Memory-Making Through Chinese Historical War Films: A Cinematic Analysis on Guan Hu’s ‘The Eight Hundred’

This research finds itself in the literature on the collective historical memory in China, a field within Sino-Japanese relations. Current scholarship in this sub-field has also discussed China’s national identity (e.g., Suzuki 2007), official historical narratives (e.g., Vickers 2013), and the space for alternative narratives (e.g., Wang and Chew 2021). Recent studies have identified changes in China’s official history discourse, most notably the transition from a victimhood narrative to one of triumph (e.g., Mitter 2020). Based on these existing papers, it appears that the space for alternative narratives is an unsaturated topic compared to identity politics and official historical discourse, despite its potential for researching a wide variety of niche case studies. Authors that have already explored this topic, like Denton (2014) and Wang and Chew (2021), suggest that, besides the party-state, other factors like the market, popular culture, and the internet also influence this...Show moreThis research finds itself in the literature on the collective historical memory in China, a field within Sino-Japanese relations. Current scholarship in this sub-field has also discussed China’s national identity (e.g., Suzuki 2007), official historical narratives (e.g., Vickers 2013), and the space for alternative narratives (e.g., Wang and Chew 2021). Recent studies have identified changes in China’s official history discourse, most notably the transition from a victimhood narrative to one of triumph (e.g., Mitter 2020). Based on these existing papers, it appears that the space for alternative narratives is an unsaturated topic compared to identity politics and official historical discourse, despite its potential for researching a wide variety of niche case studies. Authors that have already explored this topic, like Denton (2014) and Wang and Chew (2021), suggest that, besides the party-state, other factors like the market, popular culture, and the internet also influence this space for alternative narratives. This research explores the medium of cinema to learn how the production of a historical war drama comes about and what that says about the environment for memory-making in China. In particular, I analyze the Chinese war film ‘The Eight Hundred’ in the context of alternative historical memory. Uncovering the construction process of historical memory in China will provide insight into the practices of non-state actors. As such, the research question of this thesis is: How are the state and market currently involved in the process of memory-making through the production of historical war films in China?Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Memory-Making Through Chinese Historical War Films: A Cinematic Analysis on Guan Hu’s ‘The Eight Hundred’