In presenting this collection of 13 essays exploring East Asian cinema, editors Jackson (a student of Korean history at London U., UK), Gibb (East Asian Cinema, City U. of Hong Kong, China), and White (Tokai Gakuen U., Japan) de-emphasize the recent focus on Western globalization and modernization as shapers of Asian identity and instead focus issues of national and regional identity and history and trans-regional cultural flows since 1945. Topics discussed include thematic concerns of natural culturalism in Shohei Imamura's Narayamabushi-kô (The Ballad of Narayama); history and national myth in filmic portrayals of China's Opium War; cinematic representations of the Chinese Cultural Revolution; responses to modernity in South Korean film; portrayals of the Mainland Chinese "Other" in Hong Kong commercial film; representations of Japanese minorities in recent Japanese film; cinematic cooperation between China and Hong Kong, and discourse of regionalism in Dong fang bu bai 2: zhi feng yun zai qi (The East is Red) and Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)