3.00 Credits
This course focuses on films made in Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea over the past three decades. Students examine how the global/local geopolitics specific to the post-Cold War period, the passing of authoritarian regimes, the boom and bust of the Asian economy, and international film festivals have influenced the shaping of New East Asian cinemas across borders. The first section of our course investigates the ways in which historical traumas (wars, massacres, revolutions, and uprisings) have been revisited in the cinemas of Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. What is the relationship between history and national cinema? How do such concepts as imperialism, nationalism, postcolonialism, guilt, and trauma figure in films shouldering the "burden of history" and representing the "unrepresentable"? The second section explores selected auteurs and stars familiar to international cinephiles, such as Zhang Yimou, Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Nagisa Oshima, Maggie Cheung, Stephen Chow, John Woo, Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, and Takeshi Kitano. In the process, we identify the themes, styles, genres, and ideological/cultural content of East Asian film canons in the West. The final weeks are devoted to border-crossing films such as Ang Lee's Wedding Banquet, Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together, the Korean-Japanese co-production Asako in Ruby Shoes, and the pan-Asian horror film Three Extremes, which highlight the critical concerns of diaspora, hybridity, transnationalism, and globalization. Required screenings.