An Italian bicycle in the people’s republic: Minor transnationalism and the Chinese translation of Ladri di biciclette/Bicycle Thieves

Abstract

Abstract This article seeks to stimulate critical attention to dubbed films as translations, which have been traditionally neglected in Chinese cinema studies and in cinema studies generally. It takes as a case study the dubbing into Mandarin Chinese of Ladri di biciclette/Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948), the first film from Western Europe to be imported into the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After detailing the early history of translated films in the PRC, especially the process and technique of dubbing, the article examines the work of censorship in selecting foreign films for import and translation and analyses contemporary audience reception of dubbed films as well as efforts by official propaganda to shape that reception. Finally, in an extension of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of minor literature into the field of film, I consider dubbed cinema as a minor cinema that, in the movement from one language to another, creates a space for alternative enunciations that fosters the formation of a transnational sensibility