House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004):
- Highly stylised- costume, set and colour
- Lack of Hollywood/American distribution
- Elaborate fight/martial arts set pieces
- Binary oppositions of government vs rebels
- Strong female representation, revenge and romance
- Narrative shows a dynamic central protagonist
- Gender representation
CHINA:
- Worlds most populated country with a population of 1.4 billion people
- Influenced by Confucianism (religion)
- Emphasis on family values
- Cultural values of wisdom , honestly and loyalty
- Work ethic is important for a happy life
- Traditional festivals and celebrations
- 73.6% of the population are not religious
- Known as the People’s republic of China
- Communist state
- 2nd largest economy behind America
- Gender divide- Restrictions on children as male born children are more favourable
CULTERAL CONTEXTS:
- Set during Tang Imperialist Dynasty AD859
- House of Flying Daggers are rebels fighting against military and government corruption
- Wuxia (martial arts) romance sub-genre
- Wuxia pian: Wu=martial + xia = chivalrous. Origins of the Wuxia pian genre are to be found in North Chinese Mandarin culture after the 9th century. Rival warlords ruled China and unattached swordsmen could be hired as killers, heroes who followed codes of honour and chivalry defending the helpless against corrupt leaders and officials. Swords, magic, fantasy and the supernatural are central to wuxia mythology.
- Zhang Yimou pays homage to the history of Chinese martial arts film
- Fifth generation Chinese film maker
- Increased popularity of Chinese film outside of China
- Against traditional ideological Chinese storytelling
- Focuses on local culture
- Impressionistic ‘free form’ style of colours
SOCIO-POLITICAL CONTEXTS:
- Mei challenges the historical dominance of Peking Opera (evolution of gender roles as central to the narrative)
- Four distinct segments (The pavilion, on the road, in the house of Flying Daggers, and the long goodbye)
- An allegory about company China or even an apology for modern Chinese imperialism
- The director wanted visually arresting representations that were embedded in Chinese culture.
- Referred to as a commercial film as art and deliberately said it’s “not a political film”.
- Challenges and subverts gender and political
TECHNOLOGICAL AND INSTITUATIONAL CONTEXTS:
- CGI, digital effects and wire work used to enhance acrobatics and fantasy
- Half of the world’s films are produced in Asia- 3 Chinese cinemas of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan all have large film industries.
- Success of Chinese global film making- huge audience
- Industry invested in digital cinema and the revival of Chinese language films
Emma Coe Film Studies 