and power. She concludes by analyzing their films as metaphors for their working conditions in the Chinese diaspora and Hollywood, and demonstrating how through their works, Lee, Woo, and Chan communicate not only with the rest of the world but also with each other. Far from a book simply about three filmmakers, The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora investigates the transnational nature of films, the geopolitics of culture and race, and the depths of masculinity and power in movies. Szeto's interdisciplinary approach calls for nothing less than a paradigm shift in the study of Chinese diasporic filmmakers and the embodiment of cosmopolitical perspectives in the martial arts genre.

Women and Gender in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium, by Ya-chen Chen, is an excavation of underexposed gender issues focusing mainly on contradictory and troubled feminism in the film narratives. In the cinematic world of martial arts films, one can easily find representations of women of Ancient China released from the constraints of patriarchal social order to revel in a dreamlike space of their own. They can develop themselves, protect themselves, and even defeat or conquer men. This world not only frees women from the convention of foot-binding, but it also "unbinds" them in terms of education, critical thinking, talent, ambition, opportunities to socialize with different men, and the freedom or right to both choose their spouse and decide their own fate. Chen calls this phenomenon "Chinese cinematic martial arts feminism." The liberation is never sustaining or complete, however; Chen reveals the presence of a glass ceiling marking the maximal exercise of feminism and women's rights which the patriarchal order is willing to accept. As such, these films are not to be seen as celebrations of feminist liberation, but as enunciations of the patriarchal authority that suffuses "Chinese cinematic martial arts feminism." The film narratives under examination include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (directed by Ang Lee); Hero (Zhang Yimou); House of the Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou); Seven Swords (Tsui Hark); The Promise (Chen Kaige); The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang); and Curst of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou). Chen also touches upon the plots of two of the earliest award-winning Chinese martial arts films, A Touch of Zen and Legend of the Mountain, both directed by King Hu.

Chinese cinema continues to go from strength to strength. After art-house hits like Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (1984) and Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love (2000), the Oscar-winning success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) disproved the old myth that subtitled films could not succeed at the multiplex. Chinese Films in Focus II updates and expands the original Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes with fourteen brand new essays, to offer thirty-four fresh and insightful readings of key individual films. The new edition addresses films from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of the Chinese diaspora and the historical coverage ranges from the 1930s to the present. The essays, by leading authorities on Chinese cinema as well as up-and-coming scholars, are concise, accessible, rich, and on the cutting edge of current research. Each contributor outlines existing writing and presents an original perspective on the film, making this volume a rich resource for classroom use, scholarly research and general reading for anyone wanting to understand more about the historical development and rich variety of Chinese cinema. Contributors: Annette Aw, Chris Berry, Yomi Braester, Felicia Chan, Esther Cheung, Robert Chi, Rey Chow, Mary Farquhar, Carolyn FitzGerald, Ping Fu, Kristine Harris, Margaret Hillenbrand, Brian Hu, Tan See Kam, Haiyan Lee, Vivian Lee, Helen Hok-Sze Leung, David Leiwei Li, Song Hwee Lim, Kam Louie, Fran Martin, Jason McGrath, Corrado Neri, Jonathan Noble, Beremoce Reynaud, Cui Shuqin, Julian Stringer, Janice Tong, Yiman Wang, Faye Hui Xiao, Gang Gary Xu, Audrey Yue, Yingjin Zhang, John Zou The Editor: Chris Berry is Professor of Film and Television at Goldsmiths, University of London.

This collection of exciting essays explores how the representations and the ideologies of masculinities can be productively studied in the context of Hong Kong cinema. It has two objectives: first, to investigate the multiple meanings and manifestations of masculinities in Hong Kong cinema that compliment and contradict each other. Second, to analyze the social and cultural environments that make these representations possible and problematic. Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema presents a comprehensive picture of how Hong Kong mainstream cinematic masculinities are produced within their own socio-cultural discourses, and how these masculinities are distributed, received, and transformed within the setting of the market place. This volume is divided into three interrelated parts: the local cinematic tradition; the transnational context and reverberations; and the larger production, reception, and mediation environments. The combination of these three perspectives will reveal the dynamics and tensions between the local and the transnational, between production and reception, and between text and context, in the gendered manifestations of Hong Kong cinema.