Redefining the Body : People with Physical Disabilities in Transform! (2020) and Reunion with You (2021)

This article argues that focusing on bodily performance and the body’s relations with other bodies in contemporary East Asian films offers alternative representations. The body not only refers to the bodies of on-screen characters, but also to those of the people who make and watch the films I examine. I want to propose an alternative to ableist perspectives on disability here by arguing that we should understand characters with physical disabilities in terms of bodily performance and its relations to other bodies. Based on a Deleuzian explanation of performance as an affective event, this article reexamines the disabled body and its capacity to resist ableist stereotypes through its relations with other bodies. Moreover, the bodies with which I am concerned are not limited to those of on-screen characters but include those of participants in the process of film production, distribution, and reception. Thus, the boundaries between on/off screen and characters/filmmakers/viewers are blurred, and the relations among different bodies become fluid. This article identifies and explores how fluid relations among different bodies in films open up alternatives to ableist depictions of physical disabilities. Starting with how people with physical disabilities have been represented in Chinese and Japanese film history and social contexts, I then analyze how such bodies resist an ableist perspective on disability in Transform! (dir. Ishita Tomoya, 2020) and Reunion with You (Yu Ni Chongfeng, dir. Liu Xiaojing, 2021). Transform! highlights the fluid relations of the bodies through film aesthetics, dance performances, and the filmmaking process, whereas Reunion with You rejects female disabled bodies as spectacles and emphasizes how women with physical disabilities use media platforms to express themselves.