1. Amateur videos as emergent locus of star construction and fan engagement
[1.1] The last few decades have witnessed the emergence of the participatory web culture that has facilitated the "ever-expanding terrain of the amateur" (Zimmermann 2013). From blogs to tweets, from photography to commentary, user-generated materials on Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook epitomize the grassroots force of cultural production, which was once dominated by mainstream media texts. Furthermore, since the mid-2000s, the maturation of broadband infrastructure and open-source image-making software has mobilized the escalating professionalization of amateur visual production. Cinephiles can easily search, cull, copy, and share movie clips, trailers, making-of footage, and celebrity interviews obtained from television, DVDs, and websites. On top of borrowing texts directly, they also edit images and mix them with other materials just as professional video makers do. Such practices collapse the dividing line between the professional and the amateur (Burgess 2013, 53), meaning the two groups (as Marjorie Garber posits) "are always in each other's pocket" (2001, 5). Robert Stebbins (1992), moreover, identifies and defines the distinctive features and market values of amateur productions, explaining why industries are progressively motivated to undertake them. These efforts validate the trend that popular texts no longer stay in the cultural terrain as they used to, unfolding the clash of various modes of creativity driven by mainstream industrial initiative and alternative business initiative.
[1.2] YouTube is one of the most amateur-friendly websites exemplifying alternatives to large-scale productions in subcultural fields. It is an open platform, which enables users without explicit cultural, institutional, and generic affiliations to engage, making possible the amateur expressions that many content creators seek to exploit. It invites us to see ourselves as potential bona fide media producers or even celebrities-in-waiting, in Jean Burgess's words (2013, 53). The site's ongoing formalization and legitimation in its operation further suggests a tendency to pursue a relatively profitable and stabilized cultural space (ibid), which may be inhabited by both trained and untrained practitioners. It is also exemplary of the disruptive influence of novel networks of content production and distribution on current media business models (Burgess and Green 2009, 89). "Symptomatic to a changing media environment" (90), YouTube encompasses diverse groups of participants. The three groups of participants on YouTube that Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (92–93) identify include traditional media companies, web TV companies, and ordinary users, or individual, amateur participants who are not representatives of mainstream media. Here I will focus much of my attention on the cultural activity that happens within the second group, which is considered neither completely corporatized nor completely independent but most actively and reflexively engaged in YouTube's cocreative culture (91). Put another way, it dwells in the mediated space that registers myriad interrelated occurrences of participation.
[1.3] This essay aims to examine the cocreative relationships of the star phenomenon and the respective fan engagement on YouTube. Fan videos and mashups are a burgeoning genre of texts associated with film stars that elevate the significance of amateur-driven endeavors operating outside the conventional industrial logic. In the past, star discourses were chiefly shaped by professional institutions. Practitioners such as filmmakers, marketers, journalists, and reviewers played a key role in engendering materials of stars as a "shared, but never equal, venture" (Austin 2003, 25). While journalistic discourses and studio propaganda manipulated and monopolized the publicity, amateur media channels proffer "a new context in which movie stars could peddle their 'monopoly personalities.'" (Pomerance 2012, 3) With the arrival of new media technology, cultural industries relate to their audiences in complex and contradictory ways unimaginable a decade ago. Through poaching, tagging, and annotating filmic and advertising materials about stars, users reformulate communication patterns and networks that vigorously constitute and frame stardom. The new breed of "pro-sumer" (Toffler 1980) and "prod-user" (Bruns 2005, 23, 315–16) are now seen as major drivers of persona publicity and management, emulating the appeal not necessarily confined by the cinematic world. Such emancipative power of audiences in the participatory mediascape valorizes an alternative modality of star making.
