“Working Through China” in the Pan-Asian Film Network: Perspectives from Hong Kong and Singapore

Asia’s cinematic landscape has undergone important changes in the last ten to fifteen years, and some of these changes can be attributed to the increasing influence of Mainland China in the region, both as a lucrative market and an emerging film production center. Chinese-language films, and indeed popular mainstream cinema at large, nowadays can hardly avoid confronting, directly or indirectly, the cultural, economic, and political realities of the most populated nation in the world. This multi-layered and multi-directional encounter has informed some of the critical reflections on East Asian cinemas presented in this volume. China’s “peaceful rise” to international prominence, at least in economic terms, was visually asserted in the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony further. The sheer magnificence of this cash- and labor-intensive international carnival also confirms Zhang Yimou’s status as the Chinese cinematic maverick par excellence in our times. The hidden message of the Olympic slogan, “One World, One Dream” seems to be that China is as open to the world as the world is converging upon a kaleidoscopic “China dream” with wonder, apprehension, and pragmatic optimism.