Breaking the Distance: Asian Films, U.S. Critics, and Comparison Strategies

Abstract

This study explores several factors affecting three different types of comparison strategies used by U.S. critics in their reviews of Asian films: U.S. comparison comparing to U.S. counterparts), foreign comparison (comparing to counterparts from countries other than the U.S. and the focal Asian country that is compared), and home comparison (comparing to counterparts from the same country). Using 288 Asian film reviews, this paper reveals that critics tend to draw U.S. comparisons for films in culture-neutral and multiple genres that have been recently released in the U.S. In addition, this study reveals that critics use home comparison strategy more often than foreign comparison strategy on a large pool of prior home films in the U.S., while home comparison strategy is used more often on recently released films in the U.S. This suggests that critics' comparison strategies are mainly influenced by such factors as genre, multiplicity of genres, prior release of home films in the U.S., and recency.