2. Reimagining Chinese stars in the cocreative media terrain
[2.1] Scholars have explored stars of Chinese cinema at the convergence of celluloid and digital means that captures the changing mode of star construction. Recent decades have seen the growing visibility and mobility of Chinese star texts in the setting of global media. The transnationalization of martial arts cinema and the films of fifth-generation directors in mainland China provide broad exposure for a cluster of Chinese celebrities outside China, bridging their names with global audiences. Studies have framed Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun-fat, Zhang Ziyi, and Maggie Cheung, the most celebrated ones, in sundry contexts like Chinese cinema (Farquhar and Zhang 2010), East Asian cinema (Leung and Willis 2014), and transnational cinema (Meeuf and Raphael 2013), and have explored them in terms of star agency, cultural nationalism, masculinity, and femininity as well as production and consumption. While these icons are famous for their compelling, exotic images, the Chineseness they signify is commodified and refashioned in global capitalism. The advent of new media and DIY cultures creates new conditions that reshape the Chinese celebrities, putting them under heightened public scrutiny and in a new frontier of cultural imagination. Public images are reworked; private lives, alongside screen personae, are exposed, discussed, and contested. The revelations of the "hidden truths" of idols hold more appeal for fans than the institutionalized star image. As the Chinese star phenomenon plays out in global-digital fan networks, it generates new inquiries that demand serious exploration. Pioneering essays written by Julian Stringer (2003) and Sabrina Yu (2010) inquire into the star construction and audience reception of Jet Li on the internet. Stringer (2003) probes how the ambivalence of Asian American devotees has shaped Li's image: while some audiences relish Li's "perfect" Chineseness as embodied in his Hollywood roles, others highlight his own limitations as an ethnic actor. Sabrina Yu (2012) examines the construction of Li's star presence through his publicity at the official Jet Li website. By investigating the contradictory onscreen-offscreen personae, Yu extrapolates the equally central roles the star and fans play in the star-making process. Expanding the previous effort, I have analyzed Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the social media platforms of Flickr and Facebook (Lau 2010, 2016). In both studies, I have argued for the cosmopolitical, rather than ethnic, celebrity-philanthropist presence engineered on the user-oriented sites that have become part of the industrial machinery of persona management. While this body of literature predominantly adopts the approaches of Asian American studies (Stringer 2003), transnational studies (Yu 2012), and cultural studies (Lau 2010, 2016) to examine the racial, ethnic, and gender representations of Chinese stars, this essay will integrate media studies and star studies by focusing on the possible crossover between professionalism and amateurism. This essay will intervene in the existing critical discourse of Chinese stardom against the backdrop of global media flows.
[2.2] Research has proven that YouTube, the epitome of different structures of fame-making apparatuses, is instrumental in expanding the circulation of star texts in cyberspace. Intellectuals have positioned YouTube as the venue of engendering public memories of dead personalities ranging from Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe (Elali and Vázquez 2015) to Mexican divas María Félix and Dolores del Río (Thornton 2010). While some intellectuals concentrate on celebrities in the West, others write about non-Western figures such as Chinese kung fu megastar Bruce Lee (Lau 2016) and Taiwanese singer Teresa Tang (Liew 2013), explaining how the digitalized clips from private collections, later turned into YouTube uploads, become part of the fan-based memorial culture. In addition to the shared memories of fallen stars, researchers have also dealt with the shared taste of the artist-like figures alive. Wikanda Promkhuntong's (2016) account has illuminated the fan reception of Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai as a star-auteur. In the East Asian auteur phenomenon, Promkhuntong argues the importance of individual YouTube users who are not affiliated with institutions in exhibiting their tastes through fan-made videos, a vehicle of reputation-making for Wong. These critical works provide insight into how YouTube generates and garners sensitivity within and outside the industrial mechanism but the insights still remain scarce.
