Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Cinematic Doubles, Oedipal Triangles, and ChinaÂ’s Moral Voice

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Summary: Timely study of leading Chinese art films
Review: Silbergeld takes the three Chinese films Suzhou River, The Day the Sun Turned Cold, and Good Men to examine how Western film techniques have been brought into Chinese cinema. The films also evidence that Western literary and cultural influences are a part of Chinese cinema. The influence of Freud, Faulkner, and Dostoevsky can be seen in one or more of the films; and, not surprisingly, the cinematic techniques of Hitchcock are seen, as well those of David Lynch and Jean Luc-Godard. "The [Chinese] films are remarkable for their intellectual depth and range, their layered complexity, their emotional sobriety, their appeal to a sophisticated film audience rather than a mass market, their determined critique of contemporary culture...and the resonance of their moral voice." The same could be said for Western art films, which the Chinese films plainly resemble, to the point of imitation in many ways. In a pocket inside the back cover is a CD with scenes from the movies. Silbergeld's selection of only three distinctive, yet in many ways representative films makes for an efficient, yet pithy exposure to the best of Chinese art films; which films are gaining more attention as China's economic and political power grows.