Women in East Asian Cinema

Felicia Chan is Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of Manchester where she researches the construction of national, cultural and cosmopolitan imaginaries in film and media. She is author of Cosmopolitan Cinema: Cross Cultural Encounters in East Asian Film (2017), co-editor of Chinese Cinemas: International Perspectives (2016) and founding member of the Manchester-based Chinese Film Forum UK. Fraser Elliott is Lecturer of Film, Exhibition and Curation at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Chinese Film Forum UK. His research specialises in the circulation of Chinese-language film in the UK and the histories of Hong Kong cinema. He is a member of the Chinese Film Forum UK, Festival Consultant for the Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh; collaborator with the Hong Kong Film Festival UK; and co-editor of Full-throttle Franchise: The Culture, Business and Politics of Fast & Furious (2023). Andy Willis is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford, UK and Senior Visiting Curator: Film at HOME, Manchester. Amongst his publications he is the co-editor, with Jonathan Wroot, of Cult Media: Re-packaged, Re-released and Restored and DVD, Blu-ray and Beyond: Navigating Formats and Platforms within Media Consumption (2017), with Felicia Chan, of Chinese Cinemas, International Perspectives (2016) and with Wing Fai Leung, of East Asian Film Stars (2014). In addition he has curated a number of seasons and programmes of East Asian films, including, CRIME: Hong Kong Style (2016) and The Original Ass Kickers: Hong Kong Cinema’s Female Action Heroes (2019), and with Sarah Perks, Made in Hong Kong (2007) and Visible Secrets: Hong Kong’s women filmmakers (2009).

• ContributorsList of IllustrationsForewordAcknowledgementsIntroductionWomen in East Asian Cinema: Gender Representations, Creative Labour and Global Histories - Felicia Chan, Fraser Elliott and Andy WillisPart I: Gender RepresentationA Cinema of Pleasure: He Xiaopei’s Home Video Aesthetics and Queer Feminist Politics - Hongwei BaoWork Ethic(s) of Being a Woman: Images of Female Labour in Hong Kong Cinema (1950s–1960s) - Fiona Law‘Functioning on the Fringes’: Interrogating New South Korean Womanhood and Millennial Trauma in Microhabitat (2017) - Dave McCaigThe Female Gaze in Xu Jinglei’s Letter From an Unknown Woman (2004) - Bérénice M. ReynaudIchi (2008): Female Stars and Gender Representations in the Zatoichi Franchise - Jonathan WrootAgency and Subjectivity of the Female Protagonists in Qiong Yao Films - Xuelin ZhouPart II: Creative LabourJapanese Documentary Filmmaker Haneda Sumiko: Authorship and Gender Perspective - Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández, Marcos Centeno and Irene Gonzalez-LópezA Challenge on Every Page: Female Screenwriter-directors in the South Korean Film Industry - Monika KukolovaThe Film Star and Her Husband: The Collaboration between Takamine Hideko and Matsuyama Zenzō - Till WeingärtnerAngie Chen: Hong Kong Film Pioneer - Andy WillisHer Own Feminism: Authorship and Editing in Ning Ying’s Filmmaking Practice - Francesca Young KaufmanPart III: Global HistoriesFigurations of the Nyonya: The Uses and Abuses of Peranakan Chinese Representation in Film - Felicia ChanTemporally Performing a Region: A Feminist Analysis of Southeast Asian Women’s Filmmaking - MaoHui DengCelebrating Women in Global Cinema: Disruptive Programming and East Asian Women on International Screens - Fraser Elliott

This expertly edited volume puts East Asian women’s filmmaking into conversation with world cinema by focusing on feminist-queer aesthetics, female spectatorship and the female gaze. Women too often fail to get credit for the jobs they do as filmmakers, and this anthology helps to redress that disparity by shining a light on the often neglected work by Asian women filmmakers.