[2.3] In response to such scarcity, this essay will investigate the star image of Donnie Yen on YouTube as a partly amateur, partly professional cocreative outcome. Why Donnie Yen? Yen is "one of the most popular and prolific action star choreographers" (Funnell 2013, 119), whose appeal is established and mobilized on screen and is consumed by audiences all over the globe. As the careers of Hong Kong action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li, two pioneering border-crossers to Hollywood, wane with age, cinephiles and studios call for a new star to replace them. Donnie Yen has ascended to fill the gap. Yen's recent Hollywood appearances are his revived participation in the "Dream Factory" since the early 2000s when he worked as the choreographer and a supporting actor in Highlander: Endgame (2000) and Blade II (2002). In the meantime, his most noteworthy appearance is probably in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), a recent sensation in the Hollywood-style blockbuster arena. Capitalizing on the actor's reputation as a martial arts expert, Rogue One cast Yen as Chirrut Îmwe, a blind benevolent monk who is purportedly the warrior of paramount fighting dexterity in the galaxy. Certain media described the character as someone "important" who "will get some action" (Truitt 2016) whereas Yen simply and ambitiously described him as "the best fighter" (Lee 2016), a description that makes audiences anticipate the star's superb acrobatic skill. Attention also rested on Yen's winning of the role over peers who were better known in the US; for example, Jet Li, Tony Leung, Stephen Chow, Chang Chen, Daniel Wu, and Leehom Wang. Yen became the first Hong Kong action star to perform in a Star Wars narrative (Baxter 2015). Yen's success proved he is one of the most celebrated and bankable performers in Hong Kong martial arts cinema, gaining currency in the cross-border market.
[2.4] Literature has acknowledged the vigorous, expanding Star Wars fanbase, even prior to the rise of social media (Wetmore 2005, Brooker 2009). Star Wars is a compelling title in the sci-fi genre that successfully attracted a cult following around the world. Films in this franchise have also become eminent cultural texts on which various forms of amateurish practices anchor. The eighth film in the franchise, Rogue One is the first stand-alone motion picture from the legendary series that is set prior to the events of the 1977 episode (Lee 2016). It features an international cast, including Diego Luna (Mexican) as Cassian Andor, Riz Ahmed (British-Pakistani) as Bodhi Rook, as well as Wen Jiang (Chinese) as Baze Malbus, on top of Yen, vindicating Star Wars' enduring ambition to access the global market and earn a far-reaching fanbase. While I have been aware of the ongoing critical interest in the Star Wars fandom, it is not the purpose of this paper to explore this dimension in-depth. Rather, this discussion centers on the mutating star construction of the Chinese performers who appeared in the iconic series, as a response to the phenomenal transnationalization of Chinese cinema and Chinese film stars. Different from the existing studies of Star Wars that treat its fan community as a cultural phenomenon (Silvio and Vinci 2017), this essay concentrates on exploring fan-driven creative venture as part of the star phenomenon, arresting the trend of Asianization in Hollywood (Hunt 2010).
[2.5] In this context, some questions arise regarding the YouTube-based star texts of Donnie Yen. What is the cultural imagination of Yen's new personification, as exuded by YouTube videos? To what extent does Yen's amateur-orchestrated image parallel to, differ from, or overlay with the earlier roles, produced by the institutionalized filmmaking system? How do users respond to this image? In order to address these questions, this essay will hypothesize a cocreative star image that shows the industrial origin of the footage, but is reworked in vernacular and original forms. With this in mind, I conducted research beginning with the keyword-search "Donnie Yen, Star Wars" on YouTube on June 25, 2017. I identified two videos among the top search results that were not mere copy-and-paste entries of movie clips and trailers but demonstrated degrees of originality. The videos were "Donnie Yen in Rogue One | Generation Tech" and "Exclusive: Star Wars Rogue One—Donnie Yen VS 10 Stormtroopers." By examining the content and the running commentary of the clips, this essay will postulate an intertextual, hybridized image that problematizes and complicates the Chineseness embodied by Yen. I argue that on one hand, the amateur video makers capitalize on Yen's established martial arts appeal but on the other, they parody and trivialize such appeal. Yet such ambivalent appeal is no less capable of evoking users' anticipation and memory of Yen's screen roles. By so doing, this analysis will show how amateur videos emulate, multiply, and contend with the star discourse produced by institutional practices. In this light, it not only acknowledges the agency of the grassroots in the star making but also unravels the polemical relations between the alternative content and the mainstream media content at the crossroads of cinematic and digital cultures.
