| List of Illustrations | xi |
| Preface | xiii |
| Overview: The Filmmaking Generations | 1 |
| Part 1 | History in and out of Melodrama: Glory, Guilt, and Fantasy | 21 |
| 1. | Two Stage Sisters (Wutai jiemei, dir. Xie Jin, 1965) | 29 |
| Director's Notes "Two Stage Sisters: The Blossoming of a Revolutionary Aesthetic" | |
| 2. | Hibiscus Town (Furong zhen, dir. Xie Jin, 1986) | 52 |
| Director's Notes "Society and Subjectivity: On the Political Economy of Chinese Melodrama" | |
| 3. | Farewell My Concubine (Bawang bie ji, dir. Chen Kaige, 1993) | 69 |
| Director's Notes "The Concubine and the Figure of History: Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine" | |
| Part 2 | Speaking for the Other: Changing Allegorical Roles for Women | 87 |
| 4. | Street Angel (Malu tianshi, dir. Yuan Muzhi, 1937) | 93 |
| An Outline for Viewing Street Angel "The Textual and Critical Difference of Being Radical: Reconstructing Chinese Leftist Films of the 1930s" | |
| 5. | Three Women a.k.a. Women Side by Side (Liren xing, dir. Chen Liting, 1949) | 110 |
| From "Xin nuxing to Liren xing: Changing Conceptions of the 'New Woman' in Republican Era Chinese Films" | |
| 6. | Woman, Demon, Human a.k.a. Human, Woman, Demon (Ren gui qing, dir. Huang Shuqin, 1988) | 129 |
| Director's Notes "Human, Woman, Demon: A Woman's Predicament" | |
| 7. | Ju Dou (dir. Zhang Yimou, 1990) | 151 |
| Director's Notes "Ju Dou--A Hermeneutical Reading of Cross-Cultural Cinema" | |
| Part 3 | Cinema Exotica: Ethnic Minorities as the PRC's "Internal Other" | 165 |
| 8. | Girl from Hunan (Xiangnu Xiaoxiao, dir. Xie Fei, Wu Lan, 1986) | 171 |
| Director's Notes "'Hsiao-hsiao' and Girl from Hunan: Teaching Chinese Narrative, Not Just Chinese Fiction" | |
| 9. | Sacrificed Youth (Qingchun ji, dir. Zhang Nuanxin, 1985) | 181 |
| Director's Notes "Is China the End of Hermeneutics?; or, Political and Cultural Usage of Non-Han Women in Mainland Chinese Films" | |
| 10. | Horse Thief (Daoma zei, dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1986) | 197 |
| Director's Notes "Tian Zhuangzhuang, the Fifth Generation, and Minorities Film in China" | |
| Part 4 | The Chinese Western: Roots Hidden in the Yellow Earth | 213 |
| 11. | Yellow Earth (Huang tudi, dir. Chen Kaige, 1984) | 219 |
| Director's Notes "The 'Hidden' Gender in Yellow Earth" | |
| 12. | Old Well (Lao jing, dir. Wu Tianming, 1987) | 233 |
| Director's Notes From "Digging an Old Well: The Labor of Social Fantasy" | |
| 13. | Red Sorghum (Hong gaoliang, dir. Zhang Yimou, 1987) | 248 |
| Director's Notes "Red Sorghum: Mixing Memory and Desire" | |
| Part 5 | New City Films: Beyond-Yellow-Earth Experiences of Postsocialism | 277 |
| 14. | Black Cannon Incident (Heipao shijian, dir. Huang Jianxin, 1985) | 283 |
| Director's Notes From "Post-Socialist Strategies: An Analysis of Yellow Earth and Black Cannon Incident" | |
| 15. | Good Morning, Beijing (Beijing, nizao, dir. Zhang Nuanxin, 1990) | 302 |
| Director's Notes "In Search of the Real City: Cinematic Representations of Beijing and the Politics of Vision" | |
| Appendix 1. | Discussion Questions | 329 |
| Appendix 2. | Pronouncing Romanized Chinese | 344 |
| Appendix 3. | Video Purchase and Film Rental Information | 347 |
| Bibliography | 349 |
| Index | 367 |
