Chinese National Cinema (National Cinemas)

Read the review by Sabrina Q. Yu, University of Nottingham, UK in[...]Three excerpts:"The book is divided into eight chapters according to historical periodization. Fully aware of the influence of an ideological viewpoint on Chinese film historiography, Zhang tries to give Chinese cinema a less politicized, but broader periodization. Starting with early cinema (1896-1929) in Chapter Two and the 'golden age' of Chinese cinema (1930-1949) in Chapter Three, the author moves to separately address the cinema of Taiwan, Hong Kong and the PRC before 1978 in Chapters Four, Five, Six, and then investigates new waves in the three Chinas (1979-1989), and concludes with a discussion of transnational imaginary in the three Chinas from 1990 to 2002. This scheme clearly shows Zhang's aim to balance complicated Chinese film history in different temporal and geopolitical locales. On the one hand, the films of the three Chinas are given similar attention, avoiding any priority. On the other hand, a roughly identical periodization is applied to the films in the PRC, Taiwan and Hong Kong.""As a mainland Chinese critic, it is heartening to see that Zhang, a film scholar from mainland China, pursues an ideological neutrality in his writing of Chinese film history."and"The significance of Zhang's Chinese National Cinema results from its groundbreaking endeavour to establish a less biased history of Chinese cinema, and to "conduct primary research and complete the constructive phase of film historiography before we can proceed with deconstruction and reconstruction in any confident, meaningful way" (12)."

This book covers Chinese cinema in terms of genre, history and genres influenced by political situations. It mostly compares the progressions of Chinese cinema alongside most of the more modern history of China (KMT being overthrown, rise of the ugly CCP, chairman Mao, Post cultural revolution, etc.). The author also touches on certain terminology and various controversies surrounding it. For example, he talks about Chinese cinema can mean anything from movies made in the Peoples' Republic, Hong Kong or Taiwan. Some downsides I supposed I should mention is that for some genres, they don't give you many examples, and they do that bit you always see art/film students doing where they try and bunch everything into a category, when it might overlap with something else, or just shouldn't be categorized. Anyway, I felt this was a very detailed overview of Chinese cinema. However, I will say that this is a very intimidating choice for a textbook. On two or three pages alone, you will have enough information and facts to make an entire exam.

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