Santa Claus in China and Wu xia in Finland: Translocal reception of transnational cinema in Finnish and Chinese film cultures

Citation

Kaapa P & Wenbo G (2011) Santa Claus in China and Wu xia in Finland: Translocal reception of transnational cinema in Finnish and Chinese film cultures. Participations, 8 (2), pp. 24-51. http://www.participations.org/Volume%208/Issue%202/contents.htm

Abstract
This article interrogates the Finnish and Chinese reception of Jade Warrior (Jadesoturi, 2006) and A Christmas Story (Joulutarina, 2007) to understand the ways audiences mobilize transnational cultural products in different cultural contexts. Our analysis of audience reception works from two bases. First, we investigate how transnational circulation of cultural products can lead to different modes of audience engagement beyond Hollywood-dictated models of audience reception. Secondly, we argue that the cultural work of audiences in different contexts generates meanings which challenge the reductionist uses of transnational cinema as Hollywood's other, especially in the audiences' sets of expectations about frequently used designators such as popular culture and commercialism. By examining the actual deployment and implications of transnational cinema in culturally-specific online communities (which are linguistically if not geographically inclusive contexts), we see how audiences utilize cultural products in complex and sometimes contesting ways, which range from vindicating their personal politics to criticizing social problems, from critiquing normative conceptions of national cinema to celebrating cultural diversity.

Keywords
Transnational cinema; translocalism; reception studies; Finnish cinema; Chinese film cultures; Global Hollywood; globalization; European film; genre; online reception

Journal
Participations: Volume 8, Issue 2