Affect and History in Sinophone CinemaFeeling the Past

Interrogates how “Chineseness” is reinterpreted through specific cultural and social developments across the three regions

Examines distinctive Sinophone contexts of films by Zhang Yimou and Lou Ye (mainland China), Ann Hui and Fruit Chan (Hong Kong), and Wan Jen, John Hsu, and Kuang-hui Liu (Taiwan)
Analyzes cinematic techniques as primary sources of affective responses, while contextualizing films within their release-era social atmosphere and examining how contemporary mainstream narratives reinterpret historical events
Engages with affect theorists while considering region-specific cultural concepts such as Taiwan’s post-martial-law nativism and nationalism, Confucian ethics of brotherhood, post-socialist nostalgia, and 1930s anti-imperialism
Investigates how specific affects (nostalgia, love, horror, shame, sentimentalism, friendship) function as both thematic content and interpretive frameworks
The Cultural Revolution renegade’s ravenous gaze at his daughter’s fleeting image, the accusatory questioning from a daughter of a White Terror survivor in Taiwan and children’s exhilarated shouts across pre-handover Hong Kong harbor – Sinophone cinema encodes emotional realities erased from official narratives.

This monograph investigates how films from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong (1994-2020) crystallize affects – nostalgia, horror, shame, love, sentimentalism, friendship – expressing both widespread and marginalized emotional experiences omitted from hegemonic discourses.

Examining watershed moments, including China’s 1930s left-wing literary movement, Cultural Revolution, economic reforms, Taiwan’s martial law and Hong Kong’s 1997 handover, this book demonstrates how cinematic emotional registers capture feelings escaping nationalist and neoliberalist discourses. Examining affect and Sinophone film, this monograph extends Shu-mei Shih’s framework by establishing that Sinophone consciousness is constituted through affect, which manifests as collusive or recalcitrant responses to dominant ideologies and challenges conventional understandings of “Chineseness.”