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Public Secrets: Geopolitical Aesthetics in Zhang Yimou’
s Hero
Dr. Tzu-hsiu (Beryl) Chiu
tzushiu@yahoo.com
Department of East Asian Studies
The University of Alberta
Abstract
This essay will focus on a close analysis of one prominent Chinese FifthGeneration director, Zhang Yimou, and his well-received martial-arts film, Hero,
in light of Fredric Jameson’
s geopolitical aesthetic and Stephanie Donald’
s public
secrets in interpreting Asian films in their global complexity, so as to understand
the film in its local context. Questions to be addressed include: is there any
resistance to globalization, as in the sense of “
Americanization”of global cinema?
How much of the unique Asian perspective has been subverted or “
commodified”
for global marketability? How are filmmakers, consciously or not, fighting to
counter-influence the West? Or, is there actually a polar manifestation of
“
Sinocentrism”
? In short, the subliminal resistance and the dialects between
"Orientalist Eurocentrism" and "Chinese Nationalist Sinocentrism" will also be
discussed to reinvestigate the impact of global capitalism on Chinese
transnational visuality via the popular cinematic media.[1] The essay will conclude
with the constructive and destructive significance of globalization if not well
scrutinized in terms of self-interest political manipulations, unchecked mass
cultural mentality, and super-capitalist conspiracy, be it consciously or
unconsciously present in the media.
[1] The two terms were coined by Rey Chow and Michelle Yeh in Writing Diaspora,
edited by Rey Chow.
Public Secrets: Geopolitical Aesthetics in Zhang Yimou's Hero
Ever since Edward Said pointed out a subtly condescending European attitude
toward the oriental as an exotic, fantasized other, the controversial issue of the
superior and inferior, be it in terms of gender, race, or culture, has been widely
explored in various discourses.[1] In 1982, T. Gabriel analyzed films from the
third world and theorized a tenacious subliminal resistance against Western
imperialism or colonization in terms of the "Third Cinema".[2] To him,
nationalism, be it politically manipulated by the local sovereignty or not, likely will
be strategically employed in public media as a desirable instrument to arouse a
nationalist patriotism against slandered foreigners. If Said has stimulated a call
Page 2 of 19 pages
nationalist patriotism against slandered foreigners. If Said has stimulated a call
for cultural equality, then Gabriel has further aroused a call for nationalism,
especially from developing countries as victimized others against the perceived
victimization by Western hegemony.
In the name of nationalism, Gabriel's caution of malicious foreign exploitation, be
it in a political, economic, or cultural package, gradually emerges from the undercurrent to the surface when the glossy slogan for globalization has been
challenged as a disguised post-capitalist colonization of less competitive nations.
In parallel to Gabriel's approach, Fredrick Jameson also contended for the
cinematic significance to understand any local culture in a cognitive mapping of its
locality to the global reinterpretation of the new paradigm.[3] "He attempts," in
MacCabe's words, "to analyze the geopolitical reality of postmodern cinema by
such a cognitive mapping."[4] Since then, cultural studies in terms of nationalism
or transnational visuality, especially in cinema, have become favorite subjects
among scholars and critics worldwide, including China, an isolated Communist
civilization that came into view from the third world as a desirable open target for
Western global capitalism since 1984.
Many Sinologists have been exploring various forms of the political unconscious in
Chinese cinemas since the groundbreaking film, Yellow Earth, directed by Chen
Kaige with Zhang Yimou as the cinematographer, had its debut at the Hong Kong
film festival 1983. Not only its political allegories but also its cultural displays of
Chineseness on international silver screens have been elaborated to a great
extent.[5] After 1984 when the Communist Party announced its reformed
economic policy, Chinese film production was greatly stimulated, and after the
conspicuous Chinese film festival in 1987, many directors reoriented their market
direction from local to international arenas. As Max Tessier of the Cannes film
festival commented: “
It is essential for China to take part in world film festivals if
Chinese film is to take its position in the world."[6] Noboru Akiyama also
suggested: "The individual work of good Chinese directors should be shown
abroad. Many directors became known to the world through such individual
exhibitions."[7] Unsurprisingly, as a director Zhang Yimou won the Berlin festival
with his Hong Gaoliang (Red Sorghum) in 1988, followed by his Judou nominated
for the Oscar's best foreign film in 1990, and Dahongdenglong Gaogaogua (Raise
the Red Lantern) in 1991. Since then, a fever of Chinese films has won over the
Western world. Cultural studies through cinematic analyses for Chineseness have
never been developed so ardently and seriously before.
This essay aims at analyzing the famous Fifth Generation director's Hero, released
in 2002, in terms of the mentioned theories with other related notions to explore
some "public secrets" in reference to Stephanie H. Donald's political criticism.[8] I
will argue that in addition to Zhang Yimou's cultural self-display of Chineseness,
the director further reveals some public secrets, including an explicit cultural
fantasy for centrality and entails presumed Sinocentrism. The cultural fantasy is
not necessary in favor of the Communist autocracy but a manifestation of some
contemporary intellectual mentality, which is derived from neo-Confucian moral
doctrine in combination with Communist nationalism in the name of desirable
loyalty and patriotism. The entailed Sinocentrism may not be geopolitically
conscious, yet the implication is discernable in terms of the hierarchical position
between the controlling centre and subordinate others despite the shifted central
hegemony.
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hegemony.
Although Zhang Yimou is popular worldwide because of his distinctive cinematic
talent for catching vivid and symbolic images, the political and cultural authorities
banned several of his films due to his probing nature of the ugly past with
ambiguous endings and disregard of Mao Zedong's guideline that arts serve for
social welfare. Chinese scholars also severely criticized him either as a "fake
Mandarin" or a "self-Orientalist" because his appropriation of cinematic art for
global markets.[9] In reference to Said's Orientalism, Dai Jinhua, a prolific
Chinese Marxist feminist critic, contends that the film festivals over the years
precisely signify a typical Western Orientalist taste for an exotic other, especially
in their masculine gaze for a feminine and inferior allure.[10] To Dai, the Fifth
Generation directors represent a rebellious "son-generation" who challenge
paternal authority by all means and turn toward foreigners, in a flattering
manner, for material rewards as the token of their independence. The festival
thus symbolizes a ritual for their initiation to Westernization.
Dai's sharp nationalist criticism nevertheless provokes a heated backlash. In the
West, Chris Berry argues that the accused westernization is not just only
applicable to the prominent Fifth Generation directors. As he remarks: “
the whole
of Chinese cinema between 1949 and 1979 was also dominated by the realism
itself drawn from Western culture, and especially Hollywood.”
[11] In fact, even
the Marxist-socialist tenet that Dai seemed to abide as if of Chinese origin and
uses to serve as a contrast to the so perceived devilish Western capitalism also
derives from the West. Gina Marchetti further reads Dai's Orientalist criticism as
equally "self-orientalizing" based on Dai's similar strategy to market her criticism
for certain Western readers, without taking either domestic or western theoretical
developments into account.[12] Rey Chow also defends the Fifth Generation
directors' self-displayed exhibitionism of cultural Chineseness in the globally
cinematic show as "the Oriental's Orientalism," which "turns the remnants of
orientalism into elements of a new ethnography.”
[13]
Chow's elaboration of this new ethnography to some extent parallels to Walter
Mignolo's perception of "border gnoseology (rather than epistemology) in all its
complexity," as both aim at counter-theorizing colonial legacies and globalization
in challenge against Eurocentrism.[14] To go beyond Eurocentrism, Sheldon Lu
emphasizes the importance "to search for alternative strategies that question
Orientalist habits of thought," while Tonglin Lu calls for a "self-decolonization" not
only in cinematic creation but also in criticism.[15] In other words, these critiques
have recognized a need for an autonomous, equal, and self-assurance from
developing countries in the global reconfiguration.
Yet, perhaps due to domestic pressure from political authorities and scholarly
critics, the two prominent Fifth Generation directors, Chen Kaige and Zhang
Yimou, somehow readjusted their perspectives to deal with domestically
concerned nationalism around the turn of the century. Unsurprisingly, they both
chose a crucial Chinese historical turning point as their prototype, i.e. the
successful unification of warring states by Ying Zheng, the king of Qin, who
consequently became the first emperor in China BC. 221 despite numerous
assassins' attempts, especially the well-known Jingke's, to thwart his ambitions.
Chen released The Emperor and the Assassin in 1999, while Zhang released Hero
in 2002. Although graduating at the same time from the same film institute, these
two directors reveal their distinct styles, interpretations, and manifestations of
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two directors reveal their distinct styles, interpretations, and manifestations of
some "contemporary public imaginary" in reference to Donald's terminology.[16]
To understand the subversive revisions and their individual geopolitical aesthetic,
which reflects certain civil or intellectual mentalities in Chinese communist
society, viewers may find some historical background of the prototype necessary
to avoid any cultural blunder in interpretation.[17] From the dominant Confucian
hermeneutic perspective since the Han Emperor who overthrew the first Chinese
emperor after his fifteen years of sovereignty, the assassin Jingke has been
considered a courageous and humanistic hero who sacrificed his life in his
impossible mission to kill the ambitious king.[18] Regardless of the First
Emperor's achievements in establishing a united country, writing system, and
consolidating the Great Wall, Confucian historians have been interpreting the
emperor as tyrannical and inhuman due to his cruelties in burying thousands of
Confucian scholars alive and burning all their writings. Such a negative view of
the First Emperor has been taken for granted and imbedded in Chinese
intellectuals' minds without question as long as Confucian doctrines were
canonized in the subsequent dynasties, despite some emperors' ethnic origins
other than Han people who were considered the orthodox race since the Han
dynasty.
With this brief historical background of the prototype, informed viewers will find
both of the directors' re-interpretations of the First Emperor, almost like
justifications on screen, unorthodox in light of the tenacious Confucian
hermeneutics although it has been under fire for a century, especially during the
decade of Cultural Revolution. The directors' intents may be two-fold. Their
perceptions of the necessity for China to be united as one powerful country
undoubtedly pay their tribute to the autocratic Communist Party censors to a
certain extent. On the other hand, their individual portrayals of a revised emperor
on the screen as a visible public space reveal different political sublimities. While
Chen employs a mimetic approach to reshaping the oppressive and ironhanded
king into an indecisive and insecure puppet to fulfill his destiny according to his
ancestral law, Zhang applies a completely different one. As a result, the latter
affects a much more entertaining and multi-layered dimensionality than the
former, which allows us to explore the possible public secrets in the film.
On the surface, Zhang uses new digital technologies to turn the serious historical
pathos into a high-tech martial art show. Most film reviewers on the web have
positively received it in terms of this aspect. For instance, Gary W. Tooze
remarks:
Zhang Yimou’
s latest feature film “
Hero”is a box office phenomenon in China and
also the most costly Asian film ever made, tipping the scales at about 240 million
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also the most costly Asian film ever made, tipping the scales at about 240 million
HK$. It would immediately spark comparisons to Ang Lee’
s“
Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon”for aggressive use of the absurdist martial arts ballet sequences
with all but the remnants of supporting wires gracefully floating fiery combatants
of a duel.[19]
The "Rashomon" viewpoints during the crucial meeting between Ying Zheng, the
king of Qin, and a minor officer with a symbolic name, "Nameless," who is a
disguised swordsman trained to assassinate the ambitious king, has also been
keenly observed, and the symbol of colors has been explored as well. Hence, this
single plot turns out to be intriguing with various versions, either from the
assassin or the king, with corresponding color effects, making the final combat
toward the end of the meeting intense and dramatic. Besides, due to the equally
unverifiable subjective versions and the final fruitlessness of the assassins, the
theme appears surprisingly ethical: centralization through war is necessary. As
Richard Corliss observes:
Any or none of the stories may be true; this is Rashomon with a Mandarin accent.
But the moral, or rather the ethic, is as clear as it is bleak: man must make war
to secure the peace.[20]
In fact, the multi-faceted viewpoints in combination with symbolic
characterizations and various visual effects convey a theme more political than
ethical when we take into consideration the contemporary political and cultural
milieus in reference to Jameson's geopolitical aesthetic and Donald's politicalsocialist view of film as a public space.
