Chinese Cinema
- LAST REVIEWED: 17 August 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 October 2011
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0016
- LAST REVIEWED: 17 August 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 October 2011
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0016
Introduction
Chinese cinema in this bibliography covers Chinese-language cinema, including films in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taiwanese (or Minnan dialect) as well as Sinophone productions by the Chinese diasporas. To save space, hereafter “China” refers to mainland China, also known as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1949. Chinese cinema has become an important player in world cinema since the 1980s for several reasons. First, three new-wave film movements emerged in three geopolitical territories during the 1980s: the Hong Kong New Wave, Taiwan New Cinema, and China’s Fifth Generation. Second, leading international film festivals have regularly awarded top prizes to Chinese cinema since the 1980s, and some Chinese films have entered art-house theaters in the West. Third, academic interests in Chinese studies and film studies have increased in recent decades as new theories and methodologies have gradually transformed disciplinary scholarship. Nonetheless, the development of Chinese cinema does not follow a straight line of progress; rather, it has seen ups and downs and unexpected turns. From the early 1990s to the late 1990s, a previously vibrant Taiwan film industry quickly disappeared in the face of Hollywood advancement. Also during the 1990s, Hong Kong cinema lost much of its market share in Taiwan, and its annual feature productions dropped from 242 in 1993 to 143 in 1994; the average number has stayed around fifty in 2006–2009. By contrast, feature productions in China increased from 88 per year in 2001 to 526 in 2010. What is most impressive is the growth of China’s exhibition market. Its annual total box office revenues skyrocketed from RMB 840 million in 2001 to RMB 10,200 million in 2010. Much of this growth has come from Chinese blockbuster films, almost always involving coproductions with Hong Kong. The spectacular growth of Chinese cinema explains recent attention to research in Industry and Market, but other exciting areas of Chinese film studies include film history (especially China before 1949), Gender and Sexuality, and Genre and Types. Martial arts films are considered a significant Chinese contribution to world cinema, and recent independent productions of Documentary films in China have received multidisciplinary attention. As scholars and filmmakers extend their vision beyond national borders, a new area has emerged in Diaspora, Sinophone, Transregional, which further complicates the question of Nation and Nationalism in Chinese cinema.
Anthologies
Books listed in this section often cover all three geopolitical territories—China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. For works outside these areas, see the subsection Diaspora, Sinophone, Transregional. Most anthologies make good textbooks for upper-division undergraduate and graduate classes, for they often include thematic clusters such as poetics, politics, identity, gender, and nation. Anthologies on Hong Kong and Taiwan are listed in separate subsections under History and Geography. In this section, Center for Documentation 1982 is one of the earliest books on Chinese cinema in a Western language. Berry 1991 and Browne, et al. 1994 represent the emergent phase of Chinese film studies in the West, while Lu and Yeh 2005 as well as Zhu and Rosen 2010 include the latest developments. Luo 2003 is perhaps the most comprehensive volume of Chinese film theory and criticism and has no English rival as yet.
Berry, Chris, ed. Perspectives on Chinese Cinema. 2d ed. London: British Film Institute, 1991.
This pioneering work helped establish the academic status of Chinese cinema in Euro-America. While not as coherent as subsequent anthologies, it champions a cross-interdisciplinary approach and broaches various subjects.
Browne, Nick, Paul G. Pickowicz, Vivian Sobchak, and Esther Yau, eds. New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
An important early anthology with wide coverage of contemporary China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan by leading scholars (e.g., Fredric Jameson) on issues of melodrama, postsocialism, and postmodernism.
Center for Documentation, Paris, ed. Ombres électriques: Panorama du cinéma chinois, 1925–1982. Paris: Centre de Documentation sur le Cinéma Chinois (CDCC), 1982.
One of the earliest books on Chinese cinema in Europe, this French anthology presents sixty film synopses and five essays on early Chinese cinema, film politics, and realism.
Lu, Sheldon H., and Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh, eds. Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.
Another important comprehensive anthology offering insights into China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, again focusing on contemporary films, with an introduction foregrounding the issues of language and dialects. Previously published as a double issue on Chinese cinema in the journal Post Script (20.2–3 ([2001]).
