For anyone wanting to understand the transformation of the relationship between China and Hollywood between China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 and the opening of the Shanghai Disney theme park in 2016, Aynne Kokas's Hollywood Made in China provides a concise and lucid analysis. Combining on-site observation in Shanghai and Los Angeles with interviews and analysis of numerous paratextual documents and some film case studies, Kokas takes a political economy approach in this volume that contributes to media and film studies as well as Chinese studies. Where Hollywood once obsessed about opening the Chinese market to more imports, now it emphasizes direct investment in China and co-productions, and it is this entanglement and its consequences that Kokas focuses on. She argues that the result is “at once symbiotic and competitive” (p. 13).

The book is structured from the macro-level to the micro-level, beginning with trade policy and broad economic interests, and closing with an analysis of the cultural intermediary role of workers on various kinds of co-productions. In the first chapter, Kokas shows that a synergy between two very different sets of aims and interests has been driving the relationship. The Chinese box office is poised to overtake that of the United States, which has remained flat, motivating Hollywood to target China as its main source of growth. WTO accession has allowed for more imports of foreign films, but obstacles remain. On the other hand, Chinese policy has encouraged foreign direct investment in ventures such as Shanghai Disney as well as co-productions, which may be treated as domestic films and so get around the quota problem. For the Chinese side, there are two potential advantages of this approach. One concerns inflows of investment, with technology transfers, and opportunities to learn new film business practices, so that the Chinese industry can “catch up.” The other is the opportunity to leverage Chinese government censorship to insert and shape Chinese material in Hollywood films, thus achieving a soft power boost. Kokas gives various case study examples, from Shanghai Disney to films like Transformers 4.

The chapter on co-production is particularly valuable. As Kokas points out with examples from Europe and Australia as well as the United States and China, what counts as a co-production depends on different definitions. In the relatively unregulated environment of the United States, any kind of cross-border cooperation is co-production. But for China, such co-ventures are only full co-productions if they are government approved through the China Film Co-production Corporation (CFCC) for release inside China. Kokas's taxonomy of other collaboration categories including “assisted production,” “talent exchange,” “technical collaboration,” “foreign-branded local production” and what she calls “faux productions” – where a co-production has failed to meet all the Chinese government's requirements – is extremely illuminating.

Kokas also examines the process of collaboration, with chapters on industry forums such as those held at the Shanghai International Film Festival and annually in Los Angeles to coincide with the American Film Market; above-the-line publicly visible cultural intermediaries such as Ang Lee and his screenwriter and producer colleagues on the first major post-WTO co-production, Lust, Caution (2007); and the below-the-line workers, whose precarious labour is deployed to make collaboration happen. Although these chapters are supported by interviews and on-site observation, more thick description would have made them even stronger. For example, as well as knowing the topic of some forum panels, it would have been good to hear more about what was (and was not) said, body language, the venue, and gossip. Similarly, more detail of how the cultural intermediaries, especially the below-the-line workers, carried out the different types of mediation delineated in the chapters would have been good. But, given that “always leave them wanting more” is an old entertainment industry adage, perhaps it is a good sign that I wanted a longer book.

The volume is amply supported with a filmography, a full bibliography, endnotes, appendices listing examples of different types of US–Chinese film collaborations and Chinese characters, and an index. Here, there is one worrying aspect: the endnotes only give page references for quotations, but not for paraphrasing. The reader is left with the impossible task of leafing through a whole book in search of a source. I am aware that this is feature of some style guides, but it undermines the whole purpose of referencing and the scholarly value of what is a pioneering piece of research.

In her conclusion, Kokas turns to other media industries, such as television and online video, in an attempt to think about the future. In those media industries like online video services where, unlike film, China has no technological deficit, Chinese policy has been much less accommodating to foreign players, simply excluding them. As the Chinese film industry catches up with Hollywood, will Hollywood find itself shut out again? But if the symbiosis continues, as Kokas also points out, “the US efforts to increase market quotas in the PRC stand as an example of exchanging freedom of expression for market-access opportunities… Chinese government oversight over the production process precipitates a watershed moment that is changing the nature of global media for everyone” (pp. 26–27). It is these global consequences of Hollywood Made in China that give the book even wider significance.