Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Taipei and Tokyo: Turf Wars and Taiwanese Identity

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema

  • 1160 Accesses

Abstract

By examining four films involving Taiwanese gangs in different periods and locations, Yun Xia demonstrates how turf wars in these films unveil ethnic conflicts, social problems, and identity crises experienced by average Taiwanese. Both set in Taipei, A Brighter Summer Day and Monga demonstrate the ethnic divide between Chinese mainlanders and native Taiwanese that polarized the main society and the underworld since the late 1940s. Shinjuku Black Society and Shinjuku Incident touch on the rivalry between Taiwanese and Chinese gangs in the hierarchical underworld of Tokyo. This chapter analyzes how underworld struggles over territory serve as cinematic metaphors for Taiwanese anxiety over the loss of physical and cultural space, and over Taiwan’s uncertain status as an un-national nation-state between two powerhouses in East Asia.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 229.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 299.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Braester, Yomi. 2003. If We Could Remember Everything, We Would Be Able to Fly: Taipei’s Cinematic Poetics of Demolition. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 15 (1): 29–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braester, Yomi, and James Tweedie. 2010. Cinema at the City’s Edge: Film and Urban Networks in East Asia. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chang, Shi-kou. 2008. Diguo he Taike [Empires and Taike]. Taipei: Tianxia zazhishe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Chunbo. 2015. Waijujiao he neijujiao: huayu dianying guanyu “canku” qingchunde liangzhong xushi moshi [External Focus and Internal Focus: Two Narrative Models Found in Chinese Films About the “Cruelty of Youth”]. Dongnan chuanbo 5: 31–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiang, Ling-ching. 2013. Reshaping Taiwanese Identity: Taiwan Cinema and the City. PhD dissertation, University of Leicester.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chin, Ko-Lin. 2003. Heijin: Organized Crime, Business, and Politics in Taiwan. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chris, D. 2013. Gun and Sword: An Encyclopedia of Japanese Gangster Films. Poison Fang Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cloward, R.A., and L.E. Ohlin. 1960. Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs. New York, NY: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dillon, Mike. 2012. The Immigrant and the Yakuza: Gangscapes in Miike Takashi’s DOA. Studies in the Humanities 39/40 (1.2): 193–232.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill, Peter B.E. 2003. The Japanese Mafia: Yakuza, Law and the State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Huang, Zhangjian. 2007. Er’erba shijian zhenxiang kaozheng gao [The Truth About the February 28 Incident]. Taipei: Lianjing Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kersten, Joachim. 1998. German Youth Subcultures: History, Typology and Gender-Orientations. In Gangs and Youth Cultures: International Explorations, ed. K. Hazlehurst and C. Hazlehurst, 67–93. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Haiyan. 2010. Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China, 1900–1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lintner, Bertil. 2004. Chinese Organised Crime. Global Crime 1: 84–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu, Tonglin. 2002. Confronting Modernity in the Cinemas of Taiwan and Mainland China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marchetti, Gina. 2006. From Tian’anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens, 1989–1997. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niu Chengtse: Wenrou hanzi he qianbei langzi. 2010. Culture China, May 18. http://culture.china.com.cn/renwu/2010–05/18/content_20064796.htm. Accessed 28 Apr 2017.

  • Rankin, Andrew. 2012a. 21st-Century Yakuza: Recent Trends in Organized Crime in Japan—Part 1. Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 10 (7). http://apjjf.org/2012/10/7/Andrew-Rankin/3688/article.html. Accessed 5 July 2016.

  • Rankin, Andrew. 2012b. Recent Trends in Organized Crime in Japan: Yakuza vs the Police and Foreign Crime Gangs. Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 10 (7). http://apjjf.org/2012/10/7/Andrew-Rankin/3688/article.html. Accessed 5 July 2016.

  • Schilling, Mark. 2003. The Yakuza Movie Book: A Guide to Japanese Gangster Films. Albany: Stone Bridge Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrance, Richard. 2005. The Nature of Violence in Fukasaku Kinji’s Jingi naki tatakai [War Without a Code of Honor]. Japan Forum 3: 389–406.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turton, Michael. 2006. Taike and Being Taiwanese. The View from Taiwan (Blog), December 24. http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/2006/12/taike-and-being-taiwanese.html. Accessed 5 July 2016.

  • Varese, Federico. 2006. The Secret History of Japanese Cinema: The Yakuza Movies. Global Crime 1: 105–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wen Hui Bao. 1946. Taiwan xing: buzhi youqin, geng buzhi you han, taibaohai ba women dangzuo qingguoren [Experiencing Taiwan: Their Ignorance of the Past and Present of the Mainland], February 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xi, Xiande. 2012. Jingcha yu er’erba shijian. Taibei Shi: Shiying chubanshe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xia, Yun. 2017. Down with Traitors: Justice and Nationalism in Wartime China. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yeh, Emilie Yueh-yu. 2010. Taipei as Shinjuku’s Other. In Cinema at the City’s Edge: Film and Urban Networks in East Asia, ed. Yomi Braester and James Tweedie, 55–68. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yip, June. 2004. Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Zeze, Takahisa. 1998. Miike Takashi ga Kakaemotsu Daiyon no Meidai [Four Themes Held Dearly by Miike Takashi]. Kinema Junpo 1258: 58.

    Google Scholar 

Filmography

  • A Brighter Summer Day (牯嶺街少年殺人事件). Directed by Edward Yang. 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Monga (艋舺). Directed by Niu Cheng-tse. 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shinjuku Incident (新宿事件). Directed by Derek Yee Tung Sing. 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shinjuku Triad Society (新宿黒社会 チャイナ・マフィア戦争). Directed by Takashi Miike. 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Terrorizers (恐怖份子). Directed by Edward Yang. 1986.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN, USA

    Yun Xia

Authors
  1. Yun Xia
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yun Xia .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park

  2. School of Humanities, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Gina Marchetti

  3. University of Macau, Macau, Singapore

    See Kam Tan

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Xia, Y. (2018). Taipei and Tokyo: Turf Wars and Taiwanese Identity. In: Magnan-Park, A., Marchetti, G., Tan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95822-1_19

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation