Cosmopolitan Cinema: Cross-cultural Encounters in East Asian Film

Cinema is fertile ground for the production of cosmopolitan ideals. Through global networks of production, distribution, exhibition and media consumption, films will often circulate between radically different cultural contexts. Additionally, cinema has the capacity to cultivate viewer aspirations of affiliation and belonging, and can arguably create safer spaces for cross-cultural encounters to occur than outside of the screen. This book explores the concept of cosmopolitanism and its implications through the lens of East Asian cinemas from Hong Kong, China, Japan
and Singapore, throwing doubt on definitive cultural boundaries and the term ‘national cinema’.