Panel 15: Modern Chinese Film

Chair: Dong Yang, Grinnell College

Panelists

Ana Catarina Leite, National University of Singapore, “The Fishermen of Amangau, Macau as a Place of Honest Labor during the Cold War”

This paper while focusing on the docufiction The Fishermen of Amangau (1958) generally examines films produced during the 1950s in Macau, then a Portuguese ‚‘Overseas Province’, which extolled the fishing industry and fishermen. Portuguese official discourse had long proclaimed that the fishing industry was the most important one in Macau and greatly contributed to the territory’s revenue, whereas the ‚‘vice economy’ or gold traffic, which at the time were in fact Macau’s main sources of revenue, and received much international condemnation, were ignored. This type of discourse also celebrated the peaceful, carefree and clean way of life of the Chinese fishermen of Macau, thereby presenting the territory as a site of honest labor, rather than dependent on vice. These films, which were a collaborative effort between Portuguese metropolitan film-makers and locals in the territory, followed this kind of discourse while specifically responding to a series of Hollywood films about the traffic of gold in Macau by dangerous fishermen-pirates for prominent and well-connected smuggling syndicates with links to the People’s Republic of China or other communist areas. In contrast to the American films, the local productions presented the pure and hard-working fishermen as the representatives of an honest and ‚‘free’ way of life rather than dangerous pirates. This paper also discusses connections between these films and the Cold War.

Ruoyi Bian, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, “Why Does Dongfang Bubai Have to Be a Woman?”

In Jinyong’s novel The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (1967), Dongfang Bubai, a transgender character, has been depicted differently in over 10 screen adaptations since 1978. Over the span of 40 years, significant differences have emerged between the initial and most recent portrayals of the character. The key moment in this evolution is believed to be the release of Swordsman II, directed by Tsui Hark, in 1992. In this film, Tsui Hark cast Lin Ching-hsia, a well-known female actress recognized for her roles in Taiwanese romance TV shows, to portray Dongfang Bubai, a character who undergoes a transgender transformation through self-castration. Lin’s portrayal of Dongfang Bubai marked a dramatic change in the on-screen depiction and characterization of this figure, which has subsequently influenced screen adaptations.

Against Jinyong’s strong objections, Tsui Hark introduced altered plotlines for Dongfang Bubai’s romantic relationships and gender-related fashion elements that were absent in the original text. These changes express a distinct aesthetic and understanding of gender identity compared to Jinyong’s interpretation. While some scholars have acknowledged Dongfang Bubai’s complex gender identity, few have examined the differing gender aesthetics in both the novel and its screen adaptations. This paper aims to explore Tsui Hark’s filmmaking approach and the potential significance of his reinterpretation of this contentious character. By contextualizing Swordsman II within the socio-political landscape of pre-1997 Hong Kong and the cultural milieu of martial arts cinema, I intend to investigate the intricate relationship between the Hong Kong film industry, cultural identity, and gender values prevalent in 1990s Hong Kong society.

Lu Chen, Hong Kong Baptist University, “Digital Cinephilia and Bit-Sized Storytelling: The Evolution of Participatory Film Culture in Postmodern China”

Over the past decade, digital technologies have become deeply enmeshed with our cognitive and physical selves. Devices now map our identities with a precision that surpasses our own self-awareness, shaping the ‘post-human’ scenarios. Once defined by a deep-seated obsession, extensive knowledge, and steadfast commitment to the art of cinema, cinephilia now contends with shifts due to the expansion of its focus to include fleeting cinematic experiences and ‘pan-cinematic’ practices in China. This shift is also evident in the move from traditional theaters to diverse viewing platforms and the integration of social media into the cinematic activities, which has revolutionized the Chinese cinephile community and reshaped the spectator-film dynamic. This study investigates how Chinese cinephiles, within a distinct framework of industry constraints and internet governance, engage with global film culture through micro-content remaking (e.g. short videos and memes) on platforms (e.g. TikTok). Through ethnographic scrutiny and content analysis, the research demonstrates an evolutionary path in film culture, where viewers evolve from passive consumers to active participants and narrative co-creators -- using bit-sized-content to fragment and re-contextualize films into new storytelling process, shaping and sharing the cinematic experience in innovative ways. This study not only enriches the localized comprehension of digital-age cinephilia but also advances the broader scholarly dialogue, underscoring the dynamic interplay between audiences and digital film culture in an increasingly interconnected world.

Dong Yang, Grinnell College, “Pensive Disengagements: Camera Consciousness and Techniques of Visual Concealment in the New Chinese Documentary Films”

This essay looks at the creative explorations of the audiovisual techniques of invisibility in the new generation of Chinese indie documentary films over the past decade, works made by an emerging group of millennial directors who have garnered attention at major global film festivals and yet been categorized into a “generation.” By analyzing recent works by such directors as Wang Nanfu (I Am Another You), Wu Hao (76 Days), and Violet Du Feng (Hidden Letters), I show that an emerging camera consciousness--an awareness of the presence and function of the cinematic apparatus--has become an essential element of their style of filmmaking. The new Chinese indie documentaries, seen this way, have much turned away from the expository tradition of documentary storytelling that explicitly captures and represents a presumed social reality but instead have turned to the postmodern subjective method of representation, as Linda Williams postulates, one that disengages the camera from the cinematic subjects to create a space for self-reflection.