Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star

By: Lisa Funnell

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Synopsis: Finalist for the 2014 ForeWord IndieFab Book of the Year Award in the Women's Studies CategoryBronze Medalist, 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Women Issues CategoryWinnerof the 2015 Emily Toth Award presented by the Popular Culture Association & American Culture AssociationWarrior Women considers the significance of Chinese female action stars in martial arts films produced across a range of national and transnational contexts. Lisa Funnell examines the impact of the 1997 transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule on the representation of Chinese identities—Hong Kong Chinese, mainland Chinese, Chinese American, Chinese Canadian—in action films produced domestically in Hong Kong and, increasingly, in cooperation with mainland China and Hollywood. Hong Kong cinema has offered space for the development of transnational Chinese screen identities that challenge the racial stereotypes historically associated with the Asian female body in the West. The ethnic/national differentiation of transnational Chinese female stars—such as Pei Pei Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gong Li, Lucy Liu, Shu Qi, Michelle Yeoh, and Zhang Ziyi—is considered part of the ongoing negotiation of social, cultural, and geopolitical identities in the Chinese-speaking world.