Along with other scholars, Jameson and Donald have illustrated the legitimacy of
analyzing films as visible public spaces for interpretation of a local culture in
relation to its global significance. In his book, Jameson attempts to construct a
so-called "conspiratorial text," which in his own words says that "whatever other
messages it emits or implies, may also be taken to constitute an unconscious,
collective effort at trying to figure out where we are and what landscapes and
forces confront us in a late twentieth century whose abominations are heightened
by their concealment and their bureaucratic impersonality."[21] He continues,
"Conspiracy film takes a wild stab at the heart of all that, in a situation in which it
is the intent and the gesture that counts."(3) He further proposes "a geopolitical
unconscious," which "attempts to refashion national allegory into a conceptual
instrument for grasping our new being-in-world."(3) In other words, in order to
decode a film’
s politics fairly, we have to situate the film not only in its local but
also in its global contexts.[22]
Considering the scarcity in political criticisms of new Chinese cinemas, Donald also
applies a similar approach to her analyses. With other theoretical supports, she
further introduces several key notions in dealing with possible public secrets in a
relevant film as a conspicuous public space. She writes of a socialist-realist gaze
as:
In socialist-realist texts, all narration is designed to reinforce the Party's version
of history. Here, as always, the notion of history implies ownership of the present
and the future, as well as a version of the past. In these circumstances, cinematic
narration must take into account the gaze of the leader in a totalitarian regime. If
there is to be a spectatorial position, it must be singular and willing to conspire in
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there is to be a spectatorial position, it must be singular and willing to conspire in
the transparency of total power. The priority, then, is the collectivization of the
gaze. The gaze of the camera, the spectator, and the cinematic subject are ideally
brought together in a visual logic that serves the official historical narrative.[23]
As mentioned, under the pressure of the domestic nationalist criticisms and
political censorship, Zhang Yimou's intent to present the necessity of a centralized
China so as to please the authorities is clear. Yet, his appropriation of the
historical event or his twist of "the historical truth" is not an accident in light of
the deconstructive approach to the assumed orthodox narratives, which may be
considered one of the public truths as another important notion of Donald's. As
she explains:
Such disruption may be achieved by showing a different perspective on a 'truth' of
history. This is an especially effective strategy where the truth of the past is vital
to the legitimacy of a present regime, and where the meaning of the nation is
mapped exactly onto that version of past events, in order to imbue that
legitimacy with an aura of national authenticity.... the point to make here is that
historical truth is subject to the conditions of its reception. Truth does not even
exist apart from communication. Whatever the private conviction of the individual,
the truth of history must always be tested through communication in a public
space. Films offer space for such insights into the public mind, and these insights
are one sort of truth.[24]
Although she points out the equally partial nature of such insights and their
validity and durability subject to the dialectic and historical evolution, the
director's presentation of some public truth undoubtedly reveals some prevailing
cultural mentality, evident in the enthusiastic reception of the film domestically.
Donald also remarks that despite the possible obscurity of public secrets, their
power precisely lies in the oxymoron, likely with "hyperbole, supernatural detail,
and ideological distortion", in terms of Andrew Plaks's theory of Chinese narrative.
[25] By depicting Partha Chatterjee's politics of the interval to a certain extent,
Donald further suggests "a visualization of the structure of politics in the symbolic
world of film."[26]
Then, what may be other possible visualizations in the symbolic world of Zhang
Yimou's Hero? First, the result of the director's reshaping of the ambitious and
brutal king into a sophisticated and strategic king in reality serves to reconstruct a
political allegory of the predestined united empire despite inevitable resistance
and sacrifices of individual interests, which transparently leads to a political
agenda in favor of the Communist Party's dictatorial centralization. Unlike Chen
Kaige's mimetic approach, Zhang Yimou's intent to revise the orthodox historicity
with a fantasized representation of a hero to justify the First Emperor's violent
conquer of other states for a unified empire through characterization is obvious.
He did not reuse the famous historical assassin Jingke but appropriated all
fictional figures, except the king, to turn the history into a conceptual simulacrum,
like playing a mental chess game on the screen. All of the invented assassins
actually represent various types of cultural mentalities, distinguishable from their
narratives that subtly unfold their individual motives, philosophies or ideologies.
The movie begins with the king's special summon for Nameless because he has
subdued three outstanding assassins. Originally an orphan of Zhao, Nameless has
been trained for ten years to acquire a supreme swordsman's skill known as
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been trained for ten years to acquire a supreme swordsman's skill known as
"Shibuyisha (Death within ten steps)". The main color tone for the fatal meeting is
black-and-white to serve as a background of the past for subsequent diversified
interpersonal threads replete with color-coded flashbacks, and later to symbolize
the final battle between good and evil.[27]
In order to win the king's trust, Nameless first made up a version about how he
defeated the threatening assassins. According to this version, his combat with
Sky, a master of martial arts, conveys at least two messages: one explicit, the
other implicit. It reveals Nameless's competitive swordsmanship. As a skillful
swordsman without a name, he represents a man par excellence in the field. On
the other hand, he tried to use Sky's death to instigate Flying Snow to have
another combat with him and, at the same time, to sow discord between her and
Broken Sword so that he could defeat them one by one. As this version is full of
unleashed passions and emotions, the main color tone is red and yellow. Although
the color red has been widely recognized as the director’
s moniker and considered
representative of auspice according to traditional Chinese culture or “
communist
loyalty”during Mao’
s revolutionary period, it actually reveals the motif of
“
passion”in consideration of the context not only within but also outside of the
film. As Tan Ye puts it: “
Zhang Yimou’
s red color, like his other symbols, defies
narrow interpretation, because it is at once an inheritance from and a rebellion
against tradition… Perhaps it should be treated as a mood.”
[28] In the director’
s
words, despite his refusal of being fixed with any school, it is “
the strong and the
trenchant, meaning the color red in his films”
, which accounts for his cinematic
creation.[29]
However, the king of Qin, in Zhang Yimou's cinematic portrayal, appears no less
intelligent, tactical, and excellent, even in swordsmanship. By all means does the
king have good reason to suspect Nameless as another potential conspirator in his
fear of assassination. Moreover, the king knew the three assassins were
honorable swordsmen who would not act the way Nameless would like him to
believe, since he also too had had a direct combat with Flying Snow and Broken
Sword before. So the king compiled his own version of the events, which is
presented in loyal blue color tone to show that it must be owing to the three
reputable swordsmen's self sacrifices that Nameless could get closer to the king
within the crucial ten steps. Some movie viewers vaguely speculate that the color
blue suggests freedom or melancholy, which may not fit in the cinematic context.
Besides, in the conventional Chinese color system, blue and green sometimes are
exchangeable. While the former represents loyalty likely due to Western influence
as it is widely used for the uniforms of most policemen or officers, the latter
implies jealousy and suspicion as in a well-known Chinese idiom, “
dailumao
(wearing a green hat literarily, which alludes to a jealous husband’
s suspicion of
his wife’
s adultery)”
. Hence, in consideration of the cinematic context, the color
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his wife’
s adultery)”
. Hence, in consideration of the cinematic context, the color
blue is deftly employed since the suspicious king provides this version of the
events as he realizes Nameless’
s motive to fool him by making the righteous Sky,
Broken Sword, and Flying Snow appear easily manipulative.
