South And East Asian Cinemas Across Borders

This edited volume focuses on South and East Asian cinema, exploring transnational connections between these film industries from the point of view of narratives, topics and themes, as well as in terms of co-productions. At a time of resurgent nationalisms and increasing fortifications of (actual and symbolic) borders, the chapters in this book explore cinematic work that challenge these boundaries and promote a reflection on the social, cultural, political and economic value of international exchanges and collaborations within the context of Asia. Indeed, notwithstanding the aforementioned tendency to implement border policing and the revival of nationalist sentiments, South and East Asian cinemas retain a strong transnational character, as not only genres and themes are borrowed and exchanged across borders, but also the popularity of the Indian, Chinese and Korean film industries extend well beyond their national borders – within Asia as well as in the West. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Transnational Screens.

This book offers an interdisciplinary, historically grounded study of Asian cinemas’ complex responses to the Cold War conflict. It situates the global ideological rivalry within regional and local political, social, and cultural processes, while offering a transnational and cross-regional focus. This volume makes a major contribution to constructing a cultural and popular cinema history of the global Cold War. Its geographical focus is set on East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. In adopting such an inclusive approach, it draws attention to the different manifestations and meanings of the connections between the Cold War and cinema across Asian borders. Many essays in the volume have a transnational and cross-regional focus, one that sheds light on Cold War-influenced networks (such as the circulation of socialist films across communist countries) and on the efforts of American agencies (such as the United States Information Service and the Asia Foundation) to establish a transregional infrastructure of "free cinema" to contain the communist influences in Asia. With its interdisciplinary orientation and broad geographical focus, the book will appeal to scholars and students from a wide variety of fields, including film studies, history (especially the burgeoning field of cultural Cold War studies), Asian studies, and US-Asian cultural relations.

This book is an original volume of essays that sheds new and critical light on current and emerging filmmaking trends and practices in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. A timely and important contribution to existing scholarship in the field.

How do East Asian cultural heritages in shape film? How are these legacies being revived, or even re-created, by contemporary filmmakers? This collection examines the dynamic interactions between East Asian culture heritages and cinemas in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.

This collection offers new approaches to theorizing Asian film in relation to the history, culture, geopolitics and economics of the continent. Bringing together original essays written by established and emerging scholars, this anthology transcends the limitations of national borders to do justice to the diverse ways in which the cinema shapes Asia geographically and imaginatively in the world today. From the revival of the Silk Road as the “belt and road” of a rising China to historical ruminations on the legacy of colonialism across the continent, the authors argue that the category of “Asian cinema” from Turkey to the edges of the Pacific continues to play a vital role in cutting-edge film research. This handbook will serve as an essential guide for committed scholars, students, and all those interested in the past, present, and possible future of Asian cinema in the 21st century.

Films are produced, reviewed and watched worldwide, often circulating between cultural contexts. The book explores cosmopolitanism and its debates through the lens of East Asian cinemas from Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and Singapore, throwing doubt on the validity of national cinemas or definitive cultural boundaries. Case studies illuminate the ambiguously gendered star persona of Taiwanese-Hong Kong actress Brigitte Lin, the fictional realism of director Jia Zhangke, the arcane process of selection for the Best Foreign Film Oscar and the intimate connection between cinema and identity in Hirokazu Koreeda s Afterlife (1998). Considering films, their audiences and tastemaking institutions, the book argues that cosmopolitan cinema does not smooth over difference, but rather puts it on display."

This book examines an array of auteur-driven fiction and documentary independent film projects that have emerged since the turn of the millennium from East and Southeast Asia, a strand of transnational filmmaking that converges with Asia's vibrant yet unevenly developed independent film movements amidst global neoliberalism. These projects bear witness to and are shaped by the ongoing, historical processes of inter-Asia interaction characterized by geopolitical realignment, migration, and population displacement. This study threads together case studies of internationally acclaimed filmmakers, artists, and collectives such as Zhang Lu, Kuzoku, Li Ying, Takamine Go, Yamashiro Chikako, and Midi Z, all of whose transborder journeys and cinematic imaginations disrupt static identity affiliations built upon national, ethnic, or cultural differences. This transborder filmmaking can be viewed as both an aesthetic practice and political act, reframing how people, places, and their inter-connections can be perceived-opening up possibilities to reimagine Asia and its connections to globalization.