A section from the review:  

"[Qi Wang's] Memory, Subjectivity, and Independent Chinese Cinema is rich and complex. To be fully appreciated, I suspect its formal analytical focus requires a degree of familiarity with the cinematic works discussed. Furthermore, Wang’s explicit emphasis on questions of subjectivity and style over material context—whether that be production, exhibition, or reception—may frustrate those for whom Zhang Yimou, Meng Jinghui, and Shi Tou are less points on a continuum than practitioners working in quite distinct spheres. But this approach has two distinct advantages. First, it allows for suggestive connections to be made between films across almost three decades and between media forms, forcing us to reflect on what a genealogy of a contemporary Chinese “I” might look like before and beyond the digital camera. The Forsaken Generation in turn provides a staging post, a way of tracing a more subtle transition in subjectivity than the rather brutal shift often assumed between the post-1980s child and his or her predecessors. Second, the insistence on bringing fiction and non-fiction together within a single study is unusual in Chinese screen studies. Such an approach enables discussion across a generic boundary that increasingly bedevils the field, demonstrating why feature film, documentary, and video work need to be considered in dialogue with one another and with other forms of experimental cultural production. For this reason alone Wang’s book is worth reading."

Read the full review.