Shall We Dansu?

[Lori Hitchcock]

Just a postscript - forgot to mention it before; you ask about the
differences between the two versions of "Shall We Dansu;" although I don't
know how this works out in this particular film, the cuts made to the
Chinese films I mentioned earlier (the subject of a recent paper) are very
interesting in terms of the ways they position and identify the audience
of the films.  Culturally specific scenes, scenes that don't move the plot
forward linearally, and so on, are all prone to cuts; you may find that
this is also the case in the Suo film.  In the case of the Chinese films,
the distributor appears to be rather actively reframing the film for what
they perceive to be a non-Asia literate, "general" audience (in "Temptress
Moon," they actually added a written prologue to the film to "aid" in its
understanding).  While time constraints also seem to be a factor (there
seems to be a real reluctance at Miramax not to let international films
run much over 2 hours), the cuts/alterations also get into issues of
"authenticity," auteurism, and audience reception that are rather
intriguing.

Hope this isn't too much rambling - your question hit a nerve!

Lori Hitchcock