China
Related: Asia - Hong Kong - kung fu - Orientalism
Cinema of China
The history of Chinese-language cinema has three separate threads of development: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China, and Cinema of Taiwan. The cinema of Mainland China after 1949 has grown up somewhat suppressed by the Communist regime until recent times, although certain films with political overtones are still routinely censored or banned in China itself. Most of these films though are allowed to be shown abroad in commercially distributed theaters or in film festivals. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_China [Dec 2005]
Bruce Lee
Enter the Dragon (1973) - Robert Clouse [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Bruce Lee (November 27, 1940 - July 20, 1973) is widely considered to be the greatest martial arts actor of the 20th century. His films, especially the last performance in Enter the Dragon, elevated traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level, so that artists like Jackie Chan and Chuck Norris were able to work from this platform. He was married to Linda Emery, with whom he had a daughter, Shannon, and a son, Brandon. Brandon was also a martial artist and an actor. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee [Apr 2005]
Fu Manchu
Mask of Fu Manchu () - Sax Rohmer
cover of unidentified edition
image sourced here. [Jul 2005]
The Yellow Peril figure has, without question, been a negative one in Western culture. As recent events involving American spy planes have shown, anti-Asian & anti-Chinese bias continues to remain close to the surface of the American psyche, over 80 years after the introduction of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. One of the most interesting examples of this bias is the Yellow Peril/Fu Manchu figure, which has appeared in several forms over the decades. What most people do not realize, however, is that the Yellow Peril figure significantly predates Arthur "Sax Rohmer" Ward's writings; Fu Manchu, while the most archetypal of the Yellow Perils, stands as the high point for the stereotype, neither at the beginning nor at the end of the stereotype's history. --http://www.violetbooks.com/yellowperil.html [Jul 2005]
Yellow Peril (sometimes Yellow Terror) was a phrase that originated in the late 19th century with greater immigration of Chinese and Japanese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States. The term, a color metaphor for race refers to the skin color of east Asians, and the fear that the mass immigration of Asians threatened white wages, standards of living and indeed, civilization itself. The phrase "yellow peril" was common in the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst.
Many sources credit Kaiser Wilhelm II with coining the phrase "Yellow Peril" (in German, "gelbe Gefahr") in September 1895 and popularizing it by circulating a lurid illustration of a menacing, airborne Buddha riding a dragon across Asia towards Europe, carving a path of destruction and trailing thunder clouds. While immigration of Asians was not a major issue in Europe, the rise of Japan as a major world power was a cause of anxiety for some Europeans.
1898 M. P. Shiel published a short story serial The Yellow Danger. Shiel took the murder of two German missionaries in Kiau-Tschou 1897 to spread his anti-Chinese feelings. In later editions the serial was named The Yellow Peril. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_peril [Jul 2005]
The Lady from Shanghai (1948) - Orson Welles
The Lady from Shanghai (1948) - Orson Welles [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Critical reaction
Reviews for the film were mixed when released in the late 1940s. Variety Magazine found the script wordy and notes the "Rambling style used by Orson Welles has occasional flashes of imagination, particularly in the tricky backgrounds he uses to unfold the yarn, but effects, while good on their own, are distracting to the murder plot."
Time Out Film Guide review states that Welles simply didn't care enough to make the narrative seamless. "the principal pleasure of The Lady from Shanghai is its tongue-in-cheek approach to story-telling."
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Lady from Shanghai [Dec 2005]