Video 1. Martial Arts Heroes' "'Lightsaber' Battle," "Jet Li vs Donnie Yen Lightsaber Duel | Generation Tech."
[2.6] Amateur-produced videos show the famed personality not restricted by rigid generic and cultural boundaries but appearing immensely flexible and multiple. The first video, titled "Jet Li vs Donnie Yen Lightsaber Duel | Generation Tech," examines Yen's expanded image on YouTube as a new visual hybrid of disparate symbolic components. The posting date is December 29, 2015, the time before the launch of Rogue One, yet after the advertising image of Yen had been publicized, as part of the caption insinuates: "We're not sure exactly what his role will be but he appears on a promotional photo as what appears to be a blind monk." The opening of the entry shows a stand-out fight scene in the Chinese martial arts epic Hero (2000) between Nameless (Jet Li) and Long Sky (Donnie Yen), two accomplished spearmen-assassins. Rather than the fast-paced and explosive stunts that usually characterize Yen's screen action, the filmmaker, Zhang Yimou, portrays the choreography as poetic and rhythmic, with movement elicited in a balanced manner. Cinephiles of martial arts cinema did not miss the fact that both Li and Yen are genuine martial artists who are acclaimed for their superb dexterity, drawing on their background of wushu training. Certain audiences described the fight between the two megastars as "the most grounded" (Anonymous, n.d.a). Instead of merely copying, the video maker recreates the scene by putting the iconic lightsabers from Star Wars into the duel. In this fashion, the video maker combines symbols of the sci-fi hit Rogue One and Hero, which both incorporate Yen as a member of the main cast. Hero is the first global blockbuster produced in mainland China that has riveted audiences both inside and outside China and has set a model for the transnational mode of production (Rawnsley and Rawnsley 2010, 1, 4; Khoo 2010, 123). The movie also includes a number of other highly marketable performers, such as Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, and Zhang Ziyi. Based on Yen's performance in Hero, the producer of this fanvid imagines how his kinetically robust image might appear in Rogue One. Thus, the maker turns the Chinese heroes into semi-Jedi knights, which has made the Chineseness oblique and equivocal.
[2.7] Yen's martial arts appeal is further obscured by the association of his Jedi knight role with the Miraluka, characters in the multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011). With a human-like appearance, Miraluka are a near-human species whose racial or ethnic origin remains unclear. As the diegesis unfolds, the Miraluka adopt the traditions and teachings of the Jedi Order and can fight skillfully with lightsabers due to trust in the Force (Anonymous, n.d.b). In the video, Churrit, Yen's blind character, is paralleled to the Miraluka, who lack eyes and perceive the surrounding with force-inflicted sensitivity rather than regular vision. By juxtaposing him with a virtual personality in game, Yen's hero persona seems closer to a kind of "mobile identity," as Mary Flanagan has designated the new category of "digital stars," (Flanagan 1999, 77) than the "'real'…action actor' (Funnell 2013, 119). The video narrative proves the capacity of Yen's character to engender a comparative discourse with other fictional constructions, enlivening the Star Wars mythos in the convergence of cinematic and digital cultures.
