Despite the steady expansion of scholarship on Chinese ecocinema studies over the past two decades, particularly since the publication of the field-defining anthology Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge (Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi [eds.], Hong Kong University Press, 2009), Shuqin Cui’s Ecological and Environmental Turns is among the first book-length studies dedicated specifically to demonstrating how Chinese films can and should be read ecocritically. Organized around four major “turns” in Chinese film studies – the environmental, the landscape, the material and the animal – the book examines how contemporary Chinese cinema engages with a range of eco-environmental topics, from representations of environmental disasters to humans’ relationships with space and place, material objects, and nonhuman animals.

Across its 12 chapters and conclusion, Cui discusses 14 films released between 2004 and 2021. They cover an array of genres including documentary, historical epic, melodrama, science fiction and animation. With each chapter centred on a single film (except for one comparative chapter on two documentaries), readers are guided through environmental issues such as the impacts of the Nujiang hydropower project and the Three Gorges Dam (Walking the Green Tiger and Still Life); the transformation of Inner Mongolian pastoral landscapes into coal-mining sites (Behemoth), antelope poaching in the Tibetan wilderness (Kekexili: Mountain Patrol); pandemic lockdown experiences in Chinese cities (Days and Nights in Wuhan and 76 Days); and planetary imagination of the Earth in displacement (The Wandering Earth). While most are Chinese productions, Cui also includes Western and transnational co-productions connected to Chinese culture (e.g. Wolf Totem, Manufactured Landscape and Kung Fu Panda). Cui’s analyses are consistently well informed, even if the overall selection of films may feel familiar to readers of ecocinema and Chinese film studies, given the considerable scholarly attention these films have already received. Nevertheless, the book’s holistic approach makes it both highly accessible and an invaluable pedagogical resource for introducing students and general readers to representative Chinese films and cinematic representations of eco-environmental and animal issues, particularly documentaries, which constitute roughly half of the selected films.

The book relies largely on formalist approaches to film analysis, paying close attention to narrative conventions, cinematography, music and sound design to demonstrate how cinematic elements articulate eco-environmental concerns. Some of the strongest discussions focus on what Cui calls multidimensional and multimedia documentaries, such as Waking the Green Tiger and Under the Dome, which she reads as alternative media playing an important role in grassroots environmental activism.

Following Cui’s longstanding scholarly focus on gender issues and women’s representations in Chinese literature, film and art, the book also foregrounds ecofeminist perspectives to illustrate how ecological crises intersect with gendered social experiences. This is particularly evident in the feminization of the famine discourse in Back to 1942, and in her analysis of journalist Chai Jing’s multiple roles that contribute towards the building of a “mother–children–environment triad” in Under the Dome. The book also suggests productive intersections between ecocinema studies and ethnic minority epistemologies through films such as Kekexili: Mountain Patrol and Wolf Totem. Overall, Cui effectively demonstrates how cinema reflects environmental issues as deeply entwined with broader sociopolitical forces.

At the same time, a persistent challenge within ecocinema studies is also reflected here: ecocinema is frequently defined in broad terms as cinema that moves beyond anthropocentric worldviews, yet the practical and theoretical complexities of anthropocentrism in film remain largely unaddressed. Beyond the book’s stated aim of “(re)mapping China’s socio-environmental landscape through eco-environmental perspectives and (re)reading film works against anthropocentric conventions” (p. 4), the study lacks a more rigorous methodological framework that could better clarify what constitutes ecocinema or a non/post-anthropocentric film analysis. As a result, each chapter functions largely as an independent and self-contained reading, and key ecocritical concepts are introduced but not always revisited or developed further in other chapters. References to Western ecocritical theories and Chinese philosophical concepts (e.g. Timothy Morton’s ecology without nature, Stacy Alaimo’s transcorporeality, and the Daoist concept of dayin xisheng) also remain more suggestive than fully integrated into the analyses, thereby missing opportunities to contribute to more constructive discussions in comparative eco-philosophy and aesthetics.

There are also limitations to the selection and treatment of certain films as case studies. Rather than engaging with the feature-length version of Wang Jiuliang’s Plastic China, for instance, the chapter focuses primarily on the shorter 26-minute online version of the documentary, resulting in a partial reading of Wang’s exploration of the subject matter, namely the environmental injustice in global plastic waste circulation seen through the case of a precarious migrant family in the recycling industry. Similarly, while the section on the animal turn offers useful insights into wildlife and anthropomorphized animated figures, the author does not explore representations of domesticated animals in pet movies, issues of pet and stray abuse and trafficking, and challenges faced by animal shelters. The book could also have benefitted from stronger sociopolitical contextualization of the films discussed. Spanning nearly two decades, from the Hu–Wen administration’s rhetoric of “peaceful rise” to Xi Jinping’s promotion of “ecological civilization” and intensified political centralization, the analyses of selected films do not always reflect close connections with the environmental policies and ideological discourses of their respective periods. Although the conclusion briefly addresses the tightening censorship surrounding environmentalist films in recent years, the relationship between the changing political climate and ecocinema remains somewhat indistinct, leaving the two decades presented in the chapters something of a temporal blur.

Despite these shortcomings, Ecological and Environmental Turns remains a rare and valuable introductory study and a timely contribution to Chinese ecocinema scholarship. The book offers a rich range of insightful close readings and provides a useful mapping of major keys and themes in the field, while also points toward productive avenues for further research, particularly in ecofeminist approaches to Chinese cinema and theorization of Chinese eco-documentary studies. More importantly, it underscores the continuing relevance and intellectual potential of ecocinema studies, and the many critical questions that remain open for further exploration.