Celluloid China
Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society by Harry H. Kuoshu is a lucid introduction to the cinema of mainland China from the early 1930s to the early 1990s. Emphasizing both film contexts and film texts, this study invites film scholars and students to a broad cinematic analysis that includes investigations of cultural, cross-cultural, intellectual, social, ethnic, and political issues. Such a holistic evaluation allows for a better understanding of both the genesis of a special kind of film art from the People’s Republic of China and the culture exemplified in those films.
The fifteen films include: Two Stage Sisters; Hibiscus Town; Farewell My Concubine; Street Angel; Three Women; Human, Woman, Demon; Judou; Girl from Hunan; Sacrificed Youth; Horse Thief; Yellow Earth; Old Well; Red Sorghum; Black Cannon Incident; and Good Morning, Beijing. Discussions of each film have an introduction, passages from the director’s own notes whenever available, and a scholarly article. Discussion questions are found in an appendix. Within its complete bibliography, the book also features a suggested reading list for Chinese film classes. Celluloid China is the first book to provide such an exhaustive study of the art and cultural context of Chinese cinema.
About the Author:
Harry H. Kuoshu, aka Haixin Xu, is an assistant professor of cinema studies and modern languages at Northeastern University, where he teaches Chinese film, culture, and language. He is the author of Lightness of Being in China: Adaptation and Discursive Figuration in Cinema and Theater.
See the publisher website: Southern Illinois University Press
> From the same author:
> On a related topic:
Rethinking Transnational Chinese Cinemas (2013)
The Amoy-Dialect Film Industry in Cold War Asia
Cinematic Landscapes (2000)
Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinema of China and Japan
Dir. Linda C. Ehrlich and David Desser
Beyond Bruce Lee (2013)
Chasing the Dragon Through Film, Philosophy, and Popular Culture
by Paul Bowman
Romanian and Chinese Cinemas (2025)
Socialist Affect and Cultural Politics from Maoism to the New Waves
by Lucian Țion
Chinese Film in the Twenty-First Century (2025)
Movements, Genres, Intermedia
Dir. Corey Schultz and Cecília Mello
Back