[2.8] Moreover, the video producer, consciously or not, omits the proximity between Churrit and the Japanese blind swordsman character, Zatoichi. Zatoichi was a progenitor text of the martial arts films, or wu xia pian, in the 1960s and 1970s in Hong Kong cinema, which drew overt references to the Japanese samurai film (Marchetti 2014, 2). Zatoichi Meets The One-Armed Swordsman (1971), a Shaw Brothers swordplay film, is one example. The absence of consideration of the character-based parallel, which is in fact willingly recalled by cinephiles and knowledgeable viewers, downplays the orientation of Yen's persona in the martial arts cinematic tradition. In addition, the video displays a portrait of a Miraluka female that likely makes Yen's screen masculinity wooly and fluid. Underlining the separation of the image and the body (Flanagan 1999, 82), the video narrative shapes the disembodiment of the hero, contrasting to his well-known presence grounded in his physical prowess and martial authenticity.
[2.9] Nonetheless, the obscurity of Yen's Chinese image can still motivate fan engagement. The clip attracts an inventory of comments evaluating Yen's former characters and expectations of his new role in Rogue One from individual users. The video title—"Donnie Yen in Rogue One | Generation Tech"—includes the name of the uploader, Generation Tech, signifying "the place to be for video content covering the latest and greatest technologies," as indicated in the Facebook Page hyperlinked with the YouTube entry (Generation Tech, @generationtechofficial). Alongside the 67,471 views, the entry has 88 comments and one of the most recurring themes points to the "mashup" part, as expressed by phrases such as "looked…cool," "great work," and "great video." Equally noticeable, the other category of comments refers to the anticipation of Yen's Rogue One personification. For example, in January 2017, a user named Joy Comilang writes, "I hope he is a Jedi…a vanished one…" User Thomas Muller 7-1 writes, "imagine donnie yen wielding a lightsaber." Some feedback, furthermore, recognizes that Yen's status derives from his martial artistry and his acting skill. For instance, in January 2016 right after the posting of the video, an array of comments demonstrates informed fan interactions:
[2.10] Mima kake: It would be a waste if they did not use Donnie Yen's martial arts skills. Or it is a challenge for him to do some different acting. We will see in about a year. ;).
Generation Tech (in January 2016): Yea can't wait, it's about time Donnie Yen becomes more mainstream outside of the Asian market
PTigris7 (in January 2017): +Mima Kake If you have seen bodyguards and Assasins, Ip Man 3 or…perhaps All Well Ends well 2012, you will see that Donnie's acting is really superb, outside of his martial arts skill.
Mima kake (in January 2017): Cool, I shall check them out. Thanks.
Kaptionist (in January 2017): +Mima Kake I did hear that Ip Man 3 was his last movie that displays any sort of kung fu…
Mima kake (in January 2017): Well, I definitely will check some more movies with him before I see Rogue one. ;)
[2.11] The interplay among users, elicited over time, echoes the affective responses invoked by the desire of film moments in the era prior to the popularization of digital media. It arouses the cinephilic pleasure that Paul Willimen (1994) has conceptualized in terms of "the moment of revelation," or "a moment of excess" (1994, 236–37). The moment either operates out of a rigid framework or allows viewers to realize the "illusion" that "what is being seen is in excess of what is being shown" (237). Akin to the discourse of the cinephile, this amateur video encapsulates the momentary encounter between web users and Yen's films. The producer "selects a fragment" (237), reworking it in resourceful ways like "an aspect of cinema that is not strictly programmable in terms of aesthetic strategies" (237). Though the clip may not be exactly "revelatory" in Willimen's tropes, it can reduce the viewing pleasure in individual cinephiles and when shared among different cinephiles. It recalls personal and collective memories about a range of Yen's previous characters in martial arts films such as Ip Man 3 (2015) and Bodyguards and Assassins (2009), as well as in comedies like All's Well, Ends Well (2012). It also acknowledges the users as productive viewing subjects, facilitating copious social encounters, exchanges, and identification. What is worth noting here is that the video maker, moreover, participates in the commentary-conversation. As the uploader and the commenter, Generation Tech assumes the double roles of generating the intertextual star image, complicating the relationship between producers and consumers and between uploaders and viewers in the digital participatory culture.
