Hong Kong Martial Arts Cinemas and Beyon

This course will cover the film form and history of the martial arts in Hong Kong and beyond. Taken as a popular genre, martial arts cinemas apparently are separated from art and aesthetics. In this course, martial arts cinema will be understood as a site to connect different filmmakers in Asia who choreograph action into narratives that offer kinesthetic effects. Long shot, montage, slow motion, saturated color tone and wire are used by them to provide action with their historical meanings like nationalism, maintaining law and order, and anti-imperialism. The course will cover films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, to Indonesia and India. It will examine films, literature, real martial arts like Wing Chun, Hung Fist, and wrestling, Peking opera, film adaptation, and video games. The course will study martial arts films with perspectives of film forms, narrative and genre makeover in different contexts in order to understand the nature of martial arts films in East Asia.