Theorizing Ambivalence in Ang Lee's Transnational Cinema takes a unique approach to the study of transnational cinema by examining the representation of Chinese identity in Ang Lee's films and the public discourse from various audience communities. This book focuses on his transnational films Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Lust, Caution (2007) as two case studies. Providing a systematic analysis of audience discourse from Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the Chinese diaspora, this study challenges ideological constructions of racial and ethnic identity, such as Chineseness, that are objectively defined within a static nation-state mechanism in an era of globalization. Through the study of the representation of Chineseness, this book expands the theoretical discussions on the politics of national identity and cultural syncretism represented in transnational cinema and further provides a good example of the familiar cycle of ambivalent emotion toward the West in the aftermath of postcolonialism. China and Taiwan's long history of engaging in a subordinate relationship with the West enhances the resurgence of ambivalence. The representations become a significant and predominant way to mediate one's bodily experiences, to connect and collaborate with one another, and to form and inform one's cultural identity. The analyses of these films and the audience discourse are essential to an understanding of the ways in which new media technologies impact and alter the human interactions between peoples from various cultural, social, and political contexts.

This edited volume focuses on South and East Asian cinema, exploring transnational connections between these film industries from the point of view of narratives, topics and themes, as well as in terms of co-productions. At a time of resurgent nationalisms and increasing fortifications of (actual and symbolic) borders, the chapters in this book explore cinematic work that challenge these boundaries and promote a reflection on the social, cultural, political and economic value of international exchanges and collaborations within the context of Asia. Indeed, notwithstanding the aforementioned tendency to implement border policing and the revival of nationalist sentiments, South and East Asian cinemas retain a strong transnational character, as not only genres and themes are borrowed and exchanged across borders, but also the popularity of the Indian, Chinese and Korean film industries extend well beyond their national borders – within Asia as well as in the West. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Transnational Screens.

This collection of essays on transnational Chinese cinema explores the corporal, psychological, and affective aspects of experiencing bodies on screen; engages with the material and discursive elements of embodiment; and highlights the dynamics between the mind and body involved in bio-cultural practices of cinematic production, distribution, exhibition, and reception.

This collection examines the exchange of Asian identities taking place at the levels of both film production and film reception amongst pan-Pacific cinemas. The authors consider, on the one hand, texts that exhibit what Mette Hjort refers to as, "marked transnationality," and on the other, the polysemic nature of transnational film texts by examining the release and reception of these films. The topics explored in this collection include the innovation of Hollywood generic formulas into 1950's and 1960's Hong Kong and Japanese films; the examination of Thai and Japanese raced and gendered identity in Asian and American films; the reception of Hollywood films in pre-1949 China and millennial Japan; the production and performance of Asian adoptee identity and subjectivity; the political implications and interpretations of migrating Chinese female stars; and the production and reception of pan-Pacific co-productions. .

With extraordinary transnational and transdisciplinary range, World Literature, Transnational Cinema, and Global Media comprehensively explores the genealogies, vocabularies, and concepts orienting the fields within literature, cinema, and media studies. Orchestrating a layered conversation between arts, disciplines, and media, Stam argues for their "mutual embeddedness" and their shared "in-between" territories. Rather than merely adding to the existing scholarship, the book builds a relational framework through the connectivities within literature, cinema, music, and media that opens up analysis to new categories and concepts, while crossing spatial, temporal, theoretical, disciplinary, and mediatic borders. The book also questions an array of hierarchies: literature over cinema; source novel over adaptation; feature film over documentary; erudite over vernacular culture; Western modernisms over "peripheral" modernisms; classical over popular music; written poetry over sung poetry, and so forth. The book is structured around the concept of the "commons," forming a strong thread which links various struggles against "enclosures" of all kinds, with emphasis on natural, indigenous, cultural, creative, digital, and the transdisciplinary commons. World Literature, Transnational Cinema, and Global Media is ideal to further the theoretical discussion for those undergraduate and graduate departments in cinema studies, media studies, arts and art history, communications, journalism, and new digital media programs at all levels.

This project is an analysis of the magical realist genre in cinema, specifically its multiple forms found in transnational cinema. The status of magical realism in film as a genre will be questioned and this project argues that the concept is best understand as a transgeneric critical category rather than a genre in the conventional understanding of the term. Magical realism as academic concept has been discussed in-depth in literary theory and this project extends those discussions into the field of cinema. The history of criticism of magical realism is summarized as it applies to studying film with special attention given towards the semiotic differences between literature and cinema. Furthermore, this project explicates the distinct ways that magical realism operates in cinema in contrast to literature while also noting the shared aesthetic strategies between each media. Each section covers a thematic topic observed in transnational magical realist cinema: metafiction in overt and covert forms; the representation of historicity; and the representation of marginalized subjectivities, specifically looking at how magical realist cinema presents issues of class, gender, race, and sexual identity. The final thematic discussion discusses the possibility of utopian discourses in magical realist cinema, the attempts to envision a less exploitative social collective according to a variety of cultural and national contexts in late-capitalism. Key films discussed in this project include: Death by Hanging (1968), Underground (1995), Naked Lunch (1991), Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), Miracle in Milan (1951), The Tin Drum (1979), Synecdoche, New York (2008), Tropical Malady (2004), Gozu (2003), Daughters of the Dust (1991) among many other works.