[2.12] Moreover, the video narrative given by a host functions an "extended brand narrative" (Bowrey 2013, 88), a characteristic of the phenomenon of media amateurization, shaping the viewers' understanding of Donnie Yen. As Kathy Bowrey points out, the proliferating amateur media allows a "greater personal identification with brands" (89) and this clip reveals the predilection of self-branding and amateur agency through the presence of a host. As the approximately three-minute clip indicates, what follows the Hero's battle scene is an articulate, elucidatory speech of the screen persona of Yen, instead of Jet Li, addressing the cast in Rogue One. Similar to a video essay, the exposition is given by a presenter named Allen Xie who engineers his online presence in a number of amateur-based platforms such as YouTube and Facebook via means like establishing his own pages. Positioning himself as more an aficionado than an industrial practitioner, Xie describes his fondness for traveling and making videos as he introduces himself on Facebook. Framed in a medium shot in this video, the presenter demonstrates his digital-cultural capital by speaking in fluent English addressing the Anglophone online community. He assumes the introductory and expounding positions, eloquently guiding the audience to consider and observe the Chinese Star Wars warrior. Although it is uncertain if the host, Xie, or the uploader, Generation Tech, is the author of the video, both of them reside in a parallel position, embodying a mode of authority marked by the privilege of enunciation and commentary. In this fashion, the video maker or uploader (invisible) and the presenter (visible) show mastery over and judgment of Yen's personalities traversed in Hero and Rogue One, providing a star narrative that operates adjacent to, if not out of, the industrial cinematic undertaking.
Video 2. A martial arts fighter or a family man? "Exclusive: Star Wars Rogue One—Donnie Yen VS 10 Stormtroopers."
[2.13] Similar to the first video, the second one takes advantage of Donnie Yen's recognized martial arts persona, although it lessens the impact by combining it with the star's personal life. Uploaded on YouTube on November 30, 2016, prior to the theatrical release of Rogue One, the entry, done in the form of celebrity interview, includes Yen's own accounts of the film shooting and his character. The uploader is named Geek Culture, which is an online network of devotees of popular media and culture such as video games, sci-fi, toys, and gadgets related to fandoms as famous as Transformers, Star Wars, and Star Trek. As Geek Culture's official website indicates, it hired the production team of tech360.tv, a Singapore-based online tech TV channel associated with YouTube, to produce this clip. Intertextuality is immediately revealed via the title of the clip—"Exclusive: Star Wars Rogue One—Donnie Yen VS 10 Stormtroopers"—foregrounding the prospective overlaps between Rogue One and Ip Man, two movies from entirely distinct film industries and genres. The title hints at one of the most memorable scenes in Ip Man, the fight between the Wing Chun master and ten karatekas, referring to Japanese-Chinese antagonism. Ip Man seeks revenge for the death of a fellow Foshan master by engaging the karatekas in a bout. Situated in war-torn China, the Ip Man personality serves as a site of confrontation and resistance, embodying the gallantry and justice demanded under the threat of Japanese invasion. Underscoring the dynamism of the hero's body, the director, Wilson Yip, adopted quick editing and moving frames to maximize the action's vividness. By including this specific scene, the video reminds the viewer of the similarities between the Jedi knight and the Wing Chun master in terms of physical potency and fighting spectacle.
