From Pearl White to White Rose Woo

This chapter examines the mediated cultural encounter between the American serial queen adventure and nüxiapian, a subgenre of Chinese martial arts films. The nüxiapian genre, featuring a female knight errant, first appeared on the 1920s silent screen and had a lasting influence in Chinese cinema. The chapter first provides an overview of the theoretical and historical underpinnings of the word “vernacular” as well as the cultural essentialist aspects of the martial arts films. It then considers the local as the site of irreducible heterogeneity that enabled active and plural modes of cultural translation, resulting in the “vernacular” body of nüxia. In analyzing the interaction between American serial queen films and the Chinese entertainment world of the 1910s and 1920s, the chapter underscores the dual promise of the May Fourth Vernacular Movement and its implication for Chinese cinema. It also highlights the rise of a particular configuration of the female body on Chinese silent films.