Kung Fu Scholar

In Planet Hong Kong and other writings, David Bordwell greatly advanced the academic study of Hong Kong cinema. From a perspective of “stealth poetics,” Bordwell illuminated the craft practices, aesthetic norms, and spectatorial effects that characterize filmmaking in the region. Yet his work drew the ire of scholars wedded to an allegorical hermeneutics of Hong Kong cinema. In this article, I contrast Bordwell's bottom-up analysis with the culturalism that governs the scholarship. I rebut several tenacious criticisms that have clung to Bordwell's account of Hong Kong film, from Bordwell's status as a cultural outsider to his reliance on Hollywood cinema as a key frame of reference. Lastly, I seek to extend Bordwell's work by advancing a poetics of Hong Kong acting and performance

Craft · Culturalism · Filmmaking · Hollywood · Movie theater · Perspective (graphical) · Poetics · Cinema and Media Studies · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism