Charting the Transnational within the National: The Case of Contemporary Taiwan Popular Cinema

This chapter aims to map out multifaceted transnationality vis-à-vis a consideration of the national in the case of post-2008 contemporary Taiwan popular cinema. It firstly examines transnational processes and the negotiations between the local/global and the national/transnational embedded in the film production and distribution models. Secondly, it further focuses on the transnational flows of personnel and techniques in the filmmaking process of contemporary Taiwan popular cinema, while interrogating how these transnational cultural flows have facilitated the development of Taiwan’s national film industry. Furthermore, it also scrutinizes how Taiwan popular cinema can function as a transnational output of Taiwan’s soft power and build up Taiwan’s national profile through exhibitions in international film festival circuits. This chapter finally argues that a rigid dichotomy between the national and the transnational does not exist in contemporary Taiwan popular cinema; rather, post-2008 contemporary Taiwan popular cinema can be seen as a site for multi-directional transnational cultural flows when considered in relation to the national, showing the hallmarks of the ongoing process in which transnational cultural flows have shaped, facilitated and negotiated the development of Taiwan’s national film industry and cinematic cultures.補正完