Tongli Publishing Co. (Chinese: 東立出版社, Hanyu Pinyin: Dōng Lì Chūbǎnshè), most known as Tong Li Comics, is a publishing company which distributes a variety of domestic and imported comics in the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Tong Li was founded in Tainan, Taiwan in 1977 with a mere nine employees. Tong Li entered the publishing business as a comic book pirate. "For fifteen years, Tong Li was the largest producer of pirated comics, redoing more than 1,000 titles in all, and for part of that time, fifty a month."
Tong Li's original method of operation was to procure new comics from Japanese distributors, replacing the Japanese text with traditional Chinese, and "drawing bras on bare-breasted women characters and modifying, up to what they could get away with, explicitly sexual or violent panels". The head of Tong Li, Fang Wan-nan, "jokingly referred to himself as the 'king of pirated comics'".
Despite the pirating trend, Tong Li procured Taiwan's first legal license for Japanese manga with Minako Narita's Cipher from Hakusensha in 1989, and followed with Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira from Kodansha in 1991. A 1992 Taiwanese law forbidding the pirating of comics forced Tong Li to abandon pirating and develop original content in addition to acquiring licenses through legal means, at which point it began publishing the magazines Dragon Youth (龍少年月刊) and Star★Girls (星少女月刊) - titles which retained the considerable influence of Japanese manga. It currently releases over 100 licensed manga titles a month includes One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Sket Dance, Hunter x Hunter, Gintama, Shijō Saikyō no Deshi Ken'ichi, Skip Beat, and more.
Tong Li or Tongli may refer to:
Bruce Lee (born Lee Jun-fan; 27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973) was a Chinese AmericanHong Kong actor,martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement. He is widely considered by many commentators, critics, media and other martial artists to be the most influential martial artist and pop culture icon of the 20th Century. He is often credited with changing the way Asians were presented in American films.
Lee was born in San Francisco to parents of Hong Kong heritage but was raised in Hong Kong until his late teens. Lee returned to the United States at the age of 18 to claim his U.S. citizenship and receive his higher education. It was during this time that he began teaching martial arts, which soon led to film and television roles.
His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, and sparked a major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong and the rest of the world, as well. He is noted for his roles in five feature-length films: Lo Wei's The Big Boss (1971) and Fist of Fury (1972); Way of the Dragon (1972), directed and written by Lee; Warner Brothers' Enter the Dragon (1973) and The Game of Death (1978), both directed by Robert Clouse.
Li Ang (李昂; real name Shih Shu-tuan with Li Ang being her pen name) (born April 7, 1952, in Lukang, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese feminist writer. After graduating from Chinese Culture University with a degree in philosophy, she studied drama at the University of Oregon, after which she returned to teach at her alma mater. Her major work is The Butcher's Wife (殺夫: 1983, tr. 1986), though she has a copious output. Feminist themes and sexuality are present in much of her work. Many of her stories are set in Lukang.
The Butcher's Wife is critical of traditional Chinese patriarchy. The heroine is sold by her dead father's brother into marriage with a brutal butcher much older than she. He dominates her sexually and takes pleasure in frightening her in various ways, including a visit to the slaughterhouse, after which the heroine in a disoriented state of mind murders him with a butcher's blade.
Li Ang is known for her idiosyncratic, candid and penetrating insights on gender politics in the social life in contemporary Taiwan. Beginning her writing career at the age of 16, she has published nearly twenty novels and collections of short stories centering on women in such topics as pubescent female psychosexuality, feminism and gender, sex and female subjectivity. Her bold and successive broaching of subjects bordering on the taboo within the cultural context of Taiwan has earned her extensive critical acclaim both in the world of Chinese letters and internationally. Translated into different languages and published world-wide, many of her works have been reviewed by leading newspapers in many countries, including The New York Times, and made into films and T.V. series. In 2004, Li Ang was awarded the “Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French Minister of Culture and Communication in recognition of her outstanding contribution to world literature.