The film Bullet in the Head functions both as an apocalyptic melodrama and as an allegory of fears concerning the implications of the Tiananmen Square incident for Hong Kong residents. This book argues for its central importance as a major work of contemporary Hong Kong cinema.
The first edition of John Woo: The Films (McFarland, 1999) was the earliest English-language volume to address the motion picture output of the celebrated Hong Kong director. The book dealt with Woo's film career from his professional beginnings in 1968 through his first three Hollywood releases (Hard Target, Broken Arrow and Face/Off), situating his work within Asian and Western cinematic and cultural traditions. This second edition offers a wealth of additional information, including treatment of John Woo's Hollywood productions Mission: Impossible II, Windtalkers and Paycheck. Also featured is material on Woo's epic Red Cliff, filmed in China. A new foreword is provided by Tony Williams, author of John Woo's Bullet in the Head. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Including reviews of 200 films, plus information about U.S. theaters, video stores, and mail-order sources that specialize in this white-hot, new genre, this is the first guide to an exploding popular culture phenomenon. Includes 75 photos.
Action, African greats, alcohol, Robert Aldrich, aliens, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Robert Altman, animated, anime, apocalypses, Argentina, art, Asia minor, avant garde... And that's just A for you. A taste of this fabulously quirky and enjoyable book which is both a celebration of movies - and movie trivia - and a handy, entertaining guide to films that we know you will enjoy. It is fantastically functional. The lists are well conceived and easy to understand - mostly assembled by genre, actor, director, theme or country of origin - and the reviews are witty and informative. Oddly enough, most movie guides are not full of recommendations. But Movie Lists is, in spades, leaving readers in no doubt that the films reviewed are the business. Oh - and you don't have to watch them all before you die. There is no premise of death in this book. You just need to get down to the local Blockbusters or flick your remote to Movies on Demand. Only the popcorn is not supplied.
A Better Tomorrow has always been hailed as a milestone in Hong Kong cinema. This book describes the different responses to the movie in Hong Kong and later in its reception worldwide, which paved the way for the promotion of John Woo and Chow Yun-fat to their current prominence in Hollywood. Fang examines the different notions of the genre of action cinema in Asian and Western film industries. She tracks the connections between ying shung pian, or "hero" movie, the term by which Woo's film became famous in Hong Kong, and the spectacle of violence emphasized in the term "heroic bloodshed," the category in which the film was known in the West. Finally, she concludes with a discussion of the status of the film and its huge success in the current globalized industry.
This book is a scholarly investigation of the historical development and contemporary transformation of film noir in today’s Hong Kong. Focusing on the evolvement of cinematic narratives, aesthetics, and techniques, the author balances a deep reading of the multiple filmic plots with a discussion of the cinematic portrayals of gender, romance, identities and power relations. Nuancing the prototypical cinematic form and tragic sense of classical film noir, the recent Hong Kong cinema turns around the classical generic role of film noir at the turn of the century to convey very different messages—joy, hope or love. This book examines how the mainstream cinema, or pre-and-post-Hong Kong cinema in particular, applies a peculiar strategy that makes rooms for the audience to enjoy a pleasure-giving process of reflexivity and also critique the mainstream ideology. With new analytical approaches and angles, this book breaks new ground in offering transcultural and cross-genre analyses on the cinema and its impact in local and international markets. This book is the first major scholarly investigation of the historical development and contemporary transformation of film noir in today’s Hong Kong. Focusing on the evolvement of cinematic narratives, aesthetics, and techniques, the author balances a deep reading of the multiple filmic plots with a refreshing discussion of the cinematic portrayals of gender, romance, identities and power relations. This book also revisits conceptual categories developed by Foucault, Lacan, Derrida and Butler.
Thanks to the successes of directors and actors like John Woo, Jackie Chan, and Chow Yun-Fat, the cinema of Hong Kong is wildly popular worldwide, and there is much more to this diverse film culture than most Western audiences realize. Beyond martial arts and comedy, Hong Kong films are a celebration of the grand diversity and pageantry of moviemaking--covering action, comedy, horror, eroticism, mythology, historical drama, modern romances, and experimental films. Information on 1,100 films produced in British Hong Kong from 1977 to 1997 is included here.
Has the creative period of the New Hong Kong Cinema now come to an end? However we answer this question, there is a need to evaluate the achievements of Hong Kong cinema. This series distinguishes itself from the other books on the subject by focusing in-depth on individual Hong Kong films, which together make the New Hong Kong cinema.
The portrayal of historical atrocity in fiction, film, and popular culture can reveal much about the function of individual memory and the shifting status of national identity. In the context of Chinese culture, films such as Hou Hsiao-hsien's City of Sadness and Lou Ye's Summer Palace and novels such as Ye Zhaoyan's Nanjing 1937: A Love Story and Wang Xiaobo's The Golden Age collectively reimagine past horrors and give rise to new historical narratives. Michael Berry takes an innovative look at the representation of six specific historical traumas in modern Chinese history: the Musha Incident (1930); the Rape of Nanjing (1937-38); the February 28 Incident (1947); the Cultural Revolution (1966-76); Tiananmen Square (1989); and the Handover of Hong Kong (1997). He identifies two primary modes of restaging historical violence: centripetal trauma, or violence inflicted from the outside that inspires a reexamination of the Chinese nation, and centrifugal trauma, which, originating from within, inspires traumatic narratives that are projected out onto a transnational vision of global dreams and, sometimes, nightmares. These modes allow Berry to connect portrayals of mass violence to ideas of modernity and the nation. He also illuminates the relationship between historical atrocity on a national scale and the pain experienced by the individual; the function of film and literature as historical testimony; the intersection between politics and art, history and memory; and the particular advantages of modern media, which have found new means of narrating the burden of historical violence. As Chinese artists began to probe previously taboo aspects of their nation's history in the final decades of the twentieth century, they created texts that prefigured, echoed, or subverted social, political, and cultural trends. A History of Pain acknowledges the far-reaching influence of this art and addresses its profound role in shaping the public imagination and conception-as well as misconception-of modern Chinese history.