Tim Trausch - Chinese Martial Arts and Media Culture: Global Perspectives

The Martial Arts Studies book series aims to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and generate new knowledge in the interdisciplinary fields of martial arts studies.

Series Editor:

Paul Bowman, Professor, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University, UK Director of the Martial Arts Studies Research Network, and co-editor of the open-access journal Martial Arts Studies (Cardiff University Press).

Editorial Board

Alex Channon (University of Brighton)

D. S. Farrer (University of Guam)

T. J. Hinrichs (Cornell University)

Benjamin N. Judkins (chinesemartialstudies.com)

Gina Marchetti (Hong Kong University)

Michael A. Molasky (Waseda University)

Meaghan Morris (University of Sydney)

Benjamin Spatz (Huddersfield University)

Sixt Wetzler (German Blade Museum, Solingen)

Luke White (Middlesex University)

Douglas Wile (CUNY)

Gehao Zhang (Macau University of Science and Technology)

The Virtual Ninja Manifesto: Gamic Orientalism and the Digital Dojo,
Chris Goto-Jones

Mythologies of Martial Arts,
Paul Bowman

Chinese Martial Arts and Media Culture: Global Perspectives,
edited by Tim Trausch

The Martial Arts Studies Reader,
edited by Paul Bowman (forthcoming)

Edited by Tim Trausch

Published by Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd.

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With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada), and Plymouth (UK)

www.rowman.com

Selection and editorial matter 2018 Tim Trausch

Copyright in individual chapters is held by the respective chapter authors.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN:HB 978-1-7866-0902-1

PB 978-1-7866-0903-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available
ISBN 978-1-78660-902-1 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-78660-903-8 (electronic)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992.

Printed in the United States of America

Clemens von Haselberg

Helena Wu

Carlos Rojas

Man-Fung Yip

Ivo Ritzer

John Christopher Chris Hamm

Tim Trausch

Kin-Yan Szeto

Andreas Rauscher

Zheng Baochun and Wang Mingwei
Translated by Hiu M. Chan and Tim Trausch

I am greatly indebted to the many people who participated in the realization of this book. In addition to the contributors and the participants of the conferences that preceded the present volume, I would like to thank Benjamin Beil, Natalie Linh Bolderston, Marc Bonner, Paul Bowman, Philip Clart, Dymphna Evans, Leon Hunt, Chuck Kleinhans, Stefan Kramer, Lian Zhiping, Thomas Rtting, and Luke White. I am especially grateful to Annalisa Schmidt for their diligence in proofreading and copyediting this volume.

Tim Trausch

In Square Enix and United Fronts 2012 video game Sleeping Dogs, players can choose from a variety of costumes for their character, an undercover cop working the streets of a triad-ridden Hong Kong. Ranging from the iconic black and yellow Bruce Lee jumpsuit to the Bon Gak, a set of Muay Thaithemed clothing as worn by Tony Jaa in Ong Bak (2003), to downloadable Monkey King and Movie Master packs, the game assembles key visuals of martial arts in its costume selection. In addition to iconic outfits associated with martial arts cinema heavyweights such as Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, Sleeping Dogs features at least one costume designed as a reference to the 2004 Stephen Chow comedy Kung Fu Hustle (Gong fu). The costume, named Hog Pen Row, in an allusion to Pig Sty Alley, one of the main locations in Kung Fu Hustle, condenses the films plot in its tagline, Discover your natural born genius, and is in turn easily connected to an outfit worn by Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973). The fact that this Canadian game production is not only filled with references to the cornerstones of kung fu cinema and martial arts culture but also quotes from a film that is itself intended as an homage to, a parody, and a collection of references to the cinematic martial arts genre is emblematic for a media culture that stresses the constant reassemblage of signs and images over the idea of singular original creation. This playful updating process, which always creates something new in its own right, exemplifies the cultural dynamics of the information eras glocalizing media world, in which alleged national, textual, generic, and media borders are increasingly renegotiated, transcended, and dissolved.

The appropriation of the symbols of Chinese martial arts in the polysemic media culture(s) of global information and network societies cannot be regarded in sharp separation from their multiple derivations and their respective transformations and mutual inscriptions. Neither the product of evolution nor of revolution, the martial arts nexus is shaped by its traces being perpetuated, transformed, and given new meaning to under changing techno-economic and sociocultural dispositions. This volume brings together scholars from various disciplines in order to explore the guiding question of how the narratives and aesthetics of the martial arts genre have been shaped and attached meaning to under the influence of these changing arrangements. It traces the symbolic communication of Chinese martial arts from local cinematic production in 1920s Shanghai to the transnational and transmedia circulation in todays global entertainment industries. At the same time, this volume challenges the narrative of an apparently linear development via at least two additional dimensions. First, instead of proposing a linear, sequential pattern of new media replacing previous ones, this volume also focuses on the complex repercussions and synergies that accompany any media upheavals. Second, it acknowledges that twentieth-century cinematic martial arts culture was already translocally and transmedially connected, and that its twenty-first-century post-cinematic imagination is not immune to a resurgence of (cultural) borders, as becomes apparent in the case of Chinese online