Chinese Cinema.
Created | Updated Feb 13, 2006
Though Chinese Cinema has produced few films widely known to western audiences it has a long and rich heritage, and the films seen recently on the arthouse circuit are not the product of a new emergent 'third world' cinema but a well established and robust film industry. The mainstream breakthrough of "Farewell My Concubine" in 1993 followed a steady build up of critical aclaim through the 80's and began a trickle of art house releases centred around a select group of directors, the 'Fifth Generation', and has recently culminated with the global box office successes of "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" but the Chinese film industry is a much older and broader church than this recent notice might suggest.
Film historians tend divide the Chinese film industry into periods: 1905-32, 1932-49,1949-1965, 1965-80, 1980-onwards. These corespond roughly with phases in Chinese political history. Adjunct to Chinese film are the Taiwan and Hong Kong Film Industries, which for their own political reasons are autonomous, stylistically distinct, sometimes antagonistic but co-exist in a strange state of mutual suspicion and imitation.
