On the Representation of Chinese Arts in Western Media

Recently numerous friends on social media have pointed out to me the shockingly underinformed or dubious ways in which the Chinese arts have been represented in the Western media. I have been impressed by your astuteness and I thank you for your kindness.


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QMUL Confucius Institute Movie Night: Monkey Magic!

We are comingto the end of the Chinese Year of the Monkey, a year that was celebrated in the cinema with the release of “Monkey King 2″, the follow up to the 2014 Donnie Yen film. The Monkey, Sun Wukong, with his origins in the classic text “Journey to the West”, has now become an international symbol of Chinese culture, as important to China’s overseas image as Confucius, Mao Ze Dong, and Bruce Lee.


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DiaoChan: the Rise of the Courtesan

I first heard of Red Dragonfly Production last year when they toured the UK with “Autumn of Han”. I was delighted to find a theatre company bringing dramatisations of Chinese stories to the stage. Unfortunately busy schedules meant I missed the show, so it was with great anticipation that I attended the press night for their new play, “DiaoChan: the Rise of the Courtesan”.


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30 Years of Big Trouble

Last weekend I went to watch John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble in Little China” on the big screen, on the film’s 30th anniversary. The film, packed with great soundtrack composed by the director himself, punchy script and adventurous plot, has aged well with time. As an academic writer who focuses on Chinese pop culture, I often find myself dealing with subject matter my peers wouldn’t touch with a ten foot barge pole. John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble in Little China” is one such piece. Having just had a chance to see the 1986 film from a 70mm print, for its anniversary, I thought it was worth talking about, considering the impact this film has had on a whole generation of Western cinema goers, many of whom may have never seen the action adventures of the Chinese film industry which inspired this movie.


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