A Comparative Analysis: Chinese And Hollywood Action Movies

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CHINESE AND HOLLYWOOD ACTION MOVIES [Your Name] [Course] [Professor] UNIVERSITY 12th MAY 2018 A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: CHINESE AND HOLLYWOOD ACTION MOVIES Introduction The study of Chinese and Hollywood action films is not a new scholarly genre. The subject has in the recent past sparked immense scholarly interest particularly due to social,cultural and ideological differences between China and the West. While Hollywood action movies depict the prevailing Western culture, Chinese action movies depict the Chinese culture and past history (Morgenstern, 2016). This disparity could be as a result of production differences since while Hollywood movies are produced in a free and democratic society hence depicting the prevailing socialreality; Chinese movies are largely influenced by the prevailing political ideology (Xie, 2012). This is because Chinese action movies are subject to ideological censorship while Hollywoodmovies are not state censored. This research paper sets out to compare and contrast the Chinese and Hollywood action movies and specifically focuses on the martial arts films. Despite the fact that there exist similarities between action movies produced in China and in the West, there still exist enormous differences due to cultural and socio-economic disparities. A comparative Analysis: Western and Chinese Action Movies The difference between Chinese and Hollywood action films can be evaluated based on the way each of these two genres depicts the hero (Zhou, 2017). The two genres significantly differ in their definition and hence depiction of the hero. While heroes in both genres portray the social, cultural and historical context of their country, the two genres predominantly differ based on their cultural representation, even though there are still minor similarities between Chinese and Hollywood action movies (Morgenstern, 2016). One similarity is that bothHollywoodand Chinese action movies portray heroes as super-humans who the society yearns to emulate. In both genres, the hero is representedashaving an imposing physique and enormous intellectual aptitude(Zhou, 2017). This super intellectual attribute accords them the potential to triumph in the face of extreme adversity. For instance, this characteristic is shown in manyHollywoodmovies such as 007, SpiderMan and Captain Jack Sparrow (Morgenstern, 2016). This similarity cuts across Chinese and Hollywood action movies given that Chinese action films like Dayu in ancient China and Jinke in the Qin dynasty also portray heroes in the same manner. The same characteristic is shown in modern day Chinese action movies such as Jacky Chen. Besides, bothHollywood and Chinese action movies are similaras they both represent heroes as individuals with extraordinarily noble characteristics (Xie, 2012). Furthermore, both movie genres depict heroes as people who are endowed with incredible courage and are highly compassionate.A case example is a Hollywood actionfilm ‘The Shank Redemption’ in which the superhero, Shaw Shank uses his extraordinary wisdom to break from prison (Zhou, 2017). Similarly, the Chinese film Hero, Wu Ming, who is the protagonist, manages to maneuver through tight security to finally kill the king using his unusual Kung Fu martia...