Chinese Movie that changed China

[akire]

Hi, 

 

I'm about to chose a subject for my bachelor thesis in Chinese. I would like to focus on social change and base the whole idea of the thesis on an influential chinese movie/tv-show that somewhat divided the country or changed public opinion in a matter. Originally I wanted to write about how the view on western women changed in China after "洋妞在北京" but can't seem to find it anywhere. Do you have any tips on other movies, books or tv shows that could be of help? 

 

Any help is appreciated!

Best regards
 

[Guest realmayo]

Titanic.

[lling]

《超级女声》，在中国大陆开创了真人选秀的模式，2005年超级女声爆红之后内地选秀节目层出不穷。

[Angelina]

The Big Bang Theory and Chinese students perhaps.

Friends was popular, many coffee shops called Central Perk/Friends in China, many girls choose Phoebe as an English name, cheesecakes seem to be popular, is it because of Friends?

[889]

All those Korean soap operas have had a great social influence.

[Angelina]

Some Chinese girls call their boyfriends 哥哥, a loan translation from Korean.

[vellocet]

Titanic?  Really?  How did it divide the country?  How did it change public opinion?  The question wasn't "what's a popular movie that sold a lot of tickets?"

 

Kung Fu Panda really opened a lot of eyes in China.  Not only did foreigners do a bang-up job treating Chinese culture, something considered heretofore impossible, but the movie itself could never have been produced in China.  The culture ministry would have vetoed it in a heartbeat.

[Chris Two Times]

Titanic unified the country.

 

But never mind that, my heart will go on.

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[Guest realmayo]

Titanic?  Really?  How did it divide the country?  How did it change public opinion?

 

Erm ... it was wildly wildly popular. And it was foreign. And it was endorsed by the Beijing leadership. That would be a striking combination even today. Back in 1998 it was surely unique.

 

And it was even more significant than that -- because China had decided it wanted to join the WTO. Its eventual WTO membership affected the lives of most people on the planet. At the time, Jiang Zemin needed to make sure he had the support of the other Chinese leaders to join, as well as the enthusiasm of the Chinese people. He also needed the support of Clinton who was visiting China later in the year.

 

Jiang tells the politburo to watch the film. He basically says that ideological differences between China and the capitalist West shouldn't be fixed barriers to future exchange. (Let's not even get started on what this does to the principles behind the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art.)

 

Sure, Titanic was 'used' by Jiang. To change publicly acceptable attitudes to the West. So the movie helped change China. And so many people watched it, learned the song, talked about it. Perhaps I'm overstating at this point but it seems like it was the Western cultural import that the whole country could and did enjoy together. Not just the trendy young kids.

 

Here's Jiang on Titanic, before its China release:

 

The Hollywood blockbuster ‘Titanic’ has achieved what no officially-sanctioned Chinese movie has done – earn personal acclaim from President Jiang Zemin for being an ideologically correct film.

 

....

 

“You should not imagine that there is no ideological education in capitalist countries,” Jiang told delegates to the National People’s Congress in Beijing after a special pre-premiere screening for China’s top leaders.

“Titanic speaks of wealth and love, the relationship between rich and poor and vividly describes how people react to disaster. I told my comrades in the Politburo to see this film,” said Jiang, confessing he had been moved by the movie.

 

Such an endorsement might have taken jarred some Communist Party veterans, who remember the late Chairman Mao Zedong’s teaching that cinema is a more important art than literature as it possesses more strength to affect people’s minds.

 

 

http://www.ipsnews.net/1998/06/cinema-china-titanic-scores-an-ideological-hit/

[imron]

Do you have any tips on other movies, books or tv shows that could be of help?

How far back to you want to go? 《家》apparently had a very strong effect on the youth of the day.

[Angelina]

from realmayo's link

The government-run Xinhua news agency responded with a lengthy analysis of the success of ‘Titanic’, promising that “China can soon make a ‘Titanic’ of its own”.

The Great Wall?

Matt Damon, Zhang Yimou, and a huge budget

and 刘德华 ☺️

[Lu]

@realmayo, I thought your first post in this thread was a lame joke but now I learned something from your second post. Thanks!

[imron]

I bet that was his plan all along ;-)

[roddy]

River Elegy. Should be on Youtube. 

[mandel1luke]

还珠格格  for starting a trend of Taiwanese/Mainland China co-productions.

 

少林寺 for inspiring Wang Baoqiang to such great heights as in 人再囧途之泰囧、 道士下山、唐人街探案。

[Luxi]

Roddy, in case you don't know, "A River Elegy" is in Internet Archive, resolution is very poor but it is viewable and the soundtrack is clear. I've seen the transcript mentioned somewhere about but can't remember where, I'll have to search for it.  And I absolutely agree it had an enormous impact - to the extent that it could even be linked to the Tiananmen Square events a year later. 

 

https://archive.org/search.php?query=river%20elegy∧[]=mediatype%3A%22movies%22

 

Unfortunately it was influential only among intellectuals, and we all know what weight that has in China.

 

Realmayo, good post! I never saw Titanic in that light, but now that you mention it....Like so many things about China, context is all.

 

I believe that Under the Dome has/had the potential to stir something. That's why it was pulled out within a few days and environmental pressure groups came under stricter controls. But it may come back, enough people saw it and talked about it in China.

[roddy]

It's quite remarkable reading just the Wiki entry on River Elegy - it's like a different country. Here's a six part documentary critical of Chinese culture and it's on CCTV and the People's Daily published the scripts! I don't use exclamation marks lightly, by the way.

 

I don't think there's any 'could even' in the link to Tiananmen. See here, I just robbed the link from the Wiki page. 

'' 'River Elegy' was a propaganda coup for bourgeois liberalization,'' Hong Minsheng, the deputy director of China Central Television Station, said in a blistering self-criticism broadcast on the evening news. ''The broadcast of 'River Elegy' provided theoretical and emotional preparation for the recent turmoil and rebellion.''