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- Volume 17, Issue 2, 2006
Asian Cinema - Volume 17, Issue 2, 2006
Volume 17, Issue 2, 2006
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Forever Fever: "Disco Culture," Commercialism, and Singaporean Society
More LessDespite its presence as a prominent "Asian Tiger," one of the most industrialized and commercialized countries in the modern world, the cinematic medium within Singapore remains a somewhat underdeveloped local entity. Cinema going within Singapore has been dominated throughout recent years by ongoing processes of importing, where Western-oriented and East Asian films have been predominant. Yet this praxis of importing has not deterred the steady emergence of native filmic production, where a range of directors including Eric Khoo, Jack Neo, and Phillip Lim have surfaced with mixed results. One example demonstrating this "wave" of success in recent years is Forever Fever (1998, dir. Glen Goei). As this article shall outline, Forever Fever surfaces as a text of nostalgic re-interpretation, prefacing and negotiating diverse themes within the Singaporean imaginary.
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Bridges Between: Reflections on Dubai and Its International Film Festival
By Anne CieckoThe following is a review of the Dubai International Film Festival, a city described by the author as 'a complex, diverse, and sometimes contradictory mix of cultures, traditions and post-postmodern simulacra.' The following examines the 2006 film festival.
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A New Day in Old Sana’a: An Interview with the Director and Producer of Yemen’s First Feature Film
By Anne CieckoThe following is an interview with director and producer Bader Ben Hirsi, who released Yemen's first feature film, A New Day in Old Sana'a. The following interview took place at the Dubai International Film Festival 2006.
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Kim Ki-duk’s Non-Person Films
By Ma Sheng-MeiThis article will firstly consider the question "Why do we consume the Korean Wave?" From Korean to Asian to global, the Korean Wave's "non-person person" appeals to the audience in different ways: Koreans attracted to, among other things, the reprise of traditional sentiment of han (historical suffering and the elation of overcoming grievances or simply outliving them) Asians drawn to Western modernity that, paradoxically, alienates; Westerners in search of exotic alternative entertainment that echoes their sense of atomization.
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No Turning Back: An Interview with Kang Je-gyu
By R. L. CagleThe following is an interview between R. L. Cagle and the Korean filmmmaker Kang Je-gyu during his US tour in 2006.
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Allegories of Reunification in the Long Arm of the Law Series
More LessThis article will look at how the series represents not just a searching critique of the relationship between the "two Chinas" but also a distinctive contribution to the Hong Kong gangster movie. Most critics concentrate on what they see as the more interesting features of the first film and criticize succeeding ones for not living up to its standards. While the Long Arm of the Law is a major achievement, this should not prohibit looking at the series as a whole and noting distinctive patterns within each film and their common relationship.
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Monsters, Midgets, Politicians and Superheroes: The Philippines on Film
By Art BlackThis article will discuss the Filipino film industry, starting with its history. The industry crashed to a halt when Japan invaded the Philippines within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing film production to a standstill (with the exception of Japanese-sanctioned propaganda films). Following the liberation, Filipino filmmaking resumed, with a spate of movies depicting the heroism of Filipino and American soldiers during the war. Over the next few years, the themes of these films gradually grew more cynical and pessimistic, paralleling Film Noir in the U.S. and focusing on the plight of disillusioned, disenfranchised veterans returning home to experience hardship, poverty, and inequality. Then, unexpectedly, the 1950s offered a bold new source for film stories.
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As Simple as an Egg: Lessons about Love in Ashes of Time
By Ya-chen ChenThis article will discuss Ashes of Time and its relationship to love. In Dongxie Xidu (Ashes of Time), Wong Kar-wai reimagines love. He juxtaposes two love stories in the film; one is complicated, the other simple. All the characters in this story share the same love triangle: doubts and subjective judgment of the contrast between "this mountain" and "the mountain behind this one." Each one of them has his or her own "two mountains." In the following paragraphs, this article will analyze their "two mountains."
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The Distilled Art of Ethical Poetry- The Aesthetic Pursuit of Chinese Ethical Melodrama Film
By Chungeng HeThe development of Chinese movies shows that their general artistic aim is to reflect reality, punish evil-doers and reward good people. The participants in the making of the social ethic movie combined elements of progressive history with the pursuit of the ethical expression of emotion. The dramatic structure of the narration and the classical characters, notable for their moral integrity, were all popular elements of these films. These traditional aspects were inherited and developed by Zheng Zhenqiu, Cai Chusheng, and Xie Jin. Movie directors have continued to use these traditional elements into the 1980s, except during the Cultural Revolution when they were under political attack. Their pursuit of increasing refinement and popular appeal remain a significant source for the current Chinese movies.
