Chinese Cinema With Hollywood Characteristics, or How The Karate Kid Became a Chinese Film

This chapter traces the radical changes within the Chinese film industry from the 1990s to 2012, highlighting seven categories through which a new model described as “Chinese cinema with Hollywood characteristics” has emerged. The seven categories discussed include (1) Hollywood-style Chinese blockbusters, (2) Hollywood/Chinese coproductions, (3) Chinese remakes of Hollywood productions, (4) artificial Hollywood, (5) invisible Hollywood, (6) the rise of bicultural filmmakers, and (7) international casting choices. Films like the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid are explored within the context of the Chinese film industry’s transformation from a national cinema model to deterritorialized system modeled in many ways by Hollywood aesthetic and industrial standards.