The essays in Ying Zhu and Stanley Rosen's collection, Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema originated in an event marking the hundredth anniversary of Chinese film production. Prompted to re-examination of history by this event, the resulting work is often broad in coverage at the same time as it questions received wisdom. Written by established leading scholars, the result is a collection of position statements. Especially if combined with other writing more focused on the films themselves, Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema could be used as a textbook. Its absence of engagement with theory may put off more advanced researchers, but will make it accessible for high-school students or lower-level undergraduates. However, in contrast to the recent tendency to group “Chinese-language cinemas” together, the focus is almost entirely on the People's Republic of China. Readers will have to decide how they feel about the possible implication of excluding everywhere outside the People's Republic from the domain of “Chinese cinema.”

Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema pioneers in Chinese film studies the general trend to move away from purely text-centred analysis and to give equal weight to industry and government policy. The first of three sections composing the book is focused on industry and market. In “The evolution of Chinese film as an industry,” editor Zhu and Seio Nakajima review the development of the industry from its beginnings to its present emulation of Hollywood. They argue that, despite the many and contradictory industrial models followed in different eras, nationalism trumps the profit motive throughout. Stanley Rosen's “Chinese cinema's international market” is in fact focused on the USA alone. (As the rest of us know so well, Americans often confuse their country with the whole world.) It provides a very detailed history of the reception of Chinese films in the United States, and is complemented by Zhiwei Xiao's equally detailed account of “American films in China prior to 1950.” Xiao demonstrates that the dominance of Hollywood played a fundamental role in shaping Chinese pre-revolutionary cinema. Finally in this section, Shujen Wang's essay on film piracy provides a fascinating analysis of the tension between the central government's willingness to sign all the international conventions and its difficulty in enforcing those conventions at the local level.

The second section of the book focuses on reception and genre. Paul Clark treats cinema as one art form amongst others. He counters assumptions about cinema's downfall during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and explains its pre-eminence throughout the Maoist era and into the 1980s, until the triumph of television. Stephen Teo's “The martial arts film in Chinese cinema” is the only essay in the book to investigate Hong Kong cinema in any detail. It places the genre it is best known for in a larger historical perspective, and echoes Zhu and Nakajima's emphasis on the importance of nationalism – although in this case, cultural nationalism apart from any state formation. John Lent and Ying Xu provide a history of animation film in China, tracing the expansion brought about by the market economy in recent years at, in their opinion, the expense of artistic quality. Yingjin Zhang rounds the section out with an essay on documentary. He both traces it back to its beginnings and at the same time places a strong focus on recent years, where he points out that the relationship between the independent sector and mainstream television documentary has been more complex and mutual than people might assume.

In the final section of the book, auteur studies dominate in various forms. Editor Zhu and Bruce Robinson correct any lingering assumptions about the radical or “New Wave” quality of the so-called Fifth Generation of filmmakers, including Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. They show that they responded to the challenge of the market economy a long time ago and have become the new establishment in Chinese cinema. Liyan Qin's essay is a study of adaptation in Zhang Yimou's cinema. Like many leading Chinese directors, Zhang is highly dependent on literary sources. However, where the screenwriter had priority before, the radical changes wrought by Zhang reveal how the power balance has shifted. The collection concludes with two essays on more current directors. Shuqin Cui traces Jia Zhangke's fascination with social and literal movement, and his own transition from underground to legitimate filmmaking. Editor Ying Zhu rounds the collection out with her third contribution. Her essay on the New Year Film genre (hesuipian) demonstrates how Feng Xiaogang originated it with cynical urban comedies popular in northern China, but it was transformed into Hollywood-style blockbusters by Zhang Yimou's martial arts trilogy.

The volume is enhanced by a single and extensive integrated bibliography, and a filmography that enables readers to trace the original Chinese character titles of all films mentioned in the text. Overall, it is a welcome collection that should find a wide readership.