{"title":"Heroes and Other Men: Masculinity and Nationalism in The Eight Hundred","authors":"Nicolas Schillinger","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The film The Eight Hundred deals with the Chinese resistance against invading Japanese troops during the early days of the Second Sino–Japanese War. Produced in the People’s Republic of China and released in 2020, it was a huge box office success that showcases the heroic resistance of a Republican National Revolutionary Army battalion during the Battle of Shanghai in 1937. While the Chinese nation faces Japan as its “other”, The Eight Hundred’s patriotic male heroes emerge as the antithesis of, not women and dehumanized Japanese soldiers, but unheroic Chinese men, whom they seek to “wake up” and inspire as role models. This article examines how The Eight Hundred constructs a concept of martial masculinity tied to nationalism in relation to other established Chinese concepts of masculinity.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114256132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Alternative Readings of Labourer’s Love: The Shakespearean, Pan-Laborist, and Technological Uncanny","authors":"Meimei Xu","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0042","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Contemporary source materials confirm that Labourer’s Love was designed to be experimental and editable. It puts the credibility of the extant film in question, and opens up many hermeneutic possibilities. Intriguing issues such as its titles, thematic narrative, and technological aspects of its production call for alternative readings. Based on Zheng Zhengqiu’s benshi (the original synopsis), this paper discusses about the film’s Shakespearean predilection and pan-laborist ideologies. A further relational sociological analysis, however, shows that with the hidden functioning of technical media like lighting and noise, the film has transcended the superficial laborer/non-laborer narrative and created a craftsman/technology discourse. As a result, the established spatial–temporal relations were annihilated and the film generated an experience of technological uncanny.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"88 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123777929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Zheng Zhegu and Performances in Early Chinese Film","authors":"Binwu Jia","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The actor Zheng Zhegu is a long-forgotten pioneer in Chinese film. He is perhaps best known for playing the part of Carpenter Zheng in China’s earliest surviving film, Labourer’s Love. Both professionals in the film industry and audiences of the time recognized him as achieving new heights in acting. Starting with Zheng Zhegu’s personal story, this article explores the history of performances in early Chinese film. It emphasizes the transition from “new play-oriented” screen acting to interiors performances, placing this shift in the transformation of Chinese cinema from a “cinema of attractions” to narrative films.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132679042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“The age of Camille Is Gone!”: Youth Culture in Qiong Yao Films of the 1970s","authors":"Xuelin Zhou","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines the Qiong Yao films directed by Lee Hsing in the 1970s from the perspective of youth culture. Quintessentially youthful romance by genre, the majority of Qiong Yao films feature young men and young women in their early 20s as protagonists. The films focus on representing the attitudes, conducts and lifestyles of young men and young women. The paper argues that the Qiong Yao films directed by Lee Hsing in the 1970s demonstrate more signs of youth autonomy when comparing to those of the previous decade. Why the 1970s? What were the factors that contributed to the shift of perspective? What is the significance of representing an autonomous youth culture to Qiong Yao films? The paper seeks answers to these questions by closely referring to The Young Ones (Caiyun fei, 1973).","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132039104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Detective Chinatown Pursues the “Tao” First: An Interview with Director Chen Sicheng","authors":"Haizhou Wang","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0031","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This interview was conducted between Chen Sicheng, a Chinese actor, director, and screenwriter, who is known for his leading roles in the films A Young Prisoner’s Revenge (Faguan mama, 2001) and Spring Fever (Chunfeng chenzui de yewan, 2009) as well as his directorial blockbuster comedy film series Detective Chinatown, and Wang Haizhou, a professor of Film Studies at Beijing Film Academy. In this interview, drawing on his own artistic experience and creative practice, director Chen Sicheng focuses on the themes, genre, scriptwriting, performance, production values and other aspects of the Detective Chinatown series. He expresses his artistic views and creative thought at length and expounds the exploratory significance of the Detective Chinatown series for China’s film industry. He emphasizes that creative works should have both “Tao” and “Technique,” and that “Tao” should be located first to clarify the theme and value of the work. He also discusses the intention behind the Detective Chinatown series to create a subgenre in which mystery, suspense, detective work, and comedy combine, and gives a multifaceted analysis of the actors’ performance in Detective Chinatown 3. All of this will enlighten the audience and enable a deeper appreciation of Detective Chinatown 3.