How Chinese Youth Cinema Develops? Reviewing Chinese Youth Genre in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, 1950s-2000s

Abstract

Objective – This study considers Chinese youth cinema as a historical object that represents the gamut of social practices and styles of production.

Findings – The youth films produced in the major Chinese regions — Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong — illustrate how much social practices dominated the film content and style. For instance, youth genre in Hong Kong, once prevalent in the Cantonese cinema of the mid and late 1960s, blended musical and melodrama by dormant with the rise of martial art films.

Methodology/Technique – The authors examine the historical development of young people for tracing how different social and historical contexts interpret the Chinese young people’s world.

Novelty – This study attempts to elaborate some films featuring young people in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and to review the histories of youth cinema in these Chinese regions. The Chinese youth film outlines how, in Chinese communities, the category of youth historically functions as a significant site of ideological inscription that displays its struggles towards an idealized future.

Type of Paper: Conceptual.

Keywords: Chinese cinema; Film history; Hong Kong; Mainland China; Taiwan; Youth genre.

JEL Classification: L82, L89.