After the king's counter version, Nameless then provides his second version about
Broken Sword, supposedly more reliable, which is presented in the combined
colors of green and white as the main tone, for its underlying motif is "peace," as
quite a few reviewers have noticed. Broken Sword told Nameless alone that, after
devoting himself to his inner cultivation through diligently practicing calligraphy
arts, he realized that unification was actually necessary to end the ceaseless
destructive battles among the seven states in China. Therefore, he intentionally
let go the precious opportunity to kill the king for the sake of the majority in his
attempt at Flying Snow's request years ago. As a result, despite her unchanged
love, Flying Snow had been bearing a grudge against him since he failed to help
revenge her dead father, a general of Zhao, a state that was the most tenacious
in fighting against Qin. as the people considered their culture the most profound
among the seven states.
Under pressure from Flying Snow, Broken Sword gave Nameless not only his
sword but also the calligraphy of the character "jian (sword)" at Nameless's
request, since Nameless believed that the calligraphy art would reveal the
ultimate secret for him to accomplish his impossible mission. Here, the director's
cultural display of Chineseness reaches its ultimate "jingjian (or 'inscape' as in YuKung Kao's translation)": All arts, such as music, calligraphy, and martial arts as
displayed on the screen, are the supreme embodiments of human spirit and
energy.[30] Once one grasps the ultimate essence of one, the person will be able
to find the way to the others as well. Broken Sword also knew that sooner or
later, Nameless would figure out the secret and achieve the ultimate state. So he
gave his final two words to suggest a reconsideration of his assassination by
checking his own conscience, and deciding whether he would do it for hatred or
for love.
After this second version, the rebuttal between the king and Nameless gradually
becomes more psychological and philosophical rather than personal and political.
As if continuing the unfinished chess game, they both knew what the other might
think and react under certain circumstances, and they also knew quite well what
the ultimate consequence might be, either to live or to die for a good cause
despite their different perceptions of goodness. What puzzled both was
Nameless's hesitation to make his final move. Nameless also honestly confessed
and revealed that his hesitation was in consideration of Broken Sword's last two
words, "tianxia (all under heaven)," in an attempt to talk him out of assassinating
the king for the sake of all under heaven. Broken Sword’
s motive was suddenly
unveiled as selfless to Nameless on the crucial moment. Consequently, the
turning point is achieved during a dramatic moment when he also came to realize
their one thing in common: their similar perception that a true hero is a person
who will do whatever possible for the sake of the majority according to "Dao (or
'Way of life' as in Mary Farquhar's translation)".[31]
This notion of Dao or Tianyi (Heaven's will), be it from ancient Daoist or Confucian
viewpoint, is very crucial in understanding Chinese cultural mentality in general.
It refers to something natural, of cosmic laws, or transcendent essence beneath
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It refers to something natural, of cosmic laws, or transcendent essence beneath
the appearance of all matter and energy. The Dao, which manifests itself beyond
any artificial dualism, is a holistic equilibrium, constantly changing and balancing
between the positive and negative forces or in terms of yang (the male principle)
and yin (the female principle). These two principles, as Farquhar elaborates in
reference to Saso's: "are not the exclusive properties of one sex. Rather, they are
principles manifest in all things (wan wu), and depends on maintaining a
harmonious relationship (Saso 1972, 8-15)."[32] In the film, what Nameless
suddenly realizes is that individual success or failure becomes pointless in the way
of Dao. Nonetheless, be it concerning a successful king or a failed assassin, to
fulfill one's destiny without fear of death or self-sacrifice for the sake of the
majority is considered heroic. It is in this sense that the king and the assassins
are alike, as the king makes a sign to the assassin: "Ironically, the one who
knows me the most is the most threatening assassin, the arch-worrier. Broken
Sword and I are alike." In other words, an epiphany of Dao is dramatically shared
by the king as well as the assassin in the climax before Nameless's last fatal
move, a potential defeat of the king. So the king boldly threw his sword in front of
Nameless for him to be the one who is destined to carry out the way of Dao, yet
the assassin withdrew suddenly due to his final realization of the Dao. Although
one may die by thousands of arrows while the other survives to become the only
king of all of China after his establishment of a unified and powerful empire, they
all can be considered heroic because they fulfilled their roles for the sake of the
majority.
To Nameless, Broken Sword was the one who has grasped the Dao most
thoroughly. He not only represents the positive force with unconditional love to
those who love him back but also to those who may not, such as the spared king.
From the last scene, we also learn that Flying Snow's hatred as well as love
toward Broken Sword never went away but increased ambivalently simply
because he was the one accountable for her father's unrevenged death. Since
then, melancholically she struggled under the shadow of hatred, no longer able to
love. In order to convince her of his love, he let her stab him without self-defense
on the last deadly strike when she thought he could have dodged away yet he
didn't, so that she finally threw away her sword and embraced him before he died
in her arms. No wonder the color white, a transparent foreshadow of death, is
effectively applied through this version of the events.
In short, Broken Sword's last two words for Nameless has been the only unsolved
Page 10 of 19 pages
In short, Broken Sword's last two words for Nameless has been the only unsolved
puzzle lingering in Nameless's mind before his own attempt to kill the ambitious
king. As a result of his realization of the two previous masters' selfless sacrifices
for the sake of the majority, Nameless also voluntarily withdrew himself from
interfering with the Dao for the king to unite the warring states. Hence, the main
message lies in that the ultimate mission to be accomplished requires not just
skill and courage, but by all other possible individuals' sacrifices either by the rule
of natural survival or by voluntary offerings, such as the assassins did for the
sake of the majority. Like many others, he died namelessly. Yet, the final scene of
his inevitable death by the expected thousands of arrows crystallizes his heroic
image with a powerful tragic ethos beyond words.
This imaginary political allegory of the desirable cause for the sake of the majority
in fact has been embedded in Chinese intellectuals' minds and ardently practiced
by righteous Confucians for thousands of years, including idealistic Communist
proponents. In other words, in reference to Donald's postulation of the validity of
such a political analysis of the cinematic visuality in the virtual public space,
another public secret unfolded in the film is precisely this: the morality of neoConfucian utilitarianism at the expense of individuality or minority interests.[33]
In a way, this public secret may also represent the intellectuals' justification of
self-sacrifices during the Communist revolution, the Cultural Revolution, and even
to justify some intellectuals' submissive mentality to the inhuman dictatorship of
the Communist Party, consummated in the horrible Tiananmen Square massacre.
