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Animation in Asia and the Pacifi. Edited by JOHN A. LENT. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. 280 pp. $44.95.
It is wonderful to be asked to review a book that is such a pleasure to hold, such a pleasure to read, and such a pleasure to simply look at. Animation in Asia and the Pacific is beautiful: glossy, richly illustrated, and superbly presented. Diversity is the editorial blueprint, and it works well. This diversity-of essays, national traditions, approaches, illustrations, and vignettes-conveys the excitement and the craftmanship that pervades the animation industry across the region. It has always amazed me, as just one example, that Chinese animated films have been winning international awards since the 1950s, but they barely feature in the many books on the Chinese cinema[sl now rolling off the press. So, this edited collection of animation is a timely contribution to a buoyant, but neglected, area of the field.
The book has three sections: an introduction and two parts. The introduction by John Lent briefly surveys research in the field through the various chapters that follow. Part 1, on national perspectives, comprises fourteen of the sixteen chapters. Single chapters cover animation and its audiences in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, the subcontinent (mainly India),...