Chinese Documentaries: from Dogma to Polyphony * Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema

Abstract

These two books demonstrate that English scholarship of Chinese cinema has grown considerably since the late 1980s. While Yinchi Chu's book attempts to fill a gap by bringing the history of Chinese documentaries to western academic attention and foregrounding the interconnectedness of film and television industries in contemporary China, Gary Xu's book, by focusing on individual directors and select films, aims at an in-depth exploration of the production and circulation of Chinese images in the age of globalization. The two scholars share a conviction that the political economy of the global market has made a deep impact on Chinese media industries, but they have adopted markedly different approaches: Chu proceeds with caution and relies on a description of historical development and a summary of existing scholarship, whereas Xu favours theoretical reflections and critiques both cultural and academic productions. Chu prefers the phrase ‘documentary cinema’ to ‘documentary film’ in Chinese Documentaries...