Rewriting the Chinese National Epic in an Age of Global Consumerism: City of Life and Death and The Flowers of War

Yang Jing ()
Additional contact information
Yang Jing: Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, 2 Baiyun N Ave, Baiyun, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

New Global Studies, 2014, vol. 8, issue 3, 245-258

Abstract: The Nanjing Massacre (1937–1938) has been rewritten by two controversial Chinese hits aimed at the global market: City of Life and Death (2009) and The Flowers of War (2011). Directed, respectively, by the rising director Lu Chuan and the internationally renowned “Fifth Generation” director Zhang Yimou, the films feature the complicated dynamics between Chinese refugees, Westerners and Japanese soldiers amidst the devastation. Their ambition to reach worldwide audiences, such as the nuanced treatment of wartime occupation and aesthetic references to Hollywood, is either affirmed by international awards or thwarted by the lackluster reception in the West. By examining the various globalist transformations in the cinematic narrative, this paper argues that what begins as a rearticulation of the patriotic discourse turns into a tentative construction of new identity at the historical moment of China’s rise. The reconfiguration of the national epic in City of Life and Death and The Flowers of War manifests a repositioning of Chinese self in response to global consumerism.

Keywords: Nanjing Massacre; global consumerism; identity construction; globalist transformation; patriotic discourse; national epic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2014-0031 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:nglost:v:8:y:2014:i:3:p:245-258:n:4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/ngs/html

DOI: 10.1515/ngs-2014-0031

Access Statistics for this article

New Global Studies is currently edited by Nayan Chanda, Akira Iriye and Saskia Sassen

More articles in New Global Studies from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().