Beyond marginalization: Kungfu Kindergarten as a ‘glocal’ response to Kungfu Panda

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Beteiligte: Chen, Luying
In: Asian Cinema, 24, 2013, 1, S. 69-86
veröffentlicht:
Intellect
Medientyp: Artikel, E-Artikel

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Umfang: 69-86
ISSN: 1059-440X
2049-6710
DOI: 10.1386/ac.24.1.69_1
veröffentlicht in: Asian Cinema
Sprache: Englisch
Schlagwörter:
Kollektion: Intellect (CrossRef)
Inhaltsangabe

<jats:p>This article discusses how the Hong Kong animated film Mai Dou xiang dangdang/McDull: Kungfu Kindergarten (Xie 2009, hereafter Kungfu Kindergarten) responds both to Dreamwork’s film Kungfu Panda (Stevenson and Osborne 2008) and mainland Chinese receptions of Kungfu Panda. Whereas the latter demonstrate how globalization coopts the local into its powerful discourse to create various national or nationalist responses, Kungfu Kindergarten constitutes a ‘glocal’ reaction. It forms a counter discourse to the discourse of magic in Kungfu Panda, thereby reviving the Daoist discourse of ziran, defined by the Daoist master in the film as ‘self, unpretentious, and undistorted.’ Instead of returning Daoism to the Chinese national(ist) discourse, however, the film further redefines ziran as a transnational feminine discourse. Situated within the context of China’s response to Western modernity and post-colonial Hong Kong’s relationship to mainland China and the West, the film articulates a Hong Kong voice which offers China an exit out of marginalization and self-marginalization since the Opium War.</jats:p>