Abstract
This chapter examines the emerging comedy film culture in the early People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1950 to 1957 by paying specific attention to the importation of film comedies from the Soviet bloc and their dynamic interaction with Chinese cinema. Through a comparative study of the Soviet comedy Did We Meet Somewhere Before and the Chinese film satire The Man Who Doesn’t Bother about Trifles, the chapter reveals paradoxical practices and contested discourses pertaining to the film comedy in the early PRC. On the one hand, importation, exhibition and translation of foreign comedies dismantled national and linguistic borders to welcome laughter as a transnational binding force for socialist communities. On the other hand, the boundary of “appropriate laughter” was reinforced in the process of Chinese filmmakers’ comic experimentation and by film reviews and criticisms. Overall, these practical and discursive efforts highlight the complexity involved in the management of laughter for the purpose of constructing hegemony in the early PRC.
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