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Adapted for the Screen: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Fiction and Film
Hsiu-Chuang Deppman
Contemporary Chinese films are popular with audiences worldwide, but a key reason for their success has gone unnoticed: many of the films are adapted from brilliant literary works. This book is the first to put these landmark films in the context of their literary origins and explore how the best Chinese directors adapt fictional narratives and styles for film. The book argues that the rise of cinema in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in the late 1980s was partly fueled by burgeoning literary movements. Fifth Generation director Zhang Yimou's highly acclaimed films Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lant ... More
Contemporary Chinese films are popular with audiences worldwide, but a key reason for their success has gone unnoticed: many of the films are adapted from brilliant literary works. This book is the first to put these landmark films in the context of their literary origins and explore how the best Chinese directors adapt fictional narratives and styles for film. The book argues that the rise of cinema in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in the late 1980s was partly fueled by burgeoning literary movements. Fifth Generation director Zhang Yimou's highly acclaimed films Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern, and To Live are built on the experimental works of Mo Yan, Su Tong, and Yu Hua, respectively. Hong Kong new wave's Ann Hui and Stanley Kwan capitalized on the irresistible visual metaphors of Eileen Chang's postrealism. Hou Xiaoxian's new Taiwan cinema turned to fiction by Huang Chunming and Zhu Tianwen for fine-grained perspectives on class and gender relations. The seven in-depth studies include a diverse array of forms (cinematic adaptation of literature, literary adaptation of film, auto-adaptation, and non-narrative adaptation) and a variety of genres (martial arts, melodrama, romance, autobiography, documentary drama). Complementing this formal diversity is a geographical range that far exceeds the cultural, linguistic, and physical boundaries of China. The directors represented here also work in the United States and Europe and reflect the growing international resources of Chinese-language cinema.
Keywords: Chinese film, contemporary film, Chinese directors, film adaptation, Chinese cinema, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, literary adaptation, cinematic adaptation
Published to Hawaii Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI:10.21313/hawaii/9780824833732.001.0001
Hsiu-Chuang Deppman, author
Subject(s) in Hawaii Scholarship Online
Chapter 1 Wang Dulu and Ang Lee
Chapter 2 Su Tong and Zhang Yimou
Chapter 3 Eileen Chang and Stanley Kwan
Chapter 4 Liu Yichang and Wong Kar-wai
Chapter 5 Dai Sijie
Chapter 6 Hou Xiaoxian and Zhu Tianwen
Chapter 7 Chen Yuhui and Chen Guofu
Selected Filmography
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