[2.14] Yen's martial arts appeal becomes lessened as it is juxtaposed with the actor's domestic life. Like tabloid media that are more interested in celebrities' offscreen lives, the video includes a mix of publicly available materials that blurs the distinction between private self and public existence. Personae as diverging as a raging nationalist fighter and a tender family man appear in one single text. Consider Yen's account, in the interview, of his decision to act in Rogue One, which is dominated by the will of his children. Yen confesses, "That time I didn't really want to leave my home and my children have a lot to do with it because I asked them: 'would you like to see your father in Star Wars.' And of course the answer was 'Yes!'" The reason Yen originally planned to refuse the invitation to shoot Rogue One sounds unusual for a professional actor. It comes from Yen's narration of the family celebration of Halloween in 2016, which also reinforces his image as a responsive spouse and parent, elaborating the details such as how he dressed his son as Chirrut Îmwe and his daughter a Stormtrooper, as his wife suggested. Regarded as part of the real life trivia, these behind-the-scenes stories hint at an incongruence with Yen's statement about feeling proud of a chance to play the Jedi role in a Star Wars story at the beginning of the video. As Yen has once said in another interview, "Of course I'm feeling a sense of achievement…For a Hong Kong actor, and a Chinese actor, to be able to play such a significant role that is consistent with the spirit of the series—with the Force—it's a very precious opportunity" (Lee 2016). By combining the movie footage from Rogue One with the personal stories, the video producer frames the star persona as a mediated package of the actor's onscreen and offscreen lives, representing the ambivalence of being both home-oriented and career-oriented.
[2.15] The incongruent yet desirable persona supposedly affects Yen's reputation established on movie screens, but that is not necessarily the case, as corroborated by the user commentary. A majority of comments render positively the parallel between the Ip Man and Rogue One characters. For example, in December 2017, a user named Ee Kwang posted a comment.
[2.16] Ip Man vs 10 Japanese karate fighters (Empire of Japan)
Chirrut Imwe vs 10 Stormtroopers (Galactic Empire)
Donnie Yen must have really hate Empire a lot.
[2.17] This user juxtaposes the two films, probing how Yen fights in the different "Empires." Around the similar time, the comment of a user named wildfireplane reads, "All hail Jedi Master Ip man!" A similar opinion provided by user BigboiJon reads, "Ten storm troopers just like 10 black belts in ip man." Since the video responses still show Yen's devotees overwhelmingly responding to the performer's screen appeal, acknowledgement of the intertextual personification is not truncated by the inconsistency between Yen's fighter persona and family man image.
[2.18] Whereas audiences hail Yen's martial prowess on screen, they also show curiosity about his extra-filmic appeal. Some users give feedback on the offscreen existence, which is unrelated to the performer's screen appeal. For instance, in February 2017, user jdsi 232 responds to Yen's note about his daughter's costume, saying "my daughter was a stormtrooper. LOL. I would dress up as a stormtrooper too." Yen's English-speaking ability also draws the attention of certain audiences. User PoLo writes in February 2017, "Donnie yen English's on point," followed by an icon of hand making an "OK" sign. Similarly, user kemparo posted a comment around the same time, "Who is his English coach? his english and accent is very good. sound like he's been living in america since young. Jackie chan and jet li need to get in touch with his english coach." This remark attracts another user KL Chan to reply, "Donnie Yen moved to the US at 11." The video does not evoke any single category of fans' reimagination of the star. Instead, it allows a range of public identification wtih Yen's personae lying within and outside the diegetic world.