Luo, Yijun, ed. 20 Shiji Zhongguo dianying lilun wenxuan. 2 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo Dianying Chubanshe, 2003.
An authoritative Chinese anthology of key texts of film theory and criticism in Chinese arranged in chronological order.
Zhu, Ying, and Stanley Rosen, eds. Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010.
An anthology celebrating the centennial of Chinese cinema, with a focus on the film industry and market (e.g., Hollywood impact, piracy). Also includes articles on animation, adaptation, documentary, and martial arts films.
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- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Accounting, Motion Picture
- Acting
- Action Cinema
- Adaptation
- Advertising and Promotion
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- African American Stars
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- Bachchan, Amitabh
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- Bergman, Ingmar
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- Breaking Bad
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- Broadcasting, Australian
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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- Cameron, James
- Campion, Jane
- Canadian Cinema
- Capra, Frank
- Carpenter, John
- Casablanca
- Cassavetes, John
- Cavell, Stanley
- Censorship
- Chan, Jackie
- Chaplin, Charles
- Children in Film
- Chinese Cinema
- Cinecittà Studios
- Cinema and Media Industries, Creative Labor in
- Cinema and the Visual Arts
- Cinematography and Cinematographers
- Cinephilia
- Citizen Kane
- City in Film, The
- Cocteau, Jean
- Coen Brothers, The
- Colonial Educational Film
- Color
- Comedy, Film
- Comedy, Television
- Comics, Film, and Media
- Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
- Copland, Aaron
- Coppola, Francis Ford
- Copyright and Piracy
- Corman, Roger
- Costume and Fashion
- Cronenberg, David
- Cuban Cinema
- Cult Cinema
- 3D Cinema
- Dance and Film
- de Oliveira, Manoel
- Dean, James
- Deleuze, Gilles
- Denis, Claire
- Deren, Maya
- Design, Art, Set, and Production
- Detective Films
- Dietrich, Marlene
- Digital Media and Convergence Culture
- Directors
- Disability
- Disney, Walt
- Doctor Who
- Documentary Film
- Downton Abbey
- Dreyer, Carl Theodor
- Eastern European Television
- Eastwood, Clint
- Ecocinema
- Eisenstein, Sergei
- Elfman, Danny
- Epic Film
- Essay Film
- Ethnographic Film
- European Television
- Exhibition and Distribution
- Exploitation Film
- Fairbanks, Douglas
- Fan Studies
- Fantasy
- Fellini, Federico
- Festivals
- Film Aesthetics
- Film and Literature
- Film Guilds and Unions
- Film, Historical
- Film Noir
- Film Preservation and Restoration
- Film Theory and Criticism, Science Fiction
- Film Theory Before 1945
- Film Theory, Psychoanalytic
- Finance Film, The
- Ford, John
- French Cinema
- Game of Thrones
- Gance, Abel
- Gangster Films
- Garbo, Greta
- Garland, Judy
- German Cinema
- Gilliam, Terry
- Global Television Industry
- Godard, Jean-Luc
- Godfather Trilogy, The
- Godzilla
- Greek Cinema
- Griffith, D.W.
- Hammett, Dashiell
- Haneke, Michael
- Hawks, Howard
- Haynes, Todd
- Hepburn, Katharine
- Herrmann, Bernard
- Herzog, Werner
- Hindi Cinema, Popular
- Hitchcock, Alfred
- Hollywood Studios
- Holocaust Cinema
- Homeland
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- Horror-Comedy
- Hsiao-Hsien, Hou
- Hungarian Cinema
- Icelandic Cinema
- Immigration and Cinema
- Indigenous Media
- Industrial, Educational, and Instructional Television and ...
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- Iranian Cinema
- Irish Cinema
- Israeli Cinema
- It Happened One Night
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- Italian Cinema
- Japanese Cinema
- Jazz Singer, The
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- Keaton, Buster
- King Kong
- Kitano, Takeshi
- Korean Cinema
- Kracauer, Siegfried
- Kubrick, Stanley
- Lang, Fritz
- Latin American Cinema
- Latina/o Americans in Film and Television
- Lee, Ang
- Lee, Chang-dong
- Lee, Spike
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Cin...
- Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The
- Los Angeles and Cinema
- Lubitsch, Ernst
- Lumet, Sidney
- Lupino, Ida
- Lynch, David
- Mad Men
- Marker, Chris
- Martel, Lucrecia
- Marxism
- Masculinity in Film
- Media, Community
- Media Ecology
- Melodrama
- Memory and the Flashback in Cinema
- Metz, Christian
- Mexican Film
- Micheaux, Oscar
- Ming-liang, Tsai
- Minnelli, Vincente
- Miyazaki, Hayao
- Méliès, Georges
- Modernism and Film
- Mészáros, Márta
- Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood
- Music and Cinema, Global Practices
- Music, Television
- Music Video
- Musicals
- Musicals on Television
- Narrative
- Native Americans
- New Media Art
- New Media Policy
- New Media Theory
- New York City and Cinema
- New Zealand Cinema
- Opera and Film
- Ophuls, Max
- Orphan Films
- Oshima, Nagisa
- Ozu, Yasujiro
- Panh, Rithy
- Pasolini, Pier Paolo
- Passion of Joan of Arc, The
- Peckinpah, Sam
- Pedagogy
- Philosophy and Film
- Photography and Cinema
- Pickford, Mary
- Planet of the Apes
- Poems, Novels, and Plays About Film
- Poitier, Sidney
- Polanski, Roman
- Polish Cinema
- Politics, Hollywood and
- Pop, Blues, and Jazz in Film
- Pornography
- Postcolonial Theory in Film
- Potter, Sally
- Prime Time Drama
- Psycho
- Queer Television
- Queer Theory
- Race and Cinema
- Radio and Sound Studies
- Ray, Nicholas
- Ray, Satyajit
- Reality Television
- Reenactment in Cinema and Media
- Regulation, Television
- Religion and Film
- Remakes, Sequels and Prequels
- Renoir, Jean
- Repo Man
- Resnais, Alain
- Romanian Cinema
- Romantic Comedy, American
- Rossellini, Roberto
- Russian Cinema
- Saturday Night Live
- Scandinavian Cinema
- Scorsese, Martin
- Scott, Ridley
- Searchers, The
- Seinfeld
- Sennett, Mack
- Sesame Street
- Shakespeare on Film
- Silent Film
- Simpsons, The
- Singin’ in the Rain
- Sirk, Douglas
- Soap Operas
- Social Class
- Social Problem Films
- Soderbergh, Steven
- Sound Design, Film
- Sound, Film
- Spanish Cinema
- Spanish-Language Television
- Spielberg, Steven
- Sports and Media
- Sports in Film
- Stand-Up Comedians
- Star Trek
- Star Wars
- Stardom
- Stop-Motion Animation
- Streaming Television
- Sturges, Preston
- Surrealism and Film
- Taiwanese Cinema
- Talk Shows
- Tarantino, Quentin
- Tarkovsky, Andrei
- Television Audiences
- Television Celebrity
- Television, History of
- Television Industry, American
- Theater and Film
- Theory, Cognitive Film
- Theory, Critical Media
- Theory, Feminist Film
- Theory, Film
- Theory, Trauma
- Touch of Evil
- Transnational and Diasporic Cinema
- Trinh, T. Minh-ha
- Truffaut, François
- Turkish Cinema
- Twilight Zone, The
- Twin Peaks
- Varda, Agnès
- Vertigo
- Vertov, Dziga
- Video and Computer Games
- Video Installation
- Violence and Cinema
- Virtual Reality
- Visconti, Luchino
- Von Sternberg, Josef
- Von Stroheim, Erich
- von Trier, Lars
- War Film
- Warhol, The Films of Andy
- Waters, John
- Wayne, John
- Weerasethakul, Apichatpong
- Weir, Peter
- Welles, Orson
- Whedon, Joss
- Whiteness
- Wilder, Billy
- Williams, John
- Wire, The
- Wiseman, Frederick
- Wizard of Oz, The
- Women and Film
- Women and the Silent Screen
- Wong, Anna May
- Wong, Kar-wai
- Woo, John
- Wood, Natalie
- Yimou, Zhang
- YouTube
- Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema
- Zinnemann, Fred
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