Chick Flick Fantasy and Postfeminism in Chinese Cinema: 20 Once Again as a Transnational Remake

Abstract

This chapter analyses chick flick fantasy as an emerging film genre in mainland Chinese cinema. It borrows the Hollywood-derived framework to read this hybridised genre with the concept of postfeminism. After surveying the rise of the chick flick fantasy in multiple Chinese media platforms, this chapter explores how the socio-cultural meanings of the global genre evolve when it travels across national borders to mainland China. From an inter-Asian perspective, it studies the case of 20 Once Again (2015), the Chinese remake of the South Korean film Miss Granny (2014), which together constitute also one of the best-selling Chinese-Korean films. It examines how the two versions, telling the same story, characterise their female protagonists with fantastical devices and generate distinctive gender discourses.