Asian American Exportation: “Chineseness” and Representation in Sino-US Animated Co-Venture Films

This article finds that a subset of animated films produced in mainland China are interpreted as Chinese, diasporic Chinese, and Asian American films. It explores how Sino-US animated co-venture films are produced in mainland China for domestic and international consumption. This builds upon scholarship on Chinese film and Sino-US co-productions in three ways. First, it explores an emerging strategy that uses co-ventures, defined as mainland registered companies that are oftentimes 51 % mainland owned and 49 % foreign owned, to produce animated films. The Sino-US animated films studied in this article include White Snake (2019), Over the Moon (2020), and Wish Dragon (2021). Each film offers a unique approach that is shaped by narrative, aesthetics, and distribution. Second, I explore the tension between the construction of “Chineseness” by Sino-US co-venture animated films and the “Chineseness” theorized in Asian American Studies. Third, a close reading of these films highlights differing representations of “Chineseness” rooted in Chinese and diasporic Chinese identities. I find that China’s fashioning of “Chineseness” for both domestic and international audiences has coincided with an increase in Asian American representation in Hollywood. By examining Sino-US animated co-venture films, this article studies the evolving dynamics of transborder flows in Chinese cinemas and their impact on representation.