Maybe the blurry photos in this book tell the whole story about it. They're not nice, crisp, fake publicity photos sold by studios that never appear in the real films. They are blurry because (I guess) they come from real (blurry) Chinese films. No other book about Chinese film does this, but this book is about how Chinese films really look, and why (use a fake photo and how can you write honestly about how "the film" looks?). It is not a fashionable polemic. It is not about technical matters like lighting and film economics. Instead, it is about Chinese culture, Chinese artistic traditions (how new films fits into old visual patterns), and the politics of film makers getting around the Chinese censor. It isn't about the most popular films but uses films that seem best to illustrate important themes. It's not a light read and it's not journalistic film "criticism" -- but it makes you think about the subject and teaches a different way to really understand Chinese cinema and its place in Chinese culture today.