Transnational Representations: New Book Release

My monograph, Transnational Representations: The State of Taiwan Film in the 1960s and 1970s, has been released with Hong Kong University Press!

 

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Available for purchase at these links:

Amazon      Kindle     Google Play    Hong Kong University Press 

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Description 

There are few more fascinating methods for investigating the ways in which Taiwan’s Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) Government defined itself as the representative government of all of China in the 1960s and 1970s than to consider its state-sanctioned film industry. Transnational Representations: The State of Taiwan Film in the 1960s and 1970s both excavates Taiwan’s socio-historical context and studies the cinematic form of the era employing an original transnational, comparative framework.

The title “transnational representations” refers to the text’s cross-border comparisons such as those between Taiwan films and films produced in Mainland China in the early 1960s, between Taiwan films and concurrent films from Germany and Senegal that represented the politics of migration, and between Taiwan New Cinema and global new cinema movements. The “state of Taiwan film in the 1960s and 1970s” refers to both the historical-material conditions in Taiwan during these two pivotal decades and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s presentation of itself as the representative government of all of China in terms of: its relationship to the People’s Republic of China (Chapter 2), film form and content (Chapter 3), depictions of gender identity (Chapter 4), and filmic adaptations of nativist literature (Conclusion).

San Diego Asian Film Festival, Nov. 8, 2014

The "Taiwan Film Showcase," part of this year's San Diego Asian Film Festival, continued on Saturday November 8th with a string of films that represent the current state of Taiwan youth culture.

The short film segment was particularly impressive. Starting with THE BUSY YOUNG PSYCHIC 神算 (Chen Ho-Yu, 2013), a 29 minute film about a young woman who splits her time between two competing concerns, only one of them atypical: channeling spirits in a local temple and hanging out with her friends at high school. The film uses parallel editing so deftly that I intend to use it in my future film classes. Without a trace of irony or a heavy hand, the film juxtaposes our heroine on a night when she performs her duties as a priestess instead of going to a birthday party she desperately wants to attend. In the end, her intention to be a regular teenager is sacrificed by duty to her community.

THE POOL MAN 泳漾 (Kaidi Zhan, 2013), which runs a bit over 30 minutes, brings together an unlikely friendship between a swimming instructor who lives in the past and an overweight teenager who wants to learn how to swim.

PARTNERS IN CRIME 共犯 (Chang Jung-chi, 2014),a high school crime thriller that reminded me of Chan-wook Park's Stoker (2013) at times, was the film of the day. Boasting an impressive soundscape and slick soundtrack which I may also use as an example in future film courses, this film--like the brilliant, dark, and under-appreciated River's Edge (Hunter, 1986 -- with Crispin Glover)--tells the story of high school students dealing with the death of a classmate with little logic, supervision, or guidance to prevent their imaginations from spiraling out of control.

CAMPUS CONFIDENTIAL 愛情無全順 (Lai Chun-yu, 2013) was an excellent way to conclude the day of films--a legitimate crowd-pleasing romantic comedy that effortlessly earns its laughs as well as its surprises. Variety magazine claims that the film could likely be remade into other languages, so we'll stay tuned to that potential development.

With Director of KANO Umin Boya at the San Diego Asian Film Festival (11/7/2014)

San Diego Asian Film Festival, KANO on Nov. 7, 2014

This year the "Taiwan Film Showcase" kicked off at the San Diego Asian Film Festival with KANO (2014), written by Wei Te-Sheng, and directed by Umin Boya who was in attendance.

A baseball film that represents real-life events that occurred in 1931, KANO depicts a local Taiwanese team from Jiayi (嘉義) that nearly wins the Japanese High School Baseball Championship in Japan during a time when Taiwan was a colony under Japanese imperialism. Almost entirely in Japanese, the film remains distinctly Taiwanese. And it is wonderfully paced--all of its 185 minutes zip right by.

We've seen films where a team earns the adoration of 50,000 fans. But have you seen a film in which a team stuns 50,000 into reverent silence?

 

Kano (dir. Umin Boya, 2014)

A Brief History of Cinema in China

Cinema in China is visually, sociopolitically, and historically significant. Here is a link to my encyclopedia entry on cinema in China, an historical overview that provides a conceptual framework to understand the changes and rhythms of the medium and its appeal to audiences worldwide: "Cinema in China: A Brief History" (2009).

The entry is arranged as follows:

First-Generation Cinema, 1896– 1929 // Second-Generation Cinema, 1930– 1949 // Silent to Sound // Cinema Nationalized // Third-Generation Cinema, 1949– 1965 // Fourth-Generation Cinema, 1966– 1983 // Mandarin Films // Hong Kong Cinema // Cantonese Films // Taiwan Cinema // Fifth-Generation Cinema, 1984– 1993 // Sixth-Generation Cinema, 1994 to Present // Cinema Inside and Outside China // Further Reading

The Midnight After (Fruit Chan, 2014): Mini-Film Review

The Midnight After (2014) is a film in which the inexplicable and the peculiar intersect in the most unexpected ways. Fruit Chan, one of my favorite directors in the early 2000s with films like Durian Durian (2000) and Hollywood Hong-Kong (2001), tells a story here in which a handful of passengers on a Hong Kong mini-bus pass through a tunnel only to find that, once they reach the other side, they are the only survivors in a deserted urban landscape--the reason?--possibilities include time travel/zombies/nuclear radiation/a deadly virus. We are as uncertain as the characters. All we know is that we are witness to the most heinous acts of violence and horror alongside impromptu music videos and wacky humor--all rolled together as only Fruit Chan can do.

At one point the passengers ruminate about the fate of Hong Kong after the upcoming 2017 elections, which is all too relevant considering the occupy movement currently unfolding. In the end, it seems that Fruit Chan is one of only a few directors unafraid to mix genres to this extreme and to this degree of success.

The Midnight After is an adaptation of a web novel by online writer Pizza entitled Lost On A Red Minibus To Taipo. The film has been characterized as post-apocalyptic and as a satire.

Hong Kong Student Protest Banners: "Strike or Nothing"

While in Hong Kong during the week of Sept. 15-21, 2014 I had a chance to visit both the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology--below are some pictures I took previous to the 9/22 student protests.

For more information on the protests in Hong Kong, see this link (via straitstimes.com) and this link (via foreignpolicy.com); an historical contextualization can be found at this link (via thenation.com).

 Student protest banners on the CUHK campus.

Hong Kong student protest banners at HKUST.

Another protest banner pic I took at HKUST on 9/20.

Cold War Conference: Hong Kong, Sept. 15-16, 2014

It was wonderful presenting, and participating with colleagues, at the "Cold Front: Reflections on the Chinese Cold War Experience and Comparison" Conference presented by The Research Institute for the Humanities at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on September 15-16, 2014. Dr. Adam Cathcart's summary of the event can be read on the Sino-NK website here.

The paper I presented is an exploration of martial arts director King Hu's films in a transnational context. Placing King Hu’s films within the framework of the Cold War reveals that analyses of the director’s films are not entirely exhausted by accounts of important studios such as the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong or Lian Bang Ying Ye Gong Si (Union Film) in Taiwan, editing stylistics, or social contextualizations in terms of the rise of modernization. My paper is tentatively/currently entitled: "Hot Wars on Screen during the Cold War: King Hu’s Martial Arts Films in a Transnational Context."