Abstract
The introduction chapter explains why genre study provides a compelling theoretical and methodological framework for studying East Asian and transnational cinemas. It presents an overview of the development of genre study and identifies three interrelated pathways to expand our understanding of genre’s roles in (a) articulating transnational and cross-cultural communication, (b) shaping film history and film culture, and (c) mapping out sociopolitical space of East Asian cinemas. All three strands collectively question film genre’s encounter with power negotiation in film production, distribution, and consumption. This book is divided into three sections, each focusing on one of the three pathways.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For instance, a copy of the Japanese silent film What Made Her Do It (Shigeyoshi Suzuki, 1930), which was believed to be lost after the World War II, was discovered in Russia in 1994. Similarly, a copy of the Chinese silent film The Cave of the Silken Web (Dan Duyu, 1927) was also thought to be lost, but it was discovered in Norway in 2013. Other scholarly efforts of re-engaging popular cinema include but not limited to the project Taiwan’s Lost Commercial Cinema that aims to recover and restore those Taiwanese-language feature films (taiyu pian) that were popular but short-lived in the 1970s, Hong Kong Cantonese Cinema Study Association that aims to re-evaluate Hong Kong film history through discovering and protecting popular Cantonese films (many of which are genre films).
References
Altman, Rick. 1984. “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” Cinema Journal 23 (3) (Spring): 6–18.
———. 1999. Film/genre. London: British Film Institute.
Balmain, Colette. 2008. Introduction to Japanese Horror Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Chan, Felicia, Angelina Karpovich, and Xin Zhang, eds. 2011. Genre in Asian Film and Television: New Approaches. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dixon, Wheeler Winston, and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. 2018. A Short History of Film. 3rd ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers.
Eleftheriotis, Dimitris, and Gary Needham, eds. 2006. Asian Cinemas: A Reader and Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Gledhill, Christine. 2007. “History of Genre Criticism.” In The Cinema Book, 3rd ed., edited by Pamela Cook, 252-9. London: British Film Institute.
Gomery, Douglas, and Clara Pafort-Overduin. 2011. Movie History: A Survey. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Hill, John, and Pamela Church Gibson, eds. 1998. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hunt, Leon, and Wing-fai Leung, eds. 2008. East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film. London: I.B. Tauris.
Kane, Tim. 2006. The Changing Vampire of Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Growth of a Genre. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
Lim, Song Hwee, and Julian Ward, eds. 2011. The Chinese Cinema Book. London: British Film Institute.
Lu, Sheldon Hsiao-peng. 1997. Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Neale, Steve. 1999. Genre and Hollywood. London: Routledge.
———. 2007. “Genre Theory Since the 1980s.” In The Cinema Book, 3rd ed., edited by Pamela Cook, 260–4. London: British Film Institute.
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed. 1996. The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Provencher, Ken, and Mike Dillon, eds. 2018. Exploiting East Asian Cinemas: Genre, Circulation, Reception. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Schatz, Thomas. 1981. Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Stubbs, Jonathan. 2013. Historical Film: A Critical Introduction. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Tasker, Yvonne. 1993. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema. London: Routledge.
Teo, Stephen. 2009. Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Aston, J., Feng, L. (2020). Introduction. In: Feng, L., Aston, J. (eds) Renegotiating Film Genres in East Asian Cinemas and Beyond. East Asian Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55077-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55077-6_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-55076-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-55077-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)