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Restaging Zhu Yingtai in Early Communist China

Shaoxing Opera, Color Film, and the “New Woman”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2021

Ho Chak Law
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Abstract

In 1953, Shanghai Film Studio produced a Shaoxing opera film version of The Butterfly Lovers as the first color film of the People’s Republic of China. Noted for its immense popularity in the Sinophone sphere throughout the 1950s, the film actually exemplifies a history of Shaoxing opera that is connected to urbanization and nationalism as well as women’s liberation and the cultural politics of early communist China. It is an early example of how Chinese opera and modern media technology contribute to transnational negotiations and imaginations of Chinese identities.

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Article
Information
TDR , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 77 - 94
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

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