In Plight and Reformation: Transnationalism and “Chinese-ness” in the 1930s and Recent East Chinese Films

With the importation of filmmaking technology at the end of the nineteenth century, Chinese cinema was developed in the context of ideological exchanges. This research will examine the concepts of transnationalism, modernism, and globalization in two Chinese films produced in different periods. The Chinese autoethnography of the turbulent 1930s is written with the representations of different sociopolitical groups and stylist film techniques. Focusing on The Goddess (1934) and The Flowers of War (2011) from a feminist perspective, an investigation of the evolving perception of 1930s East China raises new questions and insights into the history.