From Fu Manchu to M. Butterfly and Irma Vep: Cinematic incarnations of Chinese villainy

The emergence of the cinema in the late nineteenth century occurred at a time when European and American imperial conquests and colonial ambitions in Asia were at their height (Marchetti 2001a, 2001b). Perhaps more than any other country in Asia, China had a particular hold over the popular imagination globally. All of the major (and many of the minor) powers in Europe held concessions there. The French, for example, had their own territory in Shanghai, and the other world powers shared the international district. In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion in China galvanized the West with gruesome tales of butchered Americans and Europeans reported in the press and recreated through the magic of the new motion pictures. © 2004 State University of New York. All rights reserved