How the Nanking Massacre Was Remembered and Silenced Through Cinema
Within the 6 years between 2007-2013, there have been at least 8 publicized films released about the 1937 Nanking Massacre due to an array of entangled forces, including: the intergenerational trauma or transgenerational haunting across ethnic Chinese diasporas, political ideology, and the transnational profitability of trauma beyond the limits of ethnic Chinese markets. The striking cinematic interest in the Nanking …
Trauma, Memory & Politics in Martial Arts Cinema
Transnational Chinese ‘period’ cinema (e.g. wuxia pian, costume epics) is situated in a haunting space intersecting modernity, tradition, mythic ‘Chineseness’, and official memory production within the cultural identities/identifications of diasporic ethnic Chinese. SOFT POWER, POLITICS & MARTIAL ARTS The soft power of Chinese nation-state/market forces produces selective remembrances of historical traumas (e.g. British colonialists, imperial Japanese invasion) through mediated productions …
