The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora: Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan in Hollywood

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Szeto The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora: Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan in Hollywood Southern Illinois University Press The Martial Arts Cinema Kin-Yan Szeto OF THE CHINESE DIASPORA Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan in Hollywood “Through the lens of cosmopolitanism applied to the genre of martial arts, KinYan Szeto has produced a nuanced study of not only how but also why Chinese film artists like John Woo, Ang Lee, and Jackie Chan were able to transform Hollywood’s aesthetic of action. Anyone interested in globalization will profit from this subtle analysis of how Chinese film artists were uniquely positioned to adopt, transform, and adapt the aesthetics of movement, performance, editing , and CGI to create the brand of ‘Hong Kong’ cinema, and transpose it to the new Hollywood.” —David Desser, coeditor of The Cinema of Hong Kong “Kin-Yan Szeto’s book offers a refreshing look at an old film genre that has perpetually fascinated film audiences around the world. This is a vigorous, insightful study of transnational cinema. Both general readers and specialists can learn something from Szeto’s refined film analysis and clear historical delineation.” —Sheldon Lu, editor of Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender I n The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora, Kin-Yan Szeto critically examines three of the most internationally famous martial arts film artists to arise out of the Chinese diaspora and find commercial success in the world at large: Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan. Positing that these filmmakers’ success is evidence of a “cosmopolitical awareness” stemming from their cross-cultural ideological engagements and geopolitical displacements, Szeto demonstrates how this unique perspective allows these three filmmakers to develop and act in the transnational environment of media production, distribution, and consumption. Far from a book simply about three filmmakers, The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora investigates the transnational nature of films, the geopolitics of culture and race, and the depths of masculinity and power in movies. Szeto’s interdisciplinary approach calls for nothing less than a paradigm shift in the study of Chinese diasporic filmmakers and the embodiment of cosmopolitical perspectives in the martial arts genre. Kin-Yan Szeto is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Appalachian State University. Her work has been published in film journals in the United States as well as in China. Southern Illinois University Press 1915 University Press Drive Mail Code 6806 Carbondale, IL 62901 www.siupress.com Printed in the United States of America Cover design by Mary Rohrer FILM ISBN 0-8093-3021-0 ISBN 978-0-8093-3021-8 Szeto cvr mech.indd 1 6/6/11 2:14 PM ...