Chinese Films in Focus II, edited by Chris Berry, is a first-class collection of 34 essays on individual films by current leading and up-and-coming scholars in the field of Chinese film studies. The films selected for investigation in this volume comprise the notable standards found in syllabi of Western university courses on the history of Chinese film, and the theoretical approaches contained in this text are nearly as varied as the number of films included for analysis. For example, Bérénice Reynaud describes the image of the Chinese queer subject in the Hong Kong produced Centre Stage (Stanley Kwan, 1991), Yingjin Zhang locates self-reflexivity inherent to both the early cinema of attractions and the postmodern aesthetic in the mainland Chinese film Big Shot's Funeral (Feng Xiaogang, 2001), and Mary Farquhar analyses the narrative function of action sequences in the martial arts film King Hu made in Taiwan, A Touch of Zen (1970).
As recent as the year 2000, few essays were written on individual Chinese films. Thus, the importance, strength and interest in this field of study over the last decade are made evident among other ways by the commissioning of this second volume. This most recent edition released by Palgrave Macmillan for the British Film Institute “updates and expands” the original text's 25 articles with new and revised essays. Furthermore, it is certain that academic inquiries into the films herein will be initiated by considering these essential reference points, whether the article is relevant due to it being one of the first written on the film in question, such as Felicia Chan's observations on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000), or due to new insights into a film previously held under the microscope, for instance Yomi Braester's focus on Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993).
While the articles in this volume are arranged alphabetically by film title, and consequently one might surmise that this text has no particular organizing principle other than the attempt to align articles of substance with articles of quality, the introduction by Chris Berry describes the ways the essays might be categorized according to historical range (see Kristine Harris's perspective on The Goddess [Wu Yonggang, 1934], or the Maoist value system discussed in Robert Chi's take on The Red Detachment of Women [Xie Jin, 1960]), geographic location (see Shuqin Cui's reflection on Kekexili: Mountain Patrol [Lu Chuan, 2004] which takes place in remote Tibet, and Song Hwee Lim's explication of 15 [Royston Tan, 2003], produced in Singapore), or academic debate (see discussions of cinematic time in Janice Tong's description of Chungking Express [Wong Kar Wai, 1994], and Esther M.K. Cheung's description of the representational mode of realism in Durian Durian [Fruit Chan, 2000]). Berry accurately claims that the text is inclusive in range, but not representative of all Chinese film; after all, there are historical periods of the past century that have not yet been thoroughly studied, and many Chinese films remain inaccessible. Yet, the volume does function as a historical record of the films that college courses currently employ to represent Chinese cinema.
There is more to be said about the attention to historical context, organization, and general creativity of the best articles, from Jason McGrath's meticulous recounting of the intertextual references inherent in Black Cannon Incident (Huang Jianxin, 1985), Julian Stringer's analysis of the reception of Boat People (Ann Hui, 1982), and Yiman Wang's discussion of allegory in Crows and Sparrows (Zheng Junli, 1949). Still, without thorough periodization chapters this text primarily serves to complement texts that survey the scene from a higher vantage point. For now, this book is a significant reference source that sets the standard for future close readings of individual Chinese films. This volume will no doubt find extensive use.
