I grew up in Taiwan and have always been fascinated by cinema. I received my Ph.D. in 1998 in the UK in communications studies and shifted my research priority from media to Taiwan cinema in 2005 when I became Head of Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China. I had fun working on several projects, screening Taiwanese films, discussing Taiwan cinema and society with filmmakers and audiences, and publishing widely in Chinese and in English. I have travelled, lived, and worked in different cities and countries since 2005 and have continued to find it rewarding to study what I have been passionate about since childhood.
I wrote
Taiwan Cinema: International Reception and Social Change
I have always enjoyed reading works by Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell William Davis as I find their perspectives on the subject I love–Taiwan cinema–refreshing and intelligent.
In their new volume, Yeh and Davis team up with co-editor Wenchi Lin and provide a meticulous examination of 32 individual Taiwanese films between 1963 and 2017. I like the fact that this book offers a wide spectrum of Taiwanese cinematic output in addition to updating the existing literature.
I am particularly inspired by a question that runs through the entire volume: What does national cinema mean to Taiwan at different times under different social, political, and cultural contexts?
Curating Taiwan Cinema: 32 New Takes covers thirty-two films from Taiwan, addressing a flowering of new talent, moving from art film to genre pictures, and nonfiction. Beyond the conventional framework of privileging "New and Post-New Cinema," or prominence of auteurs or single films, this volume is a comprehensive, judicious take on Taiwan cinema that fills gaps in the literature, offers a renewed historiography, and introduces new creative force and voices of Taiwan's moving image culture to produce a leading and accessible work on Taiwan film and culture.
Film-by-film is conceived as the main carrier of moving picture imagery for a…
This is one of the first English books I read about Taiwan New Cinema (TNC), arguably the most significant film movement in Taiwan to date.
When the TNC occurred in the 1980s, I was a student and Taiwan was going through the early stage of regime transition and democratization. It was an exciting but also uncertain time. I found films of TNC compelling but often opaque in meaning.
Reading this book in the early 21st century suddenly unlocked a lot of mysteries about the TNC as a film movement and the brilliance of these works for me. It motivated me to start researching Taiwan cinema as a subject more seriously.
This is the first English-language anthology on the Taiwan New Cinema and its legacy. It is an exciting collection which covers all the major filmmakers from Hou Hsiao Hsien and Edward Yang to Ang Lee and more. The volume gatehrs a range of essays that analyze individual films produced since the advent of the Taiwan New Cinema in the early 1980s.
Taiwan and its internationally renowned cinema are " on the edge" in more ways than one. For all of its history the island has been on the edge of larger geopolitical entities, subjected to invasions, migrations, incursions, and pressures.…
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.
The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on…
When I decided to study Taiwan cinema more systematically, I tried to read as much on the subject as possible. I enjoyed this book because it offered me a broad overview of many kinds of questions that can be asked about and through Taiwan cinema.
For example, I realized that it is possible to try and understand Taiwanese domestic & international politics, cross-strait relations, colonial history, and the impact of globalization in a more relatable manner by reading films and documentaries as texts. It is also possible to analyze different festivals, genres, filmmakers, and individual films from the perspectives of the film industry and film artistry.
I was totally energized by the enormous potential the subject of Taiwan cinema can offer because of this book.
Following the recent success of Taiwanese film directors, such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Ang Lee and Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwanese film is raising its profile in contemporary cinema. This collection presents an exciting and ambitious foray into the cultural politics of contemporary Taiwan film that goes beyond the auterist mode, the nation-state argument and vestiges of the New Cinema.
Cinema Taiwan considers the complex problems of popularity, conflicts between transnational capital and local practice, non-fiction and independent filmmaking as emerging modes of address, and new possibilities of forging vibrant film cultures embedded in national (identity) politics, gender/sexuality and community activism.…
I recommend this book because it is one of the few single-authored monographs in English that covers Taiwan cinema exclusively and comprehensively.
The study of Taiwan cinema has proliferated and diversified a great deal in recent years. However, when Hong’s Taiwan Cinema was published in 2011, most books on this subject were edited volumes and tended to have a narrower focus at the time. I like the fact that the author has offered many first-hand research materials.
I learned not only about the history of Taiwan cinema from pre-1945 to the new millennium but also why and how Taiwan cinema has shown the island as a contested nation on screen throughout the many decades.
A groundbreaking study of Taiwan cinema, Hong provides helpful insight into how it is taught and studied by taking into account not only the auteurs of New Taiwan Cinema, but also the history of popular genre films before the 1980s. The book is essential for students and scholars of Taiwan, film and visual studies, and East Asian cultural history.
Bernardine's Shanghai Salon
by
Susan Blumberg-Kason,
Meet the Jewish salon host in 1930s Shanghai who brought together Chinese and expats around the arts as civil war erupted and World War II loomed on the horizon.
Bernardine Szold Fritz arrived in Shanghai in 1929 to marry her fourth husband. Only thirty-three years old, she found herself in…
I think the author is very clever by bringing in the trendy concept of soft power and thus opening a new window for our understanding of Taiwan cinema.
I found the book not the easiest to read if you are not particularly familiar with the language of cultural studies or with specific films and filmmakers in Taiwan. However, the author has presented a convincing and valuable argument by linking a cinematic output to the entire system, which enables the production, circulation, and distribution of this output.
In other words, Taiwan cinema is a result, but the system that enriches creativity is where Taiwan’s values and soft power lie.
My book is about Taiwan cinema in the 21st century. Focused on the work of prominent filmmaker Wei Te-sheng, renowned for his blockbuster hits like "Cape No.7," "Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale," and "Kano," the book sheds light on Taiwan cinema’s resurgence after a period of decline until approximately 2008. It probes the intricacies of how cinema reflects and shapes Taiwan's shifting social dynamics within the historical narrative of Taiwan. Of particular significance is the exploration of the global reception of contemporary Taiwan cinema. It offers insightful perspectives on why, compared to previous decades, current Taiwan cinema may be met with a less enthusiastic response internationally on the one hand, but enjoyed higher domestic popularity on the other hand.
The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram
by
Dean Snow,
An ordinary sailor named David Ingram walked 3600 miles from Mexico to Canada over the course of eleven months in 1568-9. There, he and two companions were rescued by a French ship on the Bay of Fundy. They were the first Englishmen to explore the interior of North America.
This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoter’s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands of…
