‘중국 영화’에서 ‘중국’은 무엇을 의미하나? ― 중국 영화를 경계 짓는 개념들에 대한 비판적 검토 = What Does ‘Chinese’ Mean in ‘Chinese Cinema’? : A Critical Examination on the Concepts to Circumscribe the Boundary of Chinese Cinema

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Although the concept of ‘Chinese cinema’ usually refers to films from mainland China, it is often employed to encompass films from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The full-fledged academic interest in ‘Chinese cinema’ has begun along with the emergence of the Fifth-Generation Chinese films in the 1980s. At that time, English-speaking researchers used to include Taiwanese and Hong Kong films as the categories of Chinese films without much consideration when discussing Chinese Fifth-Generation films. However, as they gradually realized mainland Chinese film, Taiwanese film, and Hong Kong film have different historical contexts respectively, the boundary of Chinese cinema became an important academic task.
The concept of ‘transnational Chinese cinemas’ proposed by Sheldon Lu in 1997 was the first academic term to theorize this problem. Recalling the fact that Chinese cinema was “an event of transnational capital from its beginning”, he argued that mainland, Taiwanese and Hong Kong have something to signify ‘China’ in common in the transnational context. And he tried to focus on language that makes the films of these three regions converge into a single frame of ‘Chinese cinema.’ Thus, he suggested another concept of ‘Chinese-language film’ to specify the ground for this inclusive boundary. The term of ‘Chinese-language film’ is generally translated into ‘huayudianying(華語電影)’ in the Chinese academic field, however, this term has the different meanings depending on the political position. While Chinese scholars usually use this term to cover all regions of the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, for foreign scholars, it refers to a film that speaks Chinese dialects, not Mandarin, the standard language of mainland China. In this sense, huayudianying resonates with the concept of ‘sinophone cinema,’ which emphasizes the diversity and differences of overseas Chinese cinemas. Meanwhile, Chris Berry criticizes these discussions for being based too much on language, and proposes the concept of ‘cinemas of sinosphere’ which address China with a more comprehensive perspective. He points out that Chinese cinema is inherently related to Chinese culture, not based solely on region or language. For example, Chinese cinema studies may include not only films that speak Chinese ethnic minority languages such as Amei language in Taiwan or Tibetan in mainland, but also films made in English outside of China. This is because what the films address is Chinese culture in the long run.
In this sense, the research subjects of Chinese film scholars are not be limited to films within Chinese territory or Chinese-speaking films, but may be expanded to various films addressing Chinese culture or ‘the Chinese.’ At this time, Chinese cinema studies might be able to explore the relationship between cinema and ‘the national’ in a productive way, emancipated from the exhausting efforts to define the nationality of the film. And this can provide an productive perspective to examine how cinema constructs or changes ‘China’ rather than a passive attitude that China is simply reflected in the film.