Taiwanese-Language Cinema

Chris Berry is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London. His curating work includes the 2011 Cultural Revolution in Cinema season in Vienna (with Katja Wiederspahn) and the Taiwan’s Lost Commercial Cinema: Recovered and Restored project (with the co-editors of this book). Film Festival jury service has included Hawai’i, Pusan, Singapore, and the Golden Horse (Taipei). He has authored and edited many books, most recently Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities (2020). Wafa Ghermani holds a PhD from the Université Paris 3 – La Sorbonne Nouvelle in film studies. Her PhD focused on Taiwan cinema and National Identity from the Japanese colonial period to the present. She is currently assistant professor at Taiwan Central University. She previously worked at the Cinémathèque française and is a curator for many festivals and Taiwan film-related events. Corrado Neri is an associate professor at the Jean Moulin University, Lyon 3. He has conducted extensive research on Chinese cinema in Beijing and Taipei and published many chapters in books and articles in journals. He is the author and co-editor of several books, including Tsai Ming-liang (2004), Ages Inquiets. Cinémas chinois: une representation de la jeunesse (2009) and Retro Taiwan: Le temps retrouvé dans le cinéma sinophone contemporain (2016). Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley is Research Associate, Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS University of London and also at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Taiwan Studies and has published widely in both English and Chinese on Chinese-language cinema and media and democratisation in Taiwan. Her more recent publications include Taiwan Cinema: International Reception and Social Change (edited with Kuei-fen Chiu and Gary Rawnsley, 2017).

Here Taiwanese-language cinema finally receives the sustained scholarly attention it deserves, with leading global scholars offering insightful readings of both acknowledged classics and relatively forgotten films placed in the broader context of Taiwan’s film industry, culture and society. An essential volume for those interested in Taiwan and Asian popular cinema.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsEditorial Note on LanguagesIntroduction - Chris Berry, Wafa Ghermani, Corrado Neri and Ming-yeh T. RawnsleyPart I: Critical InterventionChapter 1. Don’t Call Me ‘Taiyupian’: Reflections on the Taiwanese Hokkien Cinema Era and Its Myths - Chih-heng Su (Translated by Francesca Jordan)Part II: Social TransformationChapter 2. Representations of Blindness in Taiyupian - Ta-wei ChiChapter 3. From Stage to Screen: The Emergence of Taiwanese Opera Films in Social History - Ju-fang Shih (Translated by Jonathan Henshaw)Chapter 4. Taiyupian as Vernacular Modernism: Material Culture, Home Spaces and Taiwan as a Home - Adina ZemanekPart III: Industry and AestheticsChapter 5. The Spirit of Yufeng: Lin Tuan-qiu’s Film Career and the Hushan Film Studio - Wan-shun Shih (Translated by Martin Ward)Chapter 6. The Relationship between Actors and Industry in 1960s Taiwanese-Language Cinema - Hsin-chi Chen (Translated by Stefan Harvey)Chapter 7. Re-examining Vengeance of the Phoenix Sisters and Martial Arts Films: Genre Hybridity, Translocality and Cross-nationality - Ru-shou Robert ChenChapter 8. Taiyupian’s Musical Soundscapes: Listening in on Composer Tseng Chung-ying and His Context - Nancy GuyChapter 9. Sound Legacies: Post-synchronised Sound and Echoes of the Taiyupian in Pre-Dolby Taiwan Cinema - Evelyn ShihPart IV: Transnational DimensionsChapter 10. Translation and Transformation: From Gothic Romance to Family Complex of Taiyupian - Fang-mei LinChapter 11. Film Circulation and Mutual Influences between Hong Kong and Taiwan during the Cold War - Jessica Siu-yin YeungContributors