To push it further, Zhang Yimou's reshaping of the first emperor from the
assumed tyrant to a new heroic image to highlight the political allegory of a
genealogical legacy of centricity may also reveal an emerging cultural ideology
nurtured among contemporary Marxist extremists, intellectuals, and ambitious
politicians in light of the neo-Confucian utilitarianism or nationalist patriotism.
Yet, is such a neo-Confucian utilitarianism or nationalist patriotism truly ethical for
promotion? As early as 1987, in a conference, the 2000 Nobel Prize winner, Gao
Xingjian, cautioned that any unchecked nationalism, even patriotism, could be a
fatal cultural ideology which had been luring rational intellectuals, and not just
ignorant masses, to sacrifice themselves hastily, if not blindly, since ancient
times.[34] In his later article "Gerendeshengyin (Individual Voices)", presented in
Paris 1993, Gao further pointed out this quasi-patriotism as the main problem of
contemporary intellectuals, be they Confucians or Communists, who assume they,
as leaders of the masses, should set up examples where they sacrifice their
individual rights to serve the country.[35] They have deluded themselves with a
fancy slogan loaded with emotions, which may not be a thorough understanding
of the true nature of individuality and the intellectuals' responsibility, as Gao
believes that intellectuals, capable of independent and logical thinking, should
stand up firmly against any inhuman autocracy. Moreover, it is the intellectuals'
responsibility to help the masses see through the modern myth of a sacrificial
nationalism that may have nothing to do with patriotism if ambitious politicians
attempt to control and manipulate the masses with such emotionally loaded,
glossy slogans. Similarly, distinguishing an important difference between third
world criticism as practiced in China and in a first world power like the United
States, Sheldon Lu also cautions that “
postcolonial critics in China may have
misidentified the source of oppression”due to some politician's tactical
manipulation of the academic discourse of resistance against the Western cultural
hegemony. As he concludes: “
Thus, sensitive domestic issues are elided. The
Chinese style of third world criticism may very well play into the hands of
Page 11 of 19 pages
Chinese style of third world criticism may very well play into the hands of
conservative politics and cater to the sentiments of Chinese nationalism.”
[36]
In fact, this almost religion-like collective trust of a centralized government at the
expense of individual freedom, and even the sacrifice of individuals for the
majority, may appear one of the irrational Eastern cultural characteristics if put in
contrast to the Western democratic culture. Likely owing to Western citizens'
awareness of the fact that any democratic government is simply composed of
constantly replaceable human politicians who are also subject to their dark human
nature to err or to appropriate their power for self-interests, their attitudes
toward any bureaucratic institution is usually skeptical and antagonistic. They
value public and individual rights of freedom more than anything else.
Consequently, their perception of a hero, as frequently portrayed in Hollywood
screens, is a perseverant individual who dares to challenge any problematic
authority for the sake of the exploited majority. Hence, the cinematic portrayal of
Chinese heroes voluntarily laying down their individual lives to support a powerful
politician, be he a legitimate king with the so-called mandate from heaven or a
premier selected to represent the people, is unthinkable to general Western
viewer.[37]
Indeed, likely due to the long historical development of Chinese feudal structure,
to maintain a centralized government at the expense of individual interests for a
harmonious whole has been considered heroic in light of Confucian doctrine, and
even considered by some, like Broken Sword, "natural”or “
the way it is supposed
to be" of the Dao. Keep in mind, however, that the notion of the Dao as presented
in the film may not necessarily faithfully represent the anarchical Daoist
perspective, since the notion is a fundamental cultural world view with which
various philosophical even religious thinkers or schools may have their individual
appropriations to their theories.In short, while Chinese citizens are much more
cooperative, if not naive or submissive, in trusting the political authorities to run
the nation in the hope that they would genuinely take their social welfare into
consideration, the powerful politicians in office usually snort at the autonomy and
integrity of intellectual individuals and view the uneducated and chaotic masses
as mainly dominated by human libidinous desires for food, sex, and security. The
problem is when absolute power goes to the wrong politician(s), which was
frequently the case if we just review the history of the past century, the likely
less-informed public may not be fully aware of the human engineering and
manipulation of the public’
s excitable emotions in the name of glossy slogans.
More than just a manipulation of public emotional patriotism against any accused
foreign intrusion, quite a few Sinologists in the West have further observed an
equally assumptive and exploitative cultural mentality beneath the glossy
nationalism that leads to the extreme end of Orientalism: Sinocentrism. This
aggressive political sublimity is undoubtedly embodied in popular books, such as
China Can Say No and China Still Can Say No, during the 1990s.[38] Mitchell Yeh
was one of several who have pointed out a condescending Sinocentrism prevailing
particularly among some "nationalist" scholars from China in their literary works
and presentations in international conferences related to China's issues.[39]
These scholars might act like the only authentic and authoritative sources to talk
about the Chineseness simply because they’
re from the official China, yet without
awareness of the fact that their presumption to speak for many other ethnic
cultures co-existent since ancient times in mainland China is merely their own
Page 12 of 19 pages
cultures co-existent since ancient times in mainland China is merely their own
subjective perspective from the equally hegemonic Han ethnocentric mentality.
In fact, a multicultural ethnic composition has been the major cultural
characteristic of mainland China from the very beginning. As Esther Yau claims:
The supremacy of the Middle Kingdom's [the literal translation of Zhongguo]
civilization was preserved at the expense of soldiers at war and beautiful
courtesans dispatched as part of diplomatic he fan gifts to "keep peace with the
aliens." In the years when the Mongolians ruled over China, the Han maintained
that the inner strength of their culture would eventually bleach and convert the
non-Han emperors. By comparison, the modern, socialist version of Han cultural
hegemony was apparently more benign.[40]
According to Yao's research:
In the early 1950s, the People's Republic of China (PRC) government
acknowledged that fifty-five nationalities lived in the country with the Han as the
majority (approximately 94 percent of the entire population) (185)
Elsewhere, she also names some of the distinctive ethnic minorities, such as
Mongolians, Tibetans, Uighurs, Koreans, Dais, Bais, and Miaos, living on the fringe
of the land (186).
To Yao and several other scholars, although the PRC has been promoting the
ethnic minority film as an important genre, the genre actually was appropriated
for the political propaganda of class to blur its racial discrimination within its
national context, if not for the orthodox Han viewers' gaze for its exotic others, as
several Sinologists have argued.[41] For instance, Harry Kuoshu contends: "The
exoticism of the genre, while not offering a bulletproof shelter from the demands
of socialist realism, may deflect slightly the materials it processes. In the mid1980s, this tradition of deflection made the genre attractive to directors of the
post-Mao new cinema who sought to deviate from the by-now conventional
socialist-realist filmmaking."[42] In other words, despite the Chinese Communist
anti-Confucian feudalism, the hierarchical position of the supreme center to its
subordinate others is still being practiced as the underlying Communist
administrative mentality in terms of “
internal colonialism”or “
internal
orientalism,”or in Rey Chow's words, "internal othering," within the Han cultural
hegemony.[43] Dru Gladney also comments, "the objectified portrayal of
minorities as exoticized, and even eroticized, is essential to the construction of
the Han Chinese majority, the very formation of the Chinese 'nation' itself."[44]
Yingjin Zhang further contends "the categories of the nation and ethnicity have
been put to use through a complex process of negotiation in Chinese cinema from
the early 1920s to the present."[45] With theoretical support from several
scholars about the cultural issues, Zhang argues that most new Chinese cinema
directors, even Tian Zhuangzhuang and Zhang Nuanxin, actually appropriated
ethnic cultures in a parallel way to quench "Orientalist" audience's desire for
exotic others, which turns out unexpectedly to reinforce the socialist nationhood.
According to both directors, the audience in their minds when shooting the films is
either foreigners or those in the future (meaning not for those Chinese elder
generations who are used to the political propaganda stereotype, in Tian’
s
defense for the poor sales figure of his minority films.)[46] To Zhang, "minority
Page 13 of 19 pages
defense for the poor sales figure of his minority films.)[46] To Zhang, "minority
films celebrate ethnic cultural diversity only at a superficial level for all displays of
'solidarity' and 'ethnic harmony' these films are actually staged as spectacle
mostly for the Han viewers, and there is an unmistakably Han-centered viewing
position, visually as well as conceptually."[47] Hence, Zhang claims that “
what is
of equal importance to a study of nationhood and ethnicity - apart from discerning
the political hierarchies in culture not as a self-stabilizing structure but rather as
negotiated, present processes whereby the geopolitical boundaries of centers and
margins are periodically redrawn and the localized differences tactfully
articulated.”
[48]
Indeed, the hierarchical dichotomy of the orthodox Han culture and the non-Han
ethnic cultures has been regarded as problematic in determining both a political
legitimate right to take over the supreme sovereignty in China or a hermeneutic
one to claim the historicity of Chinese civilization since the empire eras to the
present.[49] Rey Chow elaborates such a problematic attitude tenaciously picked
up by the Communist hegemony to a greater extent by tracing its genealogical
source:
In the habitual obsession with “
Chineseness,”what we often encounter is a kind
of cultural essentialism –in this case, sinocentrism –that draws an imaginary
boundary between China and the rest of the world. Everything Chinese, it follows,
is fantasized as somehow better –longer in existence, more intelligent, more
scientific, more valuable, and ultimately beyond comparison. The historically
conditioned paranoid reaction to the West, then, easily flips over and turns into a
narcissistic, megalomaniac affirmation of China; past victimization under Western
imperialism and the need for national “
self-strengthening”in an earlier era,
likewise, flip over and turn into fascistic arrogance and self-aggrandizement.
Among the young generations of Chinese intellectuals in the People’
s Republic,
the mobilization of an unabashedly chauvinistic sinocentrism –or what I would
call simply sinochauvinism –has already taken sensationally propagandist
forms, typified by the slogan “
China Can Say No.”
[50]
Chow further suggests that such a sinochauvinism ironically has been nurtured by
Caucasian scholars' and politicians' presumptions not only about the culture but
also about the official language, Mandarin, which was originally a dialect in Beijing
yet promulgated as such in China just a century ago as the only authentic and
representative sources for Chineseness. Likewise, Ien Ang implies that the
sinochauvinism or "Oriental Orientalism," in the sense of any presumptive
superiority of a particular race as the center in treating any ethnic group as the
inferior other to be civilized or assimilated, could have been traceable long before
the Chinese Communist hegemony in the South East Asian as well.[51]
To provide more evidence of such a controversial legitimacy of the cultural
hegemony, be it in the name of the Han, the Tang, or the Confucian revival from
Chinese orthodox scholars' perspective, may be a scope too large to be included
in this short essay. Yet, whether or not such a sinochauvinism is discernable in
Zhang Yimou's Hero as part of the public secrets unfolded in Hero deserves some
evidence. First, to a certain extent, it is evident that the nationalist mentality of
the necessity for a unified empire at the expense of individual lives and interests
is lucid in its repetitive motif of sacrificing oneself for the sake of the majority in
light of unchecked collective doctrine. Moreover, the reshaped image of the tyrant
Page 14 of 19 pages
light of unchecked collective doctrine. Moreover, the reshaped image of the tyrant
king as the one who conquered the world according to the Dao, as subtly revealed
toward the end, reinforces the cultural mentality that China can become the
superior center legitimately, deserving the authoritative sovereignty over other
ethnic cultures or political entities. That it is the king who first discovered the
secret of the ultimate achievement embedded in the calligraphy of the crucial
character, "Sword," also seems to suggest the king's inner superior insight of the
Dao, which appears as a cinematic device intended to justify his right to conquer
the world under the universal law. Therefore, despite their origins from the state
of Zhao with more cultural heritage yet less military power, the assassins also had
to surrender their individual or ethnic interests for the sake of a unified empire.
To expand the political allegory of the film from its local context to the current
global contexts, it also seems apparent that China has an equally good reason to
become the hegemony center when the time is right. In fact, according to Lu,
“
Books such as The Coming Conflict with China and The Clash of Civilizations and
the Remaking of World Order [have] singled out China as a potential rival or,
even worse, dangerous enemy of the United States and the West.”
Nevertheless, whether or not the director was aware of or even aimed at the
political allegory and entailed Sinocentrism may remain debatable. Besides, the
way he presents the serious issue in an obviously entertaining martial art shows
and the final ambiguous shot, as a typical Fifth Generation director's cinematic
signature, may also turn the political allegories into a sarcastic twist. In the final
scene, although Nameless's corpse was removed in an honorable way, the still
close-up of the empty spot, left behind after the removal of his dead body
surrounded by thousands of fallen arrows lasting more than three seconds and
followed by the grand view of the king sitting in the center ready to sack others
for his own empire, seems to invite sophisticated viewers to contemplate the
emptiness for its obscure ambiguity. It seems to ask: "Will you be the next one to
fill this spot for the king?"
