1. Spectacle of the Exotic Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) Session 9

2. Dictionary entries: 1.Oxford Dictionary Exotic: *introduced from another country *foreign or unusual in style *striking or pleasing because colorful, unusual

3. 2. Longman Dictionary *strange or unusual *from or as if from a distant and tropical country 3. Dictionary of Synonyms *extraneous *not indigenous *not native * from abroad

4. 1. Films coming from the East or from the South are usually “the tour of the exotic” 2. The portrayals of the East are based on the stereotypical notions of an artistic yet unfathomably inhuman Orient.

5. 3. Film about the Orient promotes the ideas of indestructible and inscrutable masculinity. 4. Film promotes the imperialist tendencies of the West manifesting themselves in appropriation by the West (usually by the Western male) of the “dark, the life giving energies, “

6. Films of Zhang Yimou 1. His films: “national”, “Chinese,” “Oriental.” 2. He is interpreted as an exemplary instance of the willful surrender of Third World cinema to the Orientalist gaze, as a classic case of the subjugation of Third World culture to Western hegemony.

7. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299 977/ 3. Spectacle is based on the knowledge of China and attempts to rehabilitate and establish a new subjectivity of the Chinese nation. 4. Yimou propagates the patriarchal vision of China, introduces the oedipal complex in the treatment of fathers, mothers and sons and also searches to kill fathers which defines his ambivalent yet violent relationship to tradition, culture and the nation.

8. 5. He tells the audiences enchanting, exotic stories about the other country, China, through the stunning visual images. He has offered the Western viewer a “museum” of precious Chinese objects, costumes and artifacts; exotic events and stories and terrifying political events. His presentation of China is masterfully manufactured for the pleasure and gaze of the Western viewer.

9. 6.His films – the cinematic construction and representation of the Chinese nation for the gaze of the West. 7. In this self-exoticization, the word could still be used in the context of foreign capital funding, Chinese labor and overseas consumers.

10. Exotic showcase 8. China is “pseudo-folklore”, an exotic showcase. 9His works should be examined in the context of POSTCOLONIAL THINKING. (post-colonial theory is a collection of new ways of thinking about the colonial experience; this includes also the interpretation of “the other” by the West).

11. Later approaches The visual language of the martial arts film transformed from a local cultural phenomenon into a transnational one It evolved into a combination of the two:  The spectacle of the body  ‘identity’ ‘traditions’ – combination of kung fu (spectacle of the physical body) and Wuxia (spectacle of swordplay)

12. Technical developments After The Matrix, The transition of the aesthetic of martial arts films from an emphasis on the representation of 'real' kung fu to the so-called 'wire fu' in Tsui's Once Upon a Time in China 3 further displaces the authentic hero-body as spectacle into spectacle-as-special effects (Vivian Lee, 12)

13. Bullet time In the past 15 years, thanks to anime, manga, computer games and Hollywood action films, Exotic films from China and Japan changed into spectacles with special effects. Consequently as in The Matrix, such films became a combination of ‘ signature scenes’ generated by computers.

14. In the words of Vivien Lee: While the Matrix as simulacrum operates diegetically to rationalize and legitimize the fantastic spectacle of the body, simulacrum also operates non-diegetically as a source of fascination. Read metaphorically, the spectacular fight scenes and the perfection of the martial arts imaginary in the film exemplify

15. the kind of transnational cultural logic of Hollywood's global matrix: download pre-existing elements from a local genre, enlist top-notch special effects personnel from around the world, and deploy local talents behind the scene (in this case the Hong Kong action choreographer, Yuen Wo-ping) to reproduce/reinvent 'signature scenes', all in the service of a filmic imaginary of a posthuman technological empire run by machines.

16. Bibliography Heldon Hsiao-peng Lu, “National Cinema, Cultural Critique, Transnational Capital. The Films of Zhang Yimou” in Transnational Chinese Cinemas. Identity, Nationhood, Gender. Ed. Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1997, pp.105- 136.

17. Vivian Lee University of Victoria „Virtual bodies, flying objects: the digital imaginary in contemporary martial arts films” Journal of Chinese Cinemas Volume 1 Number 1 © 2007 Intellect Ltd