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123058336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Development and Challenges in Chinese Film Research over the Past Seventy Years and Future Trends","authors":"Yaping Ding","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0026","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Societal development has become the basis for the rapid growth of film studies and the subsequent changes in the relationships and form of the field. The evolution of Chinese film studies over the past seventy years constitutes an internal and external relationship as well as a dialog with the spirit of the times and the corresponding social environment. As for long to medium-term film criticism, what characteristics, distinguishing features and developmental forms have emerged over seventy years of Chinese film studies? What have been the key phenomena and problems in Chinese film studies in the past seventy years? These problems and their solutions will help shape the future direction and imagination of Chinese film studies.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134279104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The “Collapsing Ending” as a Turning Point in Contemporary Cinematic Narrative","authors":"Jianhua Xie","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract More and more salient in recent cinematic productions have been the related phenomena of the “anti-ending”, the “zero ending”, and the “multiple ending”. The ending, in other words, appears to have forfeited the authority it once had to terminate a history and the power it once enjoyed to move people’s hearts. Today, more and more, stories cease abruptly, with no sign to warn of, or mark, their end. The “collapsing ending”, however, should not be seen as a simple change occurring at one particular locus in the stories told in cinema today but rather as a symptom of an important turning point in contemporary cinema’s very notion of narrative. That the traditional ending is collapsing indicates: firstly, that the interest of stories in contributing to knowledge-production is decreasing and that narrative is shifting, in its very nature, from being a type of demonstrative, to being a type of descriptive discourse; secondly, that audiences have begun to experience, vis-à-vis the various versions of “structured time”, a certain aesthetic fatigue, so that the demands typically made on narrative are just now in the process of shifting out of the cognitive realm, and into the realm of “gaming” and the pleasure of “gaming”; and thirdly, that the narrative authority of the creator/filmmaker is just now entering into an anxiety-driven state of self-undermining and that the power and predominance over discursive mechanisms which had once been the prerogative of the narrator is just now shifting into the hands of the narrative’s audience.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121565080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Study on the Phenomenon of Film Rereleasing in China in the Post-Pandemic Era: Cultural Significance and Industrial Mechanisms","authors":"Zhaopeng Kong, Yinong Li","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper discusses the value and significance of classic film rereleases in Chinese movie theaters in the post-pandemic era. From the perspectives of rereading standards, collective memory, and emotional identity, the rerelease of classic films is a way to pursue the spiritual and cultural continuity of human beings in an open-ended dimension of history. In considering the rerelease of classic films in Chinese movie theaters in the post-pandemic era, we should not only systematically study internal demands such as content and value judgment, but also analyze external factors such as the development of the film industry and evolutions in audience demand, so as to promote the sustainable development of rerelease mechanisms for Chinese films.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129134870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reforging the Rust Belt: China’s Northeast on the Silver Screen","authors":"Dorothee Xiaolong Hou","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the 1990s, China’s northeast including Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces, the bastion of state-owned heavy industry, underwent a massive state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform engineered by Deng Xiaoping as part of the “Reform and Opening-up Policy,” which resulted in large-scale SOE bankruptcies and some 30 million blue-collar workers being laid off. 20 years after the reform, China’s northeast, once among the most urbanized regions in the country, has effectively become China’s “Rust Belt.” This article examines the cinematic representations of China’s Rust Belt, specifically in China’s northeast, arguing that cinema plays a crucial role in both capturing and interrogating the emergence of new urban spaces and urban subjects amidst the spatial and ideological reorientations of the reform era. It also investigates the ways in which cinematic representations, through a shifting “system of symbols,” mediate the contradictions in the production of urban spaces, cultural norms, and social identities.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127199135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hi, Mom: Farewell in the Vision and Reconciliation in the Farewell","authors":"Ali Zhang","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2022-0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2022-0023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Hi, Mom (Nihao, Li Huanying 2021) is the first film directed by Jia Ling, a comedian. An autobiographical movie, it develops a mom–daughter-reuniting visional field in the mode of a time-travelling film. In fantasy scenes set in the 1980s, the film reshapes the “mother–daughter” emotional logic with that of “sisterhood”, using comic effects created by misplaced identities to reveal the tragic crux of the cruel reality of “forever losing maternal love”. “The art of analyzing emotions” is pursued through “interpreting visions”. The protagonist ultimately reconciles with reality not by controlling the vision rationally and subjectively, but by creating a deeper vision—a “true fairy tale”. This is for the purpose of retaining a scene of imagined realization of desire: bidding a fond farewell to mom in the vision, fulfilling a wish in the farewell and reconciling with reality and ego in the visional “mutual reconciliation”.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128565595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}