The emptiness or "nothingness" is, as in Farquhar's keen observation:
…a key concept in Chinese philosophy and aesthetics. In Daoist philosophy
"nothingness" (wu) gives birth to the world, through "primeval breath" (qi) which
forms the two principles yin and yang, the three sources, heaven, earth and man,
the four seasons and so on. The union of yin and ying produces the myriad
creatures. "Nothingness" or space in Chinese philosophy is, therefore, charged
with the ultimate positive potential for creation; it is the force which makes
manifest and defines all matter (230)
Although Farquhar's observation is to analyze the symbolic implication of Yellow
Earth in light of Daoist cosmology, her notion of emptiness certainly is also
pertinent in contemplating the ambiguity of the prolonged empty spot as it opens
for any possible creative associations.
Keep in mind, according to the final scenes, only Nameless, an orphan without a
name, actually died for the "good cause". Broken Sword died due to his lover's
inability to forgive, and consequently, she killed herself in the desperate regret.
Sky survived, yet no longer intended to be a master but a recluse. What they
sacrificed is simply their swords, the symbols of their individual resistance and
their social status. Only Nameless, the unknown orphan with a very symbolic
Page 15 of 19 pages
name that paradoxically can refer to anybody or nobody, lived and died for
fulfilling others' ideals. Will or did the king really care about the majority and
“
preventing human deaths”as Nameless thoughtfully pleaded before he withdrew
his sword presumptively? According to the history, besides the First Emperor’
s
inhuman promulgations to bury numerous Confucian scholars alive with their
writings, there was also his Great Wall, which was consolidate by millions of
innocent male folks forced to separate from their families and who likely later
ended up sacrificed their lives namelessly along the border. Moreover, the movie
is about a historical event, in which the king's successful unification cannot be
changed. Therefore the so-assumed Dao or Heaven’
s will in the cinematic
narrative is merely “
ex post facto”
. The future of human civilization is at the
hands' of "all under heaven,”while nobody can foresee the so-called heaven’
s
will. Hence, the issue is whether the powerful Communist Party is truthfully
guided by the so claimed egalitarian constitution and faithfully run as a
government for the majority or whether it is actually controlled by an equally
ambitious tyrant behind the scenes, remains to be examined by a serious
investigation. If the issue is more of the latter, then look at the prolonged empty
spot again: "Will you be the next one to fill the spot for the king?"
With these questions in mind, the political allegory may be subtly and equally
mocked, or even implicitly cautioned of its costly consequence. In consideration of
the under-estimated and less exposed military expansions of the Chinese
Communist Party accompanied with those extreme Marxist explicit radical writings
and the implicit sinochauvinist ideology in the nationalist discourses, their call for
a collective or national resistance against foreign capitalist post-colonizers should
be carefully scrutinized.[52] Whether or not the public secrets revealed in the film
may turn the patriotic resistance into another fanatic empire deserves prudent
observations of the powerful autocratic authorities' moves, intellectuals' reactions,
and the mass's possible emotional responses.
Footnotes
[1] Edward W. Said, Orientalism, (NY: Vintage Books, 1979).
[2] Teshome H. Gabriel, Third Cinemain the Third world: The aesthetics of
Liberation, (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982).
[3] Fredrick Jameson, The ittlefield Publisher Inc., 2000), 57-61 and 63-78.
[4] See Colin MacCabe's preface in Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic, xiv.
Page 16 of 19 pages
[5] To name a few, Esther C.M. Yao's "Yellow Earth: Western Analysis and a NonWestern text," in Perspective on Chinese Cinema. ed., Chris Berry, (London:
British Film Institute, 1991), 62-79; Stephanie H. Donald, Public Secrets, Public
Spaces: Cinema and Civility in China, (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher
Inc., 2000), 57-61 and 63-78.
[6] Wei Zhang, "Chinese films: Can they go to the world?" Beijing Review, v.31
no. 1 (1988), 23-28, esp. 28.
[7] Ibid., 28.
[8] For those who are not familiar with the terminology, the Fifth Generation
directors refer to those graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 1982, distinctive
by their probing nature, aesthetic emphasis, and ambivalent ending in their films.
For more detail, see Harry H. Kuoshu's Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with
Culture and Society, (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois UP, 2002),
9-13; George s. Semsel, Chinese Film: The State of the Art in the People's
Republic (NY: Praeger, 1987).
[9] Jenny Kwok Wah Lau, “
Judou –A Hermeneutical Reading of Cross-cultural
Cinema,”Film Quarterly 45, no. 2 (Winter 1991-2): 2; Jianying Zha, "Chen Kaige
and the Shadows of the Revolution," Sight and Sound (1994: 4.2): 28-36.
[10] Dai Jinhua, Xietaliaowang: Zhongguo dianying wenhua, 1978-1998 (View
From A Tilted Tower: Chinese Film Culture 1978-1998), (Taipei: Yuanliu Chuban
Gongsi, 1999).
[11] Chris Berry, "If China Can Say No. Can China Make Movies? Or, Do Movies
Make China? Rethinking National Cinema and National Agency," in Modern
Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field,
ed., Rey Chow, (Durham and London: Duke UP, 2000), 168.
[12] Gina Marchetti, "Chinese Film Criticism of Dai Jinhua's Cinema and Desire" in
Jump Out: A Review of Contemporary Media No. 26, 2003, posed on
www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/marchetti.dai/text.html.
[13] Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visually, Sexuality, Ethnography, and
Contemporary Chinese Cinema, (NY: Columbia UP, 1995), 171-2.
[14] Walter D. Mignolo, "Globalization, Civilization Processes, and the Relocation
of Languages and Cultures," in The Cultures of Globalization, ed., Fredric
Jameson and Masao Miyoshi (Durham & London: Duke UP, 1998), 42-6. Also see
Walter D. Mignolo, Local histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern
Knowledge, and Border Thinking, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2000).
[15] Sheldon Hsiao-peng. Lu, China, Transnational Visuality, Global
Postmodernity, (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2001), 173; Tonglin Lu, Confronting
Modernity in the Cinemas of Taiwan and Mainland China, (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 2002), 3.
[16] Donald, Public Secrets, Public Spaces: Cinema and Civility in China, viii.
