1. Nanzhu Ji
Robbie Maloney
Yuhan Liu
Thomas Grant

2. Overview
•Chinese film industry
•Asian Global blockbuster
•The Hero
•Structure and colour
•Political and Critical Interpretation

3. Chinese film industry
• China is the fastest-growing movie market in
the world.
• In 2010, China’s film industry produced more
than 520 films.
• In 2012, China produced 893 feature films.

4. Film receipts
Year RMB
2003 1 billion
2007 3.3 billion
2008 4.3 billion
2009 6.2 billion
2010 10.1 billion
2011 13.1 billion
2012 17.07 billion

5. Chinese films abroad
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

6. Main casts
Jet Li Maggie Cheung

7. Main casts
Tony Leung Ziyi Zhang

8. The Global Film Industry
Hero grossed:
HK $15,471,348 in its first week.
US $18,004,319
The total worldwide box office gross was US
$177,394,432.

9. System of Chinese Distribution
China
Asia
America
Europe

10. • Film industries are gradually becoming more
dependent on foreign markets.
• Films becoming more transnational
• The place of Hero

11. Who is the Hero?
Nameless Emperor of Qin Broken Sword

12. COLOUR AND STRUCTURE

13. Rashomon
•Akira Kurosawa •Episodic structure

14. Different colours different stories
• Black
• Red
• Blue
• White
• Green

15. Black
•Fundamental colour •Nameless

16. Red
--Valiant

17. Red
--Anger

18. Red
--Jealousy

19. Red
--Hatred

20. Red
--Distorted love

21. Red

22. Blue
Love and sacrifice

23. Blue

24. Blue

25. White
•Real •Mourning and Death

26. Green  Peace
Derek Jarman ：“Green is a colour which exists in narratives - it always
returns.”

27. Emi Wada
Ran(1985)
Director: Akira Kurosawa

28. Emi Wada

29. Emi Wada
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
1986 Won Oscar Best Costume Design
for: Ran (1985).
1987 Nominated BAFTA Film
Award
Best Costume Design
for: House of Flying Daggers (2004).
1993 Won Primetime Emmy Outstanding Individual Achievement in
Costume Design for a Variety or Music
Program
for: “Great Performances: Oedipus Rex
” (1993).
1998 Won Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Costume & Make Up Design
for: The Soong Sisters (1997).
2003 Won Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Costumes/Make Up
for: Hero (2002).
2005 Nominated Saturn Award Best Costumes
for: House of Flying Daggers (2004).

30. Emi Wada
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
2005 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Costume Design
for: House of Flying Daggers (2004).
2005
Nominated
Golden Satellite
Award
Best Costume Design
for: House of Flying Daggers (2004).
2007 Nominated Asian Film Award Best Production Designer
for: The Go Master (2006).
2009 Nominated Golden Horse Award Best Makeup & Costume Design
for: The Warrior and the Wolf (2009).
2010 Nominated Asian Film Award Best Costume Designer
for: The Warrior and the Wolf (2009).
2011 Nominated Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Costume & Make Up Design
for: Reign of Assassins (2010).

31. Christopher Doyle

32. Christopher Doyle
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
1983 Won
Asia-Pacific Film
Festival
Best Cinematography
for: That Day, on the Beach (1983).
1987 Won
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Lao niang gou sao (1986).
1990 Nominated
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Shou huang de nu ren (1989).
1991 Won
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Days of Being Wild (1990).
1994 Won Golden Horse Award
Best Cinematography
for: Ashes of Time (1994).
1994 Won Golden Osella
Best Cinematography
for: Ashes of Time (1994).
1995 Won
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Ashes of Time (1994).
1995 Nominated
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Chungking Express (1994).

33. Christopher Doyle
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
1996 Won Golden Bauhinia
Best Cinematography
for: Fallen Angels (1995).
1996 Won
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Fallen Angels (1995).
1997 Won Golden Horse Award
Best Cinematography
for: Happy Together (1997).
1997 Nominated
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Temptress Moon (1996).
1998 Nominated
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: Happy Together (1997).
1999 Won
Excellence in
Cinematography
Award
2000 Won Technical Grand Prize
for: In the Mood for
Love (2000).

