Started in Shanghai in the 1920s, the legendary Shaw Brothers Studio began to dominate the worldwide Chinese film market after moving its production facilities to Hong Kong in 1957. Drawing together scholars from such diverse disciplines as history, cultural geography, and film studies, "China Forever" addresses how the Shaw Brothers raised the production standards of Hong Kong cinema, created a pan-Chinese cinema culture and distribution network, helped globalize Chinese-language cinema, and appealed to the cultural nationalism of the Chinese who found themselves displaced and unsettled in many parts of the world during the twentieth century. Contributors are Timothy P. Barnard, Cheng Pei-pei, Ramona Curry, Poshek Fu, Lane J. Harris, Law Kar, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Lilly Kong, Siu Leung Li, Paul G. Pickowicz, Fanon Che Wilkins, Wong Ain-ling, and Sai-shing Yung.

Since the 1960s, Hong Kong cinema has helped to shape one of the world's most popular cultural genres: action cinema. Hong Kong action films have proved popular over the decades with audiences worldwide, and they have seized the imaginations of filmmakers working in many different cultural traditions and styles. How do we account for this appeal, which changes as it crosses national borders?Hong Kong Connections brings leading film scholars together to explore the circulation of Hong Kong cinema in Japan, Korea, India, Australia, France, and the United States, as well as its links with Taiwan, Singapore, and the Chinese mainland. In the process, this collection examines diverse cultural contexts for action cinema's popularity and the problems involved in the transnational study of globally popular forms, suggesting that in order to grasp the history of Hong Kong action cinema's influence we need to bring out the differences as well as the links that constitute popularity. Contributors. Nicole Brenez, Stephen Chan Ching-kiu, Dai Jinhua, David Desser, Laleen Jayamanne, Kim Soyoung, Siu Leung Li, Adrian Martin, S. V. Srinivas, Stephen Teo, Valentina Vitali, Paul Willemen, Rob Wilson, Wong Kin-yuen, Kinnia Yau Shuk-ting, Yung Sai-shing