Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition

Stephen Teo

Nov 2015 · Edinburgh University Press

About this ebook

This is the first comprehensive, fully-researched account of the historical and contemporary development of the traditional martial arts genre in the Chinese cinema known as wuxia (literal translation: martial chivalry) - a genre which audiences around the world became familiar with through the phenomenal 'crossover' hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The book unveils rich layers of the wuxia tradition as it developed in the early Shanghai cinema in the late 1920s, and from the 1950s onwards, in the Hong Kong and Taiwan film industries. Key attractions of the book are analyses of:*The history of the tradition as it began in the Shanghai cinema, its rise and popularity as a serialized form in the silent cinema of the late 1920s, and its eventual prohibition by the government in 1931.*

About the author

Stephen Teo is currently associate professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and a senior research associate of the RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions(British Film Institute, 1997), Wong Kar-wai(BFI, 2005), King Hu's A Touch of Zen(Hong Kong University Press, 2006), and Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film(Hong Kong University Press, 2007).