Page 17 of 19 pages
[16] Donald, Public Secrets, Public Spaces: Cinema and Civility in China, viii.
[17] Several scholars have pointed out several cultural blunders made in Western
critiques of Chinese films and argued for the significance of cross-cultural
analysis. For instance, E. Ann Kaplan, "Problematizing Cross-Cultural Analysis:
The Case of Women in the Recent Chinese Cinema," Wide Angle, vol.11, no.2
(1989), 41-42; Esther C. M. Yau, "Yellow Earth: Western Analysis and a NonWestern Text," Film Quarterly, vol.41, no.2 (1987-88), 37-53; Yingjin Zhang's
"Rethinking Cross-cultural analysis: the questions of authority, power, and
difference in Western studies of Chinese films," Bulletin of Concerned Asian
Scholars (Cambridge, MA) 26, no.4 (Oct-Dec, 1994), 44-53, and Ma Ning's "The
Textual and Critical Difference of Being Radical: Reconstructing Chinese Leftist
Films of the 1930s," in Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and
Society, ed., Harry H. Kuoshu, (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois
UP, 2002), 97-109.
[18] For a general history of the Qin and Han dynasties in China, see http://wwwchaos.umd.edu/history/imperial.html, and for the Confucian hermeneutics
adopted by Han emperors as the orthodox perspective of Chinese history since
then, see Mark Edward Lewis. Writing and Authority in Early China, (NY: State
University of New York Press, 1999).
[19] See Gary W. Tooze's website at
http://207.136.67.23/film/DVDReview/hero.htm. For symbol by color, see
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1070/is_2_53/ai_59210750.
[20] Richard Corlis, "In the Mood for Swordplay" at
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501021223400044,00.htm.
[21] Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World Syste,
3.
[22] MacCabe's preface in The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the
World System, xv.
[23] See Donald's Public Secrets, 59.
[24] Ibid., 23.
[25] Ibid., 129, and Andrew H. Plaks, Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical
Essays (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977), 312-13.
[26] Ibid., 135, and Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1993), 230-34.
[27] Most movie reviewers have similarly interpreted this color of black as death
or evil, so a detailed elaboration of its symbolic dimension is skipped to avoid the
repetition. Hereinafter when there are significantly different or less covered views
of the following colors, their symbols will be elaborated with relevant references.
[28] Tan Ye, “
From the Fifth to the Sixth Generation –Interview,”Film Quarterly,
winter 1999, posted at
Page 18 of 19 pages
winter 1999, posted at
www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1070/is_2_53/ai_59210750.
[29] See Tan Ye’
s interview with Zhang Yimou, at the website, p. 2.
[30] Yu-kung Kao, "Chinese Lyric Aesthetics,”in Words and Image: Chinese
Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting, ed., Alfreda Murck and Wen C. Fong (New
Jersey: Princeton UP, 1991), 74.
[31] Mary A. Farquhar, "The 'Hidden' Gender in Yellow Earth," Screen 33.2: 1992,
154-64; reprinted in Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and
Society, 221.
[32] Ibid., 223, and Michael R. Saso, Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal
(Pullman: Washington State UP, 1972).
[33] Donald, Public Secrets, Public Spaces, viii.
[34] See Gao Xingjian's presentation for the academic seminar about Chinese
Modern Literature and Theories, held in Hong Kong 1987, collected in Meiyouzhuyi
(Without Ism), (Hong Kong: Tiandi Tushu Youxiangongsi, 1996, 3rd print in
2000), 104.
[35] Gao Xingjian, "Gerendeshendyin (Individual Voices)," in Meiyouzhuyi, 88-97.
[36] Sheldon Hsiao-peng. Lu, China, Transnational Visuality, Global
Postmodernity, 79.
[37] For a cross-cultural analysis of the notion of hero between the West and
Japan, see Carol Hu's "'The Lord of the Rings' Inspires Small Heroism," in Japan
Close-up (Tokyo: Torico Ltd., May 2004), 42.
[38] See Song Qiang et al., Zhongguo keyi shuo bu (China Can Say No), (Hong
Kong: Ming Pao, 1996), and Zhongguo haishi neng shuo bu (China still can say
no), (Hong Kong: Ming Pao, 1996).
[39] Michelle Yeh, "International Theory and the Transnational Critic: China in the
Age of Multiculturalism" in Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the
Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, ed., Rey Chow, (Durham and London: Duke
UP, 2000).
[40] Esther C.M. Yao, "Is China the End of Hermeneutics?; or, Political and
Cultural Usage of Non-Han Women in Mainland Chinese Films," first appeared in
Discourse 11.2(1989): 114-36, then published in Multiple Voices in Feminist Film
Criticism, ed., Diane Carson, Linda Dittmar, and Janice R. Welsch (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 280-93, and reprinted in Celluloid China:
Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society, ed., Harry H. Kuoshu (2002),
185.
[41] For instance, according to Kuoshu, Paul Clark has also dealt with this issue to
a great extent in his article, 166-70. For further detail, see Paul Clark's Chinese
Cinema: Culture and Politics since 1949, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987), 21.
Page 19 of 19 pages
Cinema: Culture and Politics since 1949, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987), 21.
[42] Kuoshu, ed. Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society,
168.
[43] Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and
Contemporary Chinese Cinema (NY: Columbia UP, 1995).
[44] Dru C. Gladnew, "Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring
Majority/Minority Identities," Journal of Asian Studies 53, no.1 (1994): 94.
[45] Yingjin Zhang, "From 'Minority Film' to 'Minority Discourse': Questions of
Nationhood and Ethnicity in Chinese Cinema," Transnational Chinese Cinema:
Identity, Nationhood, Gender, ed., Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, (Honolulu: University
of Hawai'i Press, 1997), 81-104.
[46] For the detail of the directors' notes, see Kuoshu, ed. Celluloid China:
Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society, 182-3 and 199-200.
[47] Ibid., 89.
[48] Ibid., 92.
[49] For instance, Mongolian has claimed its independence while Tibetan and
Taiwan never cease their efforts to claim their autonomous freedom.
[50] Rey Chow, Ed., Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of
Theory: Reimagining a Field, 5.
[51] Ien Ang, "Can One Say No To Chineseness" Pushing the Limits of the
Diasporic Paradigm," in Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age
of Theory: Reimagining a Field.
[52] For instance, the CCP's constant threats to take over Taiwan by force as part
of the so-called Proper China in the name of saving brothers from so-accused
“
distracted independent fanatics”are not accidents.
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