The Early Transnational Chinese Cinema Industry written by FU Yongchun, associate professor at the university's School of Media and Law, received the second prize of the 21st Excellent Achievement Award of Philosophy and Social Sciences of Zhejiang Province, according to the results unveiled by Zhejiang Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences Circles, and then won the second prize of 2021 NZASIA Book Awards as announced by New Zealand Asian Studies Society on November 24th.
Published by Routledge, a prestigious publisher, back in 2019, the book explores how the early Chinese film industry took shape and developed along the way and examines the Chinese film industry's response to its American counterpart. FU believes that the competition between the Chinese and American film industries does not necessarily bring about the zero-sum game as predicted by some cultural imperialists. Based on the analysis of the development of film sound, distribution mode, production mode and film screening from the 1920s to the early 1930s, it can be seen that Chinese and Hollywood film markets had achieved common prosperity. It is also worth mentioning that the book, focusing on empirical research, widely collects and uses a large number of original historical materials including early Chinese and English newspapers, official archives, trade records and industrial investigation reports, and introduces the concept of "transnational cinema" into the study of early Chinese films for the very first time, and thus reveals many blind spots in the previous study of Chinese film history with nationalism as the research path. All in all, the book is very helpful in understanding the relationship between film history and today's culture in a more holistic way.
The monograph has attracted considerable attention from the academia. Prof. Chris Berry at King's College London believes in the book review that the book has brought a lot of exciting new ideas to the academic community in that it not only creates a lot of fresh and enlightening knowledge based on first-hand data analysis, but also eloquently proves that the transnational framework can have far-reaching implications. Besides, it also reverses the way of thinking typical of nationalism and shows that only by seeing these blind spots can we fully understand the history of film and contemporary culture. FU, according to Prof. Berry, has made a valuable contribution to the study of Chinese films.
Prof. Suguwara Yoshino at Japan's Kansai University believes that since researching foreigners and foreign film companies in China is an extremely difficult task, the book has provided quality research unparalleled by other similar books, and that FU is quite good at using various digital materials and interviewing people.
Associate Professor XUE Feng at the Department of Arts, Wuhan University, believes that this book is a new cornerstone of China's early film industry research. XUE points out that it is no easy task to make systematic progress in research on early Chinese films since there have been considerable academic achievements in this regard, yet FU's monograph is a breath of fresh air. Apart from the author's contribution to the collection of historical materials, the great illumination found in this book is also commended by XUE.
Authoritative figures in the academia including Prof. Jane Gaines at Columbia University's School of the Arts, Prof. LU Xiaopeng at the University of California, Davis, and Prof. CHEN Jianhua at Fudan University have all cited the views in the book.
Associate Professor FU Yongchun, head of the Institute of Huallywood and Global Communication, obtained his doctorate from the University of Auckland and has been granted titles including Sanjiang Young Scholar and High-Level Outstanding Talent of Zhejiang Province.
The 24 members of the Institute of Huallywood and Global Communication, all with overseas education experience, have been engaged in study of media and gender, history of the early film industry and international communication for years and have domestic and international influence.