[2.19] The visibility of Yen's family life in this video entry legitimizes the use of offscreen existence in the construction of a Chinese public personality. Yen has been high-profile for his roles as an adoring husband and responsible father, as gossip columns and social media utterances illustrate. He does not mind exposing his affection for his wife, frequently posting photographs of birthday dinners, vacations, and Valentine's celebrations on Weibo. Entertainment reporters are also enthusiastic to invite Yen to provide tips for a happy marriage, as if the hero is exemplary of the key to a successful family. The highlight of his domestic existence makes Yen seem more akin to Hollywood actors such as Brat Pitt (White 2014, 95), Johnny Depp (Pomerance 2005, 9), and Tom Cruise (O'Donnell 2015, 32) than to his Chinese counterparts like Jet Li. As a renowned martial arts actor, Li's stardom is so dominated by his screen persona that Leon Hunt once argued that Li does not exist outside his screen roles (2003, 141). The actor's private life appears to be inaccessible, or, "even a little mysterious" (Yu 2012, 174) for his viewers. Sabrina Yu (2012) points out that there has been news about Li's marriage to the former beauty pageant champion, Nina Li, and even Li himself has exposed some anecdotes on his website by depicting himself as a traditional, reliable "family man" (175). The media exposure of his private presence is, however, limited. Yen strategizes his persona management, otherwise, by providing explicit expressions of adoration and such expressiveness progressively generates intimate discussion about his marriage from the public, cementing his image as a trustworthy, affectionate sexual partner. In this light, the video producer extends the strategy by reasserting that the ostensibly contrasting onscreen and offscreen lives can feasibly and intimately work in an amateur-generated text. As Richard Dyer (1979) suggests, tensions and contradictions between screen performance and private life always exist. Judith Mayne, likewise, postulates that the precise personae of stars emerge with "constant reinvention, the dissolution of contraries, the embrace of wildly opposing terms" (1993, 138). This entry recodifies Yen's official personality by pairing Yen's actorly presence with his domestic presence, testifying to how the dual presences can function to support and sustain the publicity. As a consequence, the instance complicates the spectacle of the Chinese star presence, which was once pregnant with macho fortitude and hyperkinetic vigor, yet can actually be displayed with intense emotionality and pathos of vulnerability.
3. Conclusion, limitations, and further research
[3.1] This essay has identified a cutting-edge occurrence in the participatory new media circuitry electrified by the proliferation of amateur media by seeking the intersection between fanfare and the capitalistic logic epitomized by Hollywood. Through the example of Donnie Yen and his Rogue One personification, this essay has shown how the cocreative persona produced by web-based small-to-medium enterprises extends from, overlays with, or digresses from the traditional media content. The videos reposition Yen's image in a web of intertextuality between the sci-fi and martial arts genres as well as onscreen and offscreen personae, giving rise to a hybridized presence. In the case of video 1, the video maker shapes Yen's appeal as a transcultural and transgeneric mélange. He or she pastes the iconic lightsabers in the Star Wars series into a fight scene in Hero, parodying Yen's martial arts presence and eventually obscuring his Chinese image. Video 2 desubstantiates Yen's martial arts appeal with the tabloid-like focus on his private existence. The interview chronicles a number of Yen's family anecdotes regarding his participation in Rogue One, trivializing his screen personae. In both cases, the extra-institutional texts venture on the recognized martial arts persona of Yen but concomitantly, challenge and unsettle it. The ambivalent image, nonetheless, readily evokes prevalent fan engagement and public responses that may seem unrelated or contrasting to his screen personalities. Suffice it to say, Yen's appeal in amateur-driven videos is a telling example of how the mutating Chinese star phenomenon resides in the global digital milieu, in which various interests, initiatives, and modes of creativity converge and interact.
[3.2] While this essay, due to the limited scope, analyzes one specific vocal segment of the Star Wars fanbase, some recent calls revealing the power of fans to build as much as to devastate certain types of stardom are worth extra critical effort. Disney's purchase of Lucasfilms in 2012 (Karntz et al. 2012) brought forth the concern of fan loyalty (Norman 2012). Furthermore, in the wake of the latest installments like Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), the changing Star Wars fandom becomes manifest while the legacy of the popular series seems to perpetuate. Consider the months-long online harassment of Kelly Marie Tran for her character Rose in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which a Forbes article describes as one of the most controversial films in years (Chamary 2018). The incident foregrounds issues of performance, look, and Asian ethnicity (Chuba 2018). Equally intriguing is the love-and-hate fan responses toward Daisy Ridley's vocal opinions about gun violence in social media that reportedly caused her to quit Instagram (Bryant 2016). The cluster of controversies inspires a comparative analysis of the fan-led construction of a persona (Yen-Churrit) and the destruction of another (either Kelly-Rose or Ridley-Rey), orchestrating a prospective addition to the accounts pertinent to gender, ethnicity, and technology. All these observations illuminate the growing and changing Star Wars fandom, which can be considered avenues of further research.