34. Christopher Doyle
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
2000 Won
Golden Horse
Award
Best Cinematography
for: In the Mood for Love (2000).
2000 Won
Best
Cinematography
for: In the Mood for Love (2000).
2001 2nd place BSFC Award
Best Cinematography
for: In the Mood for Love (2000).
2001 Won Golden Bauhinia
Best Cinematography
for: In the Mood for Love (2000).
2001
Nominate
d
Hong Kong Film
Award
Best Cinematography
for: In the Mood for Love (2000).

35. Historical Context
 Jing Ke’s assassination attempt on Ying Zhen,
king of Qin and future first emperor of China
from 221 BC- 210 BC.
 Similarities and differences to Jet Li’s
‘Nameless’

36. Politics
 Film as propaganda?
 Despotism: The exercising of absolute authority by an
arbitrary government/ the exercising of absolute
power or control.
 Government by an absolute power unchecked by any
constitutional limits to their power.
 Endorsement of current Chinese government?

37. Critical Opinion
 Peter Travers (Rolling Stone) “Ravishes the eye
without quite touching the heart.”
 James Christopher (Times UK) “Mortal wounds
are delivered and received like love letters,
hopelessly sentimental.”
 Nev Pierce (BBC) “Visually spectacular but slight
on story.”
 Mike Clark (USA Today) “A movie just good
enough to keep nurturing rooting interest as you
watch it.”

38. Critical Opinion
 Adam Smith (Empire) “The comparisons are
inevitable, so lets get them out of the way, Hero
is a better film than Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon.”
 Michael Wilmington (Chicago Tribune)
“Swooningly beautiful, furious and thrilling, an
action movie for the ages.”
 Lisa Kennedy (Denver Post) “Hero is not a long
movie, yet it is persuasively epic.”

39. Varying Responses
Beautiful
Fascist
Propaganda
Pro-totalitarian
Celebration of
dictatorship
Masterpiece
A gorgeous abstraction
A Rashomon style epic
A piece of poetry
Visually dazzling
Extravagant doodling
A silly and bloated fable
Nothing more than
pretty pictures

40. Thomas Delepa
(Boulder Weekly)
“So stuffed with stunts, so bare on
plot, you might as well call it…

41. “Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Story.”

42. Reference
• Zhang, J.X. Film Quarterly, Vol. 58 (Summer 2005), p. 47-52
• Klein, C (2002) ‘When Chinese Martial Arts Flies Through the Global Box
Office,’ Yale Global, available online at:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/when-chinese-martial-arts-flies-
through-global-box-office
• Kraicer, S (2003) ‘Absence as Spectacle: Zhang Yimou’sHero,’ available
online at: http://www.chinesecinemas.org/hero.html
• Larson, W (2008) ‘Zhang Yimou’sHero: Dismantling the Myth of Cultural
Power,’ Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 181-96

43. Reference
• Lau, J.K. W (2007) ‘Hero: China’s Response to Hollywood Globalization,’
Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, No. 49 (Spring), available
online at: http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc49.2007/Lau-
Hero/index.html
• Lee, V (2007) ‘Into/Out of the Critical Divide: The Indeterminacy of Hero,’
Scope9, available online at:
http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/article.php?issue=9&id=955
• Nyman, M (2005). The American History Review, Vol. 110 (June 2005),
p.769-770
• Stringer, J and Yu, Q (2007) ‘Hero: How Chinese Is It?’ in Paul Cooke, ed.
World Cinema’s ‘Dialogues’ with Hollywood (Basingstoke and New York:
Palgrave Macmillan),238-54.

44. Reference
• Chan, E (2004) ‘Zhang Yimou’sHero and the Temptations of Fascism,’ Film
International, Vol. 2, No. 8 (March), 14-23
• Fung, A and Chan, J.M. (2010), ‘Towards a Global Blockbuster: The Political
Economy of Hero’s Nationalism,’ in Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T.
• Rawnsley (eds). Global Chinese Cinema: The Culture and Politics of Hero
(London: Routledge), pp. 198-211.
• Harrison, M (2006) ‘Zhang Yimou’sHero and the Globalisation of
Propoganda,’ Millennium: Journal of International Studies 34, pp. 569-72
• Hunt, L (2011) ‘The Contemporary WuxiaRevival: Genre Remaking and the
Hollywood Transnational Factor,’ in Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward, eds.
The Chinese Cinema Book (London: BFI/Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 150-57.

45. Discussion Questions
Who do you think is the hero of film?
How do you think the film should be
interpreted?

46. Thanks for
your
Listening!