Description: This book probes many crucial controversies: What are Taiwan's meaningful cultural and historical connections to Japan? How do Taiwanese filmmakers and audiences feel about mainland China? How does Taiwan cinema deal with environmental issues, animal rights, human trafficking, sexuality, and the challenges facing ethnic minorities?
Brief description: Paul G. Pickowicz is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, San Diego.
Review Quotes:
"Paul Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang should be congratulated for putting together a volume that taps into the cultural production of present-day Taiwan. Much of the scholarship--both Chinese and English--produced in recent decades has been on New Taiwan Cinema of the 1980s. Focusing on more recent films and their connections to Taiwan and regional cultures of the new millennium, this volume makes a valuable contribution to the larger field of Asian film and visual culture. Locating Taiwan Cinema in the Twenty-First Century is an example of how scholarship can respond to newest cultural trends in a timely fashion. The material is fresh, and the overall scholarship is original." --Nicole Huang, University of Hong Kong
"Highlighting a multitude of glocal, sociopolitical, and aesthetic-ethical transcodes, Locating Taiwan Cinema in the Twenty-First Century explores the complex trajectory of identity formation, structural transformation, and cultural dynamics of the island state since 2000. The multidisciplinary approach illuminates the ways in which global uncertainties, unstable cross-strait relations, local economic disparities, contested gender subjectivities, ethnic and intergenerational tensions, transregional post-truth disinformation, and social media, among others, have an unprecedented impact on people's lives both on and off the screen. This volume is an essential sourcebook for students in world cinema." --Ping-hui Liao, University of California, San Diego
"In Locating Taiwan Cinema in the Twenty-First Century, Professors Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang situate Taiwan cinema in the ever-evolving Sinosphone and Asian spheres as both a historical articulation, a transregional undertaking, and a multimedia construct. In thirteen chapters, the volume identifies local, colonial, and global contestations, introduces multiple genres and discourses, and ponders the social and political implications of cinema as a unique manifestation of the island as it encounters the world. Historically informed and methodologically engaged, Pickowicz and Zhang's book is sure to be an invaluable resource for those interested in the cultural dynamics of Taiwan cinema in the world context." --David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University
"Since the heyday of New Taiwan cinema in the twentieth century, Taiwan cinema has ventured into innovative forms of popular genre, documentary, and social activism. Filmmakers have forged regional alliances, addressed the fraught relationship with the PRC, and reflected on global migration patterns. The kaleidoscopic collection of essays in this volume offers a pioneering survey and in-depth analysis of these themes, dwelling on some of the most notable movies and directors of the 21st century." --Yomi Braester, University of Washington