Renegotiating Film Genres in East Asian Cinemas and Beyond (East Asian Popular Culture)

This book brings together nine original chapters to examine genre agency in East Asian cinema within the transnational context. It addresses several urgent and pertinent issues such as the distribution and exhibition practices of East Asian genre films, intra-regional creative flow of screen culture, and genre's creative response to censorship. The volume expands the scholarly discussion of the rich heritage and fast-changing landscape of filmmaking in East Asian cinemas. Confronting the complex interaction between genres, filmic narrative and aesthetics, film history and politics, and cross-cultural translation, this book not only reevaluates genre's role in film production, distribution, and consumption, but also tackles several under-explored areas in film studies and transnational cinema, such as the history of East Asian commercial cinema, the East Asian film industry, and cross-media and cross-market film dissemination. Lin Feng is the Director of Studies of History of Art and Film at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research primarily focuses on Chinese and transnational cinemas, cinematic cities, star studies, and the representation and reception of East Asia in Anglophone cinemas. James Aston is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Hull, UK. His research primarily focuses on contemporary global horror and East Asian cinemas. He is the author of Hardcore Horror in the 21st Century: Production, Marketing and Consumption (2018). Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 Notes on Contributors 10 List of Figures 13 Introduction 14 References 23 East Asian Film Genre in a Transnational Age 25 Rapidly Shifting Landscapes: Two Case Studies in the UK Distribution and Exhibition of Chinese Language Films in the Twenty-First Century 29 A Brief History of Distribution and Exhibition of Chinese Language Films in the UK 31 Case Study 1: CRIME: Hong Kong Style 37 Case Study 2: Back to the Multiplex 44 References 51 East Asian Noir: Transnational Film Noir in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong 53 What Is Film Noir? 54 Film Noir in Asia 56 Cinematic Flows Between Japan and Korea 60 Cinematic Flows Between Hong Kong and Korea 68 Conclusion 73 References 75 The Wolf Is Coming: Genre Hybridity in the Contemporary Chinese Blockbuster 80 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Chinese Genre Filmmaking 81 Genre Hybridity and the Chinese Blockbuster 87 Further Genre Adventures of the Chinese War Film 95 End Coda: South Korean Cinema and the Rise of a Global Blockbuster 99 References 100 Development of Genre film and Film Genre in East Asia Cinemas 103 Fantasy, Vampirism and Genre/Gender Wars on the Chinese Screen of the Roaring 1920s 108 The Culture of Vampirism in the Roaring 1920s of China 111 Reading the Cave as a Chinese Vampire Film 116 Genre/Gender Wars in the Roaring 1920s 121 Conclusion 124 References 126 Premodern History and the Contemporary South Korean Period Blockbuster 128 The Period Film in Korean Cinema History 131 Representing Premodern History in Postmodern Korea 138 Conclusion 143 References 144 Chinese Censorship, Genre Mediation, and the Puzzle Films of Leste Chen 146 The Great Hypnotist 149 Battle of Memories 161 Conclusion: Certainties Disappear 168 References 169 The Politics of Genre Space 172 Critiquing New Generational Japanese Horror: “Youthful Fatalisms, Old Aesthetics” 176 The History and Development of Ero-guro-nansensu 179 Understanding Ero-guro-nansensu After the Interwar Period 183 Current Contexts and Contemporary Ero-guro-nansensu in Film 190 Conclusion 197 References 197 Genre and Censorship: The Crime Film in Late Colonial Hong Kong 200 Process, Context and Discourse 201 Censorship and Genre in Post-War Hong Kong 205 Political Censorship and the 1988 Film Censorship Ordinance 212 Coda: Category III and the Censors’ Discursive Power 218 References 222 Old Shanghai and Film Noir Cross Over 226 Making Shanghai Noir: Heibang Film as a (Sub-)Genre Interrogating Urbanisation 230 Adventure in a Noir City: The Contemporary Reconstruction of Old Shanghai on the Big Screen 234 Gendering Noir Space: From the Post-colonialist to the Post-socialist 241 Conclusion 250 References 252 Index 256 Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction (James Aston, Lin Feng)....Pages 1-11 Front Matter ....Pages 13-16 Rapidly Shifting Landscapes: Two Case Studies in the UK Distribution and Exhibition of Chinese Language Films in the Twenty-First Century (Fraser Elliott, Andy Willis)....Pages 17-40 East Asian Noir: Transnational Film Noir in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong (Caleb Kelso-Marsh)....Pages 41-67 The Wolf Is Coming: Genre Hybridity in the Contemporary Chinese Blockbuster (James Aston)....Pages 69-91 Front Matter ....Pages 93-97 Fantasy, Vampirism and Genre/Gender Wars on the Chinese Screen of the Roaring 1920s (Shaoyi Sun)....Pages 99-118 Premodern History and the Contemporary South Korean Period Blockbuster (Louisa Mitchell)....Pages 119-136 Chinese Censorship, Genre Mediation, and the Puzzle Films of Leste Chen (Gary Bettinson)....Pages 137-162 Front Matter ....Pages 163-166 Critiquing New Generational Japanese Horror: “Youthful Fatalisms, Old Aesthetics” (Dave McCaig, Rachel Elizabeth Barraclough)....Pages 167-190 Genre and Censorship: The Crime Film in Late Colonial Hong Kong (Kristof Van den Troost)....Pages 191-216 Old Shanghai and Film Noir Cross Over (Lin Feng)....Pages 217-246 Back Matter ....Pages 247-266