How Wee Ng 2025. Decolonising China on screen: curating cinemas of the Sinosphere for the university classroom. Media Practice and Education. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/25741136.2025.2600057
| Title | Decolonising China on screen: curating cinemas of the Sinosphere for the university classroom |
|---|---|
| Type | Journal article |
| Authors | How Wee Ng |
| Abstract | Calls to decolonise film studies and university curricula have intensified. Drawing on his teaching in British higher education, this author proposes a film module positioning China as a postcolonial entity. Curating films from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Europe, the United States and Ethiopia enables rhizomatic readings of imperialism, racism, Sinophobia and transnational capitalism. Case studies include but are not limited to The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), Fist of Fury (1972), 12 Storeys (1997), Zeraff (2011), Wolf Warrior 2 (2017) and Made in Ethiopia (2024). These films foreground China's hybridity as both Global North and Global South and examine how nationality, ethnicity, gender and class shape inequalities. The article outlines how tutors can adopt a critical pedagogy of empathy, supported by structured discussion and diverse readings, to foster critical consciousness even when this unsettles students’ beliefs. By pairing mainstream fare with alternative voices, this resists geopolitical binaries that exceptionalise China. The conclusion invites readers to expand this transnational project: trace how cinemas in Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East engage with China on screen; interrogate how Sino-international coproductions reconfigure decolonial imaginaries; and develop shared pedagogical repositories to democratise knowledge production and reimagine China on screen. |
| Journal | Media Practice and Education |
| ISSN | 2574-1136 |
| 2574-1144 | |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| Publisher's version | License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 File Access Level Open (open metadata and files) |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1080/25741136.2025.2600057 |
| Web address (URL) | https://doi.org/10.1080/25741136.2025.2600057 |
| Publication dates | |
| Published online | 22 Dec 2025 |