China on Screen: Cinema and Nation, coauthored by Chris Berry and Marry Farquhar, examines the complex ways "the national" shapes and appears in Chinese films--whether from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the diaspora, or understood as transnational. As its subtitle suggests, the core arguments in this book revolve around the dynamics between the concepts of cinema and nation, which is proven to be particularly intricate in China. With its extensive research, clear structure, and well wrought arguments, the book provides insightful interpretations of the mutual influence between the national and the cinema, reflects upon existing scholarship, and proposes a new framework to approach national cinemas.   

Berry and Harquhar draw examples from films in various Chinese languages from different regions and periods. They discuss renowned directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige from mainland, Wong Kar-wai, Stanley Kwan from Hong Kong, Hou Hsiao Hsien from Taiwan, and also international figures such as Jackie Chan, John Woo, and Ang Lee. Stars like Bruce Lee, Gong Li, and Maggie Cheung are included as well. Among the one hundred fifty or so films mentioned, the authors grant particular attention to films that are more familiar to the West, including Hero, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Yellow Earth, City of Sadness, In the Mood for Love, Center Stage, The Wedding Banquet, and Rumble in the Bronx. Most films discussed are accessible with English subtitles.

Chris Berry, as a leader in Chinese film studies, has numerous publications, his previous editorial work being the anthology Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes (British Film Institute, 2003). Farquhar's expertise in Chinese languages and cultures helps to deepen and solidify their arguments. Unlike other less fortunate collaborations, the synergy of their expertises blossoms into this carefully-researched book with a coherent voice and few traces of co-authorship.

Before their endeavor, Yingjin Zhang's Chinese National Cinema (Routledge, 2004) was the last book in English to use a national approach regarding the whole history of Chinese cinemas. Given Zhang's final recognition of the transnational force in Chinese cinemas, he engages with the discourse of national cinema that has been influential in film studies during the past two decades. However, Berry and Farquhar problematize the conventional analytical framework of national cinemas and call for employment of a transnational reading. Berry and Farquhar correctly state, in this era of globalization, multiculturalism, migration, and the Internet, "the national cinemas approach with its premise of distinct and separate national cultures would be fraught anywhere."

The core arguments of China on Screen are twofold: first, while Chinese cinematic traditions are comprehensively informed by the national, they have retrospectively influenced the shaping and promulgation of the national and national identity depicted. Second, cinema studies should approach the national as multiply constructed and contested in an analytical framework which mobilizes a series of questions revolving "the national and cinema." Berry and Farquhar's new approach coincides with what Susan Hayward proposed in her highly critical essay "Framing National Cinemas."

Unlike Zhang's chronological delineation and periodization of each region's cinemas, Berry and Farquhar employ an integrated, thematic structure which enables each chapter to trace one of the persistent influences of the national in all the Chinese configurations. Each of the following chapters concentrates on history, identity, gender images, morality, ethnicity, or (trans)nationality presented behind and in cinema, and in cinema studies as well.

Chapter Two, "Time and the National," divides films which deal with past and time into three modes—the history, the historiological, and the haunting. Comparison between four different versions of Opium War films reveals complicated agencies behind a historical film. City of Sadness exemplifies the historiological mode. Lastly, the authors daringly compare In the Mood for Love to ghost films and establish a quite unconventional mode.

The two following chapters deal with two prominent modes in Chinese cinematic culture—the operatic mode and the realist mode. The former began with opera film as a kind of cultural nationalism and is still visible even in international blockbusters such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The realistic mode was tied to modernity and nation-building and has generated various subdivisions in response to particular social, temporal contexts.

Chapter Five addresses a Chinese woman's image in front of others, the cinematic apparatus, and spectators, as well as her subjective look represented in the cinema. Stars like Xie Fang, Ruan Lingyu, and Gong Li are deemed symbols of the nation (Mainland China, to be specific) in a certain epoch. Their images reflect the variations in nationality-molding. In turn, Maggie Cheng embodies a new transnational look. The next chapter shifts to the opposite sex to discuss how a Chinese man should act in relation to Confucian codes and their transformations. Chapter Seven investigates the circulations of signs of ethnicity in cinema. It touches upon the image of the good foreigner, the minorities, and intra-Chinese distinctions. In the last chapter, the authors return to the international. They acknowledge Chinese cinemas that are made in Singapore or internationally produced and distributed and call for the final abandonment of the old framework of nationalism.

Cleverly, Berry and Farquhar start each chapter with a famous film to hook the readers' attention. This film brings out the issues that will be addressed later. However, they often turn to discuss related writings and express their opinion before returning to the film in conclusion. Neatly organized, the whole book, as well as each chapter, follows a clearly-stated logic in a circular structure.

In regard to the writing, the whole book unfolds in a coherent and clear language in a neutral and moderate tone. Even when they propose an alternative opinion, they still remain generous to existent studies. Their precise and discriminative usage of Chinese terms and phrases manifests their detailed investigation on the subject-matters' cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  The mandarin title spelled in pinyin system is provided when a film was first mentioned, accompanied with a table of film titles in English and simplified Chinese in the appendix. The appendix also includes a chronology of general history and cinema history, and two impressive bibliographies, one of entries in European-Languages, and another in Chinese. Though targeted at Western audiences, the book still keeps Chinese readers in mind.

Highly conscious of analytical methods, Berry and Farquhar aim to facilitate a field of transnational film studies without falling into "sinological orientalism," in hope to bridge, or at least shorten, the distance between the East and the West. They are convinced that exactly because of its transnational nature and the various challenges to conventional understanding of the national, Chinese cinemas will occupy a more central role in the age of transnational cinema and cinema studies.

As erudite scholars and clear writers, Berry and Farquhar built their intelligent arguments on the existent scholarship and bring in refreshing reflections. Provocative and insightful, China on Screen is no doubt a valuable contribution to cinema studies.