‘My Motherland and I Are Never Apart’: Exploring the mother-Daughter Relationship in the Film Spring Tide

Jiang Wenyu and Wan Aida Wan Yahaya
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Jiang Wenyu: College of Creative Art, University Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
Wan Aida Wan Yahaya: College of Creative Art, University Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 2025, vol. 9, issue 2, 120-126

Abstract: This article examines how Yang Lina’s Spring Tide (2019) deconstructs China’s myth of maternal sacrifice through the lens of the mother-daughter relationship. Combining Freud and De Jager’s theory of the symbiotic illusion with China’s sociohistorical context, the analysis reveals how generational trauma—rooted in the Cultural Revolution’s de-genderization and post-Reform individualism—shapes a toxic interdependency between a grandmother’s collectivist fervor and her daughter’s silent rebellion. By juxtaposing realist aesthetics with unresolved narrative closure, the film critiques the patriarchal and state apparatuses that weaponize filial piety, offering a radical departure from traditional Chinese cinema’s glorification of maternal benevolence. This study contributes to feminist film scholarship by reframing mother-daughter dynamics as allegories for China’s unresolved tension between socialist legacies and neoliberal individualism.

Date: 2025
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