Film/Asian Studies

An original and incisive account of one of the world's most exciting cinemas.

Breathtaking swordplay and nostalgic love, Peking opera and Chow Yun-fat's cult followers-these are some of the elements of the vivid and diverse urban imagination that find form and expression in the thriving Hong Kong cinema. All receive their due in At Full Speed, a volume that captures the remarkable range and energy of a cinema that borrows, invents, and reinvents across the boundaries of time, culture, and conventions.

At Full Speed gathers film scholars and critics from around the globe to convey the transnational, multilayered character that Hong Kong films acquire and impart as they circulate worldwide. These writers scrutinize the films they find captivating: from the lesser known works of Law Man and Yuen Woo Ping to such film festival notables as Stanley Kwan and Wong Kar-wai, and from the commercial action, romance, and comedy genres of Jackie Chan, Peter Chan, Steven Chiau, Tsui Hark, John Woo, and Derek Yee to the attempted departures of Evans Chan, Ann Hui, and Clara Law.

In this cinema the contributors identify an aesthetics of action, gender-flexible melodramatic excesses, objects of nostalgia, and globally projected local history and identities, as well as an active critical film community. Their work, the most incisive account ever given of one of the world's largest film industries, brings the pleasures and idiosyncrasies of Hong Kong cinema into clear close-up focus even as it enlarges on the relationships between art and the market, cultural theory and the movies.

Contributors: Jinsoo An; David Bordwell, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Rey Chow, Brown U; Steve Fore, City U of Hong Kong; Elaine Yee-Lin Ho, Hong Kong U; Law Kar (Lau Yiu-kuen); Kwai-cheung Lo, Hong Kong Baptist U; Linda Lai Chiu-han, City U of Hong Kong; Gina Marchetti, Ithaca College; Hector Rodriquez, City U of Hong Kong; Bhaskar Sarkar, UC Santa Barbara; Mark Siegel; and Stephen Teo.

Esther C. M. Yau is associate professor of film and new media at Occidental College.