This book examines the aesthetic qualities of particular Chinese-language films and the rich artistic traditions from which they spring. It brings together leading experts in the field, and encompasses detailed and wide-ranging case studies of films such as Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Spring in a Small Town, 24 City, and The Grandmaster, and filmmakers including Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Chen Kaige, Fei Mu, Zhang Yimou, Johnnie To, and Wong Kar-wai. By illuminating the form and style of Chinese films from across cinema history, The Poetics of Chinese Cinema testifies to the artistic value and uniqueness of Chinese-language filmmaking.

Gary Bettinson is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Lancaster University, UK and author of The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai: Film Poetics and the Aesthetic of Disturbance (Hong Kong University Press), and chief editor of Asian Cinema journal.

James Udden is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Gettysburg College, USA. He has published extensively on Asian cinema including the book-length monograph, No Man an Island: The Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien (Hong Kong University Press). His current book project concerns the improbable, parallel rise of Taiwan and Iran in the international festival world starting in the mid-1980s.