Across Cultural and National Borders: Diasporic Chinese Family in Pushing Hands

Abstract

Being embedded in the interdisciplinary area of media and culture studies, this articlel explores the family melodrama in transnational Chinese cinema drawing upon theoretical discussions with regard to the historical emergence of melodrama in correspondence to, as Th. Elsaesser says, “periods of intense social and ideological crisis”. While serving as a reflection on the tension between tradition and modernity displayed in the domestic domain, Ang Lee’s Chinese-characterized family melodrama also illustrates the differences between Chinese and Hollywood family melodrama. Linked to the ongoing debate about “melodrama as a cross-cultural form”, in the process of analyzing the film text, our perceptions of generic dislocation or displacement, transcultural entanglements and globalization in light of contemporary cultural practices will be furthermore complicated.