Image·Other·Modernism

With "two words", Overseas Chinese critics, which have both Chinese andWestern cultural studies perspective. Gazing Chinese movies, theirsimagination of Chinese city and country, understanding of postcolonial theoryand explaination of the modernism are important parts of theirs cinema potics.Overseas Chinese critics, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Yingjin Zhang and Rey Chow arethought the most representative critics.The key words of “image”,“other” and “modernism” are throughout theoverseas Chinese critics’s cinema potics. Leo Ou-fan Lee is gazing Shanghaiand Hongkong’s movies, giving the city means of”nostalgia”and imagingromantic color of the" two cities". He refers to himself as "flaneur", throughthe film, which likes arcade of modernism, to gazing China. He believes thatChina has not yet completed the process of modernity; it’s between modernand postmodern. Rey Chow used" non-western" female identity gazing China,who thought that the "primitive" and "ethnic" in Chinese movies makes Chinadonot become "center" of the world and its though "fetishism" turn to female’scharacter. She did not regard China as the west completely other. She focuseson Chinese the fifth generation’s movies, who considered that the ruralwomen’s otherness of movies make it becomes the" hidden" others or becomeethnographic museum. Yingjin Zhang dismissed Leo Ou-fan Lee and ReyChow’s viewpoints. He chose Hongkong as model of "glocal city" andexplaintation transnational of Chinese movies. At the end of the century, hepointed out that the Chinese movies appeared the character of “multlocal" and"translocal".With the concern of Chinese movies, overseas Chinese critics not onlypay attention of Chinese ideology and the modernism of culture and historybut also display anxiety of themselves identity.Lee Ou-fan Lee has thequestion of modernism and postmodernism coexist of China its "real emotion"where to go, which make he donot identify his identity. Rey Chow has pity ofChinese female’s others position, who try to break the binary opposition oftraditional and modern. But she do emphasize her identity of Hongkong whichmake she deeply trapped in other’s position of the West. Yingjin Zhang standat the position of Chinese intellectual to speak, who use "liquidity"reexplainationg the influence of globalization on China. But his image was proved as utopian. All of theirs viewpoints have the historical limitations andone-sidedness. So criticism and absorption theirs theory are periodic.