Response Pape

Description

Response Paper

For this assignment, you will write a response paper of 700-800 words in which you present a 

critical-analytical reading of one text or film. Also called a précis, this is an opportunity for you 

to write a brief, clearly-focused short paper to present a well thought-out, structured argument in 

concise style. You may choose to focus on any one of cinematic texts we studied in this course, 

and you should engage the ideas in at least one secondary source of scholarship. In your film 

analysis, do your best to shed light on a film’s key themes, aesthetic elements, cultural context, 

and/or cinematic strategies.

Session 2 (Wednesday, April 10): Early Hong Kong Cinema: The Shanghai “Hangover”

Lisa Odham Stokes and Rachel Braaten, eds. Preface, Chronology, and Introduction in Historical 

Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema. xi-14.

Stephen Teo, “Early Hong Kong Cinema: The Shanghai Hangover” in Hong Kong Cinema: The 

Extra Dimensions. 3-28.

Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, “Translating Yingxi – Chinese Film Genealogy and Early Cinema in Hong 

Kong” in Early Film Culture in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Republican China. 19-50.

Film: Center Stage ??? directed by Stanley Kwan ???, 1991.

II. Wuxia, Kung Fu, and Hong Kong Martial Arts Cinema

Session 3 (Wednesday, April 17): The Wuxia Films of the 1970’s: King Hu, Lo Wei, and 

Bruce Lee

David Bordwell, “Motion Emotion: The Art of the Action Movie” in Planet Hong Kong. 127-

156.

Stephen Teo, Introduction in Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition. 1-16.

Stephen Teo, “The Martial Arts Film in Chinese Cinema: Historicism and the National” in Art, 

Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema. 99-109.

Stephen Teo, “The Rise of Kung Fu: From Wong Fei-Hong to Bruce Lee” in Chinese Martial 

Arts Cinema.

Stephen Teo, “The Wuxia Films of King Hu” in Chinese Martial Arts Cinema.115-142.

Man-Fung Yip, “In the Realm of the Senses: Sensory Realism, Speed, and Hong Kong Martial 

Arts Cinema” in Cinema Journal. 76-97.

Films: A Touch of Zen ?? directed by King Hu ???, 1971 and Fist of Fury ??? 

(aka The Chinese Connection) directed by Lo Wei ??, 1972.Session 4 (Wednesday, April 24): Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan: Transnational Stardom and 

Identity

David Bordwell, “Local Heroes: Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan” in Planet Hong Kong.17-38.

M.T. Kato, “Burning Asia: Bruce Lee’s Kinetic Narrative of Decolonization” in Modern Chinese 

Literature and Culture.

Yvonne Tasker, “Fists of Fury: Discourses of Race and Masculinity in the Martial Arts Cinema” 

in Asian Cinemas: A Reader and Guide. 437-456.

Paul Bowman, “Spectres of Bruce Lee” in Beyond Bruce Lee. 162-172.

Kin-Yan Szeto, “Jackie Chan’s Cosmopolitical Consciousness and Comic Displacement” in 

Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 229-261.

Raechel Dumas, “Kung Fu Production for Global Consumption: The Depoliticization of Kung 

Fu in Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle.”

Films: Enter the Dragon ???? directed by Robert Clouse (1973) and Drunken Master

?? directed by Yuen Woo-ping ??? (1978). Optional additional film: Kung Fu Hustle

?? directed by Stephen Chow ???, 2004.

III. The Hong Kong New Wave: Entertainment, Aesthetics, and 

Reinvention

Session 5 (Wednesday, May 1): The “Accented Cinema” of Tsui Hark and the Politics of 

Disappearance

Ackbar Abbas, “The New Hong Kong Cinema and the ‘Déjà Disparu’” in Hong Kong: Culture 

and the Politics of Disappearance.

Law Kar, “An Overview of Hong Kong’s New Wave Cinema” in At Full Speed.

Tony Williams, “Under ‘Western Eyes’: The Personal Odyssey of Huang Fei-Hong in Once 

Upon a Time in China in Asian Cinemas.

Tan See Kam, “Tsui Hark: Accented Cinema” in Hong Kong Cinema and Sinophone 

Transnationalisms.

Tan See Kam, “Shanghai and Peking Blues: Fiction as Imagined History” in Tsui Hark’s Peking 

Opera Blues. 103-118.

Craig Reid, “Interview with Tsui Hark” in Film Quarterly.

Films: Peking Opera Blues ???(1986) and Once Upon a Time in China ??? (1991)

directed by Tsui Hark ???.