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Crossroads of Experience: Miyazaki Hayao's Global/Local Nexus
By Jay GouldingThis paper explores the double folding of time and space in the anime films of Miyazaki Hayao: the past becomes the present and the present becomes the past. Particular attention is paid to Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) and Sen To Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away). Miyazaki entertains a unique Japanese response to the cultural challenges of globalization with the use of Shinto and Buddhist themes. For him, "global goes local" is more than a slogan. In the wake of the influx of American commodity culture in Japan, Miyazaki's films attempt to enact an ironic reversal. Global trends (especially from the West) are themselves "spirited away" and transformed into deep Japanese and Chinese philosophy against a backdrop of local folk culture. Hence, the roots of Japanese heritage emerge through the crossroads of experience: East and West, ancient and modern, old and young, inside and outside.
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Kurosawa's Censored Satori
More LessThis article will discuss the story of Sugata Sanshiro and how it provides some interesting perspectives on Japanese society and religion; in particular, it shows a satori or "sudden enlightenment experience" and how it affects Sanshiro life. The variations of the novels and films as they appeared in wartime and postwar also reveal that a number of phrases which may have spiritual overtones to some people and militaristic connotations to others have disappeared or have been replaced with more innocuous phrases.
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The Man Who Re-Shot John Wayne: Kitano Takeshi's Search for a Globalist Vision
By Gerald SimThis article will discuss Kitano Takeshi's walk in Violent Cop. Where do Kitano's walks take him to most often? - The beach. Here, literally at the edges of Japan's geography, his marginalized figures go, to gaze outward and never inward, to seek both peace and answers. The journey I argue, takes him eventually to a post-Wayne America in Brother, where he finds existential meaning within a mood of cautious optimism tempered with manifest pessimism.
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A Study of Japanese, Korean, and Hong Kong Beauty Comedies
More LessThe article begins by examining the historical background of motion pictures in Japan and Hong Kong. Part two turns to look at the external catalyst of beauty comedies from a social perspective. The final part investigates the internal significance of beauty comedies, which will then lead us into whether women's contemporary status has been improved from the men's perspective.
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A Few Moments with Anthony Ng
More LessThe following interview took place at the 15th Florida Film Festival with Hong Kong born filmmaker Anthony Ng, following the premiere of his film 212.
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Qiu Ju Goes to Court: Relating Cinematic Art to Juridical Reality
More LessAs an attempt to investigate how an ethnography of legal discourse dictates cinematic and theatrical figuration, this paper centers on a Chinese contemporary film directed by Yimou Zhang - Qiu Ju Goes to Court (The Story of Qiu Ju). Zhang is one of the Fifth Generation filmmakers, a group whose emergence is conventionally considered a sign of the post-Cultural Revolution booming of aesthetic experimentation. By placing astutely the center of interest on the Chinese bureaucracy and legal system in its construction of the female protagonist, Qiu Ju, the film illustrates how social and cultural concerns, at various moments in recent Chinese history, wrestle with each other for an ideologically figurative genesis. In this case, Zhang's film contains a plot that can serve as an ideal case study for Turner's "social drama" model.
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"Little Red Flowers," or a Nightmare Gone Awry, a Coming of Age Movie for a New Generation in China
More LessThe film, in a way, heralds the coming of age of the generation of those children of intellectuals who were left behind when their parents were sent off to the countryside to labor - the generation of the 40-plus. I propose that this movie is, in a way, a coming-of-age saga not only for its director, who for the first time tackles childhood, but for a whole generation which will most likely face the same dark hints of sexuality gone awry in dark rooms with monsters in them.
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Silencing the Clamour of the World: Erice-Kiarostami, Correspondences. Curated by Alain Bergala and Jordi Balló
More LessThe following review examines the exhibition of Victor Erice's work, as it featured at the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona (CCCB) between February and May 2006. The exhibition combined Erice's work with films and artwork by Iranian director Abbas Kiarsotami, and was curated by Alain Bergala and Jordi Ballo.
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 34 (2023)
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Volume 33 (2022)
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Volume 32 (2021)
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Volume 31 (2020)
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Volume 30 (2019)
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Volume 29 (2018)
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Volume 28 (2017)
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Volume 27 (2016)
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Volume 26 (2015)
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Volume 25 (2014)
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Volume 24 (2013)
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Volume 23 (2012)
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Volume 22 (2011)
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Volume 21 (2010)
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Volume 20 (2009)
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Volume 19 (2008)
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Volume 18 (2007)
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Volume 17 (2006)
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Volume 16 (2005)
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Volume 15 (2004)
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Volume 14 (2003)
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Volume 13 (2002)
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Volume 12 (2001)
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Volume 11 (2000)
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Volume 10 (1998 - 1999)
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Volume 9 (1997 - 1998)
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Volume 8 (1996)
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Volume 7 (1995)
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Volume 6 (1993)