From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda: Images of China in American Film

About the Author, Production Notes, Back Cover

About the Author Naomi Greene is professor emeritus of French and film studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She has devoted most of her career to exploring the intersecting points between film and history—how cinema is influenced by, and influences, the broader social, political, and cultural context. Her earlier works on cinema—Pier Paolo Pasolini: Cinema as Heresy (1990), Landscapes of Loss: The National Past in Postwar French Cinema (1999), and The French New Wave: A New Look (2007)—explored this issue largely in terms of European film and history. In the wake of a trip to China more than a decade ago, however, she developed an interest in China and in American perceptions of China, which has resulted in this book. Production Notes for Greene | From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda Cover design by Julie Matsuo-Chun Text design by University of Hawai‘i Press Production Staff with display type in Seria Sans LF and text type in Minion pro Composition by Westchester Publishing Services Printing and binding by Sheridan Books, Inc. Printed on 60 lb. House White, 444 ppi. “From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda chronicles the struggle within Hollywood film to come to grips with American ambivalence toward China as a nation against the backdrop of its current economic and geopolitical ascendancy on the world stage. Reaching back to early film portrayals of Chinatown, Christian missionaries, warlords, and perverse villains bent on world domination, Greene moves from the ‘yellow peril’ to the ‘red menace’ as she examines WW II and Cold War cinema. She also explores the range of film fantasies circulating today, from films about Tibet to Chinese American independent features and the global popularity of kung fu cartoons. This accessible book allows these films to speak to the post 9-11/Occupy Wall Street generation and makes a welcome contribution to debates about Hollywood Orientalism and transnational Chinese film connections.” —Gina Marchetti, author of The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema “A significant work of filmography, Naomi Greene’s book explores the exotic, at times menacing, but always fantastic images of China flickering on the silver screen of the American imagination. The author writes lucidly, jargon-free, and with the sure-footedness of a seasoned scholar.” —Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History COVER PHOTOGRAPH: Getty Images Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888 UNIVERSITYof HAWAI‘I PRESS F I L M S T U D I E S ...