The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas (Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions)

Balancing leading scholars with emerging trendsetters, this Companion offers fresh perspectives on Asian cinemas and charts new constellations in the field with significance far beyond Asian cinema studies. Asian cinema studies - at the intersection of film/media studies and area studies - has rapidly transformed under the impact of globalization, compounded by the resurgence of a variety of nationalist discourses as well as counter-discourses, new socio-political movements, and the possibilities afforded by digital media. Differentiated experiences of climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic have further heightened interest in the digital every day and the renewed geopolitical divide between "East" and "West," "North" and "South." Thematized into six sections, the 46 chapters in this anthology address established paradigms of scholarship and viewership in Asian cinemas like extreme genres, cinephilia, festivals, and national cinema, while also highlighting political and archival concerns that firmly situate Asian cinemas within local and translocal milieus. Underrepresented cinemas of North Korea, Bangladesh, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Cambodia, appear here amidst a broader cross-regional, comparative approach. An ideal resource for film, media, cultural and Asian studies researchers, students, and scholars, as well as informed readers with an interest in Asian cinemas. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Introduction: Trans-Asian Cinemas at Home in the World Section I Cine-activism and Feminist Aesthetics Introduction 1 A Screen in the Crowd: Film Societies and Political Protest in Bangladesh 2 Genres of Ecofeminism: Women Filmmakers in India and the Environment 3 Riding the Waves: An Interview with Yim Soon-rye 4 Through the Lens of South Korean Cine-feminism: House of Hummingbird (2018) and Moving On (2020) 5 Rewriting History, Changing the Story: An Interview with Anocha Suwichakornpong 6 Transnational Women’s Cinema in Southeast Asia: Mouly Surya’s Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts 7 Taiwan Queer Cinema, Marriage Equality, and Homo(trans)nationalism 8 Love in Pacific Time: Asian Screen Culture in Vancouver Section II Mediating Place: Colonial, National, and Trans-Asian Imaginaries Introduction 9 What Is “Asian Cinema” in Japan?: Film and Political Economy in the 1940s 10 Filming Taiwan Between a Quest for Artistic Purity and Propaganda in the People’s Republic of China: The Case of Taiwan Wangshi (My Bittersweet Taiwan, 2004) 11 In the Name of Love: Screen Representations of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples (1920s–1940s) 12 Desiring Nanyang, Nation, and Home: Fictions of Belonging in Two Rediscovered Postwar Films from Singapore 13 Where Is Shangri-La? Imagining Kathmandu in Film 14 Affective-Scape/ing in Zhang Lu’s Inter-Asian Quartet 15 Postcards from Russia: Left Discourse and Telugu Cinema Section III Trans-Border Connections: Infrastructures and Desires Introduction 16 Media Topographies of East Asia: Cinema, Cables, Wirelessness, and the (Somewhat) Material Imaginaries of Territory 17 Looking Out and on the Move: Aesthetics of Infrastructure in Recent Singapore Cinema 18 North Korea’s International Co-production Ventures: Nation and the Post-national 19 Trans-Asian Circuits of Cinema and Media Exchange Between Australia and Asia 20 Global Stories, Local Audiences: Dubbing Netflix in India 21 Webtoon-Based Korean Films on Netflix: Shifting Media Ecology in the Digital Platform Era 22 Exile at the Edges: Donald Richie at the Pinch Point Between Japan and the World 23 Trans-Pacific Connection and Cine Nikkei in Peru: A Conversation Section IV Beyond Genre: Modes, Motifs, Memories Introduction 24 The Melodramatic Mode in Asian Cinema: Usmar Ismail’s Lewat Djam Malam (After the Curfew) 25 Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite as a Remake of Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid: Creating an Aesthetic Genealogy Within South Korean Cinema 26 Melting the Iron Curtain: Political Immediacy, Metal-morphosis, and the Caricatured Western Leaders in Agitprop Animation in Socialist China, 1949–65 27 The “Mirrored” Cultural Revolution – The Geopolitical Making of Apolitical Hero in Chang Cheh’s The Assassin 28 The Vernacular Sonorities of the Memory Film in Southeast Asia: Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) and Big Boy (2012) 29 Global Aspirations/Local Affiliations: Exploring the Tensions of “Post-Crisis” Thai Cinema, 1997–2004 30 Revisiting the Face Veil in Post-Pandemic Times: The Humane Visual Ethics of Indonesian Islamic Filmmaking 31 Karma-Image; Insight-Image: On Buddhism and the Cinema 32 Personality and Morality in Screen Performance: Hong Kong Film Criticism and Social Reform of the 1920s Section V Independent Practice: Networks, Labor, and Voices at the Margins Introduction 33 “Still Doing It Themselves, with a Little Help from Friends”: Independent Filmmaking in Malaysia Two Decades Hence 34 Slippers Outside the Door: An Annotated Interview with Tan Pin Pin 35 Let’s Love Hong Kong: Hyper-Density, Virtual Possibility, and Queer Women in Hong Kong Independent Film 36 Care in Filming, Change by Love 37 Domestic Temporalities and Film Practice: Los Otros, Quezon City, and Forum Lenteng, Jakarta 38 Unstable Pixels, Modular Selves: Digital Subjectivity in Chinese Independent Animation 39 Experimentation and Transnational Influences: Documentary Film in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia 40 Filming Resistance: A Conversation with Deepa Dhanraj Section VI Archives, Festivals, and Film Pedagogy Introduction 41 Festivalizations and Cultural Constructions of “Asian Cinema” 42 Curating the City: The Urban Lens Film Festival 43 To Be Continued: Women Make Waves International Film Festival 44 Film Festival Journeys – Past, Present, Future: A Conversation with Roger Garcia 45 Reflection on Film Restoration, Acculturatie and Democracy: The Case Studies of Lewat Djam Malam and Aladin 46 Thai Film Archive and Early Thai Queer Cinema Index Balancing leading scholars with emerging trendsetters, this Companion offers fresh perspectives on Asian cinemas and charts new constellations in the field with significance far beyond Asian cinema studies.Asian cinema studies – at the intersection of film/media studies and area studies – has rapidly transformed under the impact of globalization, compounded by the resurgence of a variety of nationalist discourses as well as counter-discourses, new socio-political movements, and the possibilities afforded by digital media. Differentiated experiences of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have further heightened interest in the digital everyday and the renewed geopolitical divide between East and West, and between North and South. Thematized into six sections, the 46 chapters in this anthology address established paradigms of scholarship and viewership in Asian cinemas like extreme genres, cinephilia, festivals, and national cinema, while also highlighting political and archival concerns that firmly situate Asian cinemas within local and translocal milieus. Underrepresented cinemas of North Korea, Bangladesh, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Cambodia, appear here amidst a broader cross-regional, comparative approach.An ideal resource for film, media, cultural and Asian studies researchers, students, and scholars, as well as informed readers with an interest in Asian cinemas.