Extreme Asian Cinema: Contemporary Genre Cinemas in an East Asian Context

Since the late 1990's, a discourse of "extreme Asian cinema" has gained traction among aficionados of global cinema, transforming our understandings of "national cinema." In this course, we will interrogate the spectacular aesthetics of "extremity," with its violence, polymorphous perversion, and grotesquerie, in relation to social and cultural phenomena in contemporary East Asia. By analyzing the genres of the gangster film, the revival of wuxia (heroic martial arts genre) and samurai films, horror, revenge films, and techno-dystopia and ecological disaster anime, we will explore "extreme Asian cinema," as a response to cultural shifts in global identities and film experience. Enrollment limited to 50 sophomores, juniors, and seniors.