Description
Book SynopsisSince the 1960s, Hong Kong cinema has helped to shape one of the world’s most popular cultural genres: action cinema. Hong Kong action films have proved popular over the decades with audiences worldwide, and they have seized the imaginations of filmmakers working in many different cultural traditions and styles. How do we account for this appeal, which changes as it crosses national borders?
Hong Kong Connections brings leading film scholars together to explore the circulation of Hong Kong cinema in Japan, Korea, India, Australia, France, and the United States, as well as its links with Taiwan, Singapore, and the Chinese mainland. In the process, this collection examines diverse cultural contexts for action cinema’s popularity and the problems involved in the transnational study of globally popular forms, suggesting that in order to grasp the history of Hong Kong action cinema’s influence we need to bring out the differences as well as the links that constitute popularity.
Contributors. Nicole Brenez, Stephen Chan Ching-kiu, Dai Jinhua, David Desser, Laleen Jayamanne, Kim Soyoung, Siu Leung Li, Adrian Martin, S. V. Srinivas, Stephen Teo, Valentina Vitali, Paul Willemen, Rob Wilson, Wong Kin-yuen, Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting, Yung Sai-shing
Trade Review“As electrifying as the action cinema it illuminates,
Hong Kong Connections delivers an elegantly choreographed and deadly volley of blows against the myth that global popular cinema begins and ends with Hollywood. These essays by a glittering array of leading scholars from around the world reveal Hong Kong cinema’s role in shaping other action cinemas, pioneering transnational filmmaking, and invigorating Chinese cultures. In the process, Hong Kong’s cinema becomes as firmly established as a global meeting as Hong Kong itself.”—Chris Berry, coeditor of
Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia“This book examines the historical evolution of Hong Kong action cinema as well as its emergence as a transnational film genre in the era of globalization. It is the most well-organized, theoretically sophisticated, and critically engaging study of the subject that we have seen. It is a pleasure to read each of the essays, which are both erudite and interesting.”—Sheldon Lu, coeditor of
Chinese-language Film: Historiography, Poetics, PoliticsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Contributors xi
Introduction: Hong Kong Connections / Meaghan Morris 1
Part 1: History, Imagination and Hong Kong Popular Culture 19
1. Moving Body: The Interactions Between Chinese Opera and Action Cinema / Yung Sai-shing 21
2. Interactions Between Japanese and Hong Kong Action Cinemas / Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting 35
3. The Myth Continues: Cinematic Kung Fu in Modernity / Siu Leung Li 49
4. The Fighting Condition in Hong Kong Cinema: Local Icons and Cultural Antidotes for the Global Popular / Stephen Chan Ching-kiu 63
5. Order/Anti-Order: Representation of Identity in Hong Kong Action Movies / Dai Jinhua 81
Part 2: Action Cinema as Contact Zone 95
6. Genre as Contact Zone: Hong Kong Action and Korean Hwalkuk / Kim Soyoung 97
7. Hong Kong Action Film and the Career of the Telugu Mass Hero / S. V. Srinivas 111
8. Hong Kong-Hollywood-Bombay: On the Function of "Martial Art" in the Hindi Action Cinema / Valentina Vitali 125
9. Let's Miscegenate: Jackie Chan and His African-American Connection / Laleen Jayamanne 151
10. The Secrets of Movement: The Influence of Hong Kong Action Cinema upon the Contemporary French Avant-garde / Nicole Brenez 163
11. At the Edge of the Cut: An Encounter with the Hong Kong Style in Contemporary Action Cinema / Adrian Martin 175
Part 3: Translation and Embodiment: Technologies of Globalisation 189
12. Wuxia Redux: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a Model of Late Transnational Production / Stephen Teo 191
13. Hong Kong Film and the New Cinephilia / David Desser 205
14. Action Cinema, Labour Power and the Video Market / Paul Willemen 223
15. Spectral Critiques: Tracking "Uncanny" Filmic Paths Towards a Bio-Poetics of Trans-Pacific Globalization / Rob Wilson 249
16. Technoscience Culture, Embodiment and
Wuda pian / Wong Kin-yuen 269
Notes 287
Index 327
