Introduction In movies by Ang Lee such as Lust, Caution (2007) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) the focus is on themes like desire, duty, and the clash between identity and societal conventions. By depicting characters and engaging narratives, Lee illustrates the blending of emotions with traditions within the context of culture and philosophical ideas. This analysis delves into these themes in both films, investigating how Lee's filmmaking methods and storytelling enhance the balance between aspirations and societal demands. Lust, Caution Lust, Caution is an espionage movie with strong erotic appeal, which takes place during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Set in Shanghai in the 1930s, the main character of the film – the meek college …show more content…
However, the sword is stolen by Jen Yu, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy governor, who is secretly a skilled martial artist trained by the villainous Jade Fox. As Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien pursue the sword and Jen, they uncover deeper connections between their pasts and Jen's rebellious desires. The film explores themes of love, honor, and destiny, culminating in a tragic yet beautiful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression on the audience. Longing and Desire Lust, Caution In Lust, Caution, longing, and desire are central to the narrative. The protagonist, Wong Chia Chi, becomes embroiled in a complex relationship with Mr. Yee, a high-ranking official in the Japanese puppet government. Her role as a spy requires her to seduce Yee, but as their relationship deepens, she finds herself torn between her duty and her growing feelings for him (Kelleher). This intense emotional conflict is vividly depicted through Lee's meticulous direction and the actors' nuanced performances. The film's explicit scenes of intimacy are not merely for shock value but serve to underscore the depth of Chia Chi's internal struggle and the high stakes of her
The book Michael Vey: Hunt For Jade Dragon by Richard Paul Evans is about a group of teengers the call themselves The Electroclan. Most of the teens in that group have special powers from a machine that was in use in the hospital that they were all born at. Other teens in the group are friends of members of The Electroclan. A girl named Jade Dragon figured out how to make more electric children, so Hatch wants to hunt her down. The Electroclan’s mission is to rescue Jade Dragon so Hatch doesn’t make an army of electric youth's. The Elgen then attack and capture the Electroclan in their hotel. It seems as if Nichelle sold them out to the Elgen, but she didn’t, she actually helped them. When Michael is captured by the Elgen Tara, Taylor’s twin sister thats works with Hatch, disgued
The film, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, showcases Wu Xia and the imbalance of Yin and Yang. She tells him to make a wish and this connects the story of the young man leaping from the mountain to save his parents (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). Jen feels by leaping she is granting Lo’s wish (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). This makes Jen the tragic hero as she is finally free from the imprisonment of her duties as a governor’s daughter as well as her past with the Jade Fox (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon).
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a martial arts chivalry film released in 2000. It was directed by Ang Lee, who also directed films such as “Broke Back Mountain and “Life of Pi.” The film focuses on the three main characters Li Mu Bai, Shu Lien and Jen. Li Mu Bai stays on a Taoist monastery, and is an expert in sword fighting; famous for his Kung Fu. Unlike Li Mu Bai, Shu Lien is a Confucianist who runs a security company and has deceased fiancé. Another important character, Jen, is from a wealthy family and is taught by Jade Fox, who disguises as a nanny, how to fight. Jen is egoistic and contradicts the rules of both Confucianism and Taoism. Lo, also known as the “Dark Cloud” is a bandit who falls in love with Jen. The film mainly tackled on the importance of Confucianism and Taoism in one’s life and how these two are alike to each other when they are put together. In the film, we will see how they influence the character’s lives having Confucianism and Taoism beliefs performed together. We all know that these two philosophies are different from each other. Confucianism emphasizes morality, familial piety and respect for authorities to create peace and harmony among people. On the other hand, Taoism focuses on the harmony of yin and yang, detachment from worldly things, oneness with the nature and to go with the flow.
A large portion of contemporary film and theatre has been lacking in substance. More often than not, we are presented with a “been there, seen that” scenario. One such exception to this rule is Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a film by John Cameron Mitchell that was released in 2001. Set primarily in post-Cold War America, Hedwig is a film that characteristically breaks convention. Our story follows Hedwig, a forgotten and confused homo…trans…well, human being. Growing up in East Berlin during the Cold War, Hansel Schmidt (John Cameron Mitchell) lives what I would call a horrible childhood in the bleak landscape of communist occupied Germany. He falls in love with an American soldier, and undergoes a sex change in order to marry him and leave East Berlin. The operation is botched, leaving him/her as a physical contradiction. Not quite a man, but not yet a woman, Hansel (now Hedwig) has what she describes as an “angry inch.” When describing it in lighter terms, she calls it a “Barbie doll crotch.” Upon arriving in America, the soldier leaves her the same day the Berlin wall comes down. Destroyed, Hedwig spends some time discovering her new self and eventually finds a soul mate in a young boy named Tommy Speck (Michael Pitt). They collaborate musically and romantically, but upon discovering Hedwig’s secret he leaves with all of their music. He becomes a huge rock star, living Hedwig’s dream while simultaneously leaving her in the dust. From then on, Hedwig and her band “The Angry Inch” follow Tommy as he tours the nation while Hedwig tries desperately to gain the notoriety she deserves for her music. Viewing this film through the lens of a feminist gender perspective, I find that Hedwig is a pioneer on the forefront of changing the gende...
The Pacific coast port city of San Francisco, California provides a distinctively mysterious backdrop in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. Unlike many other detective stories that are anchored in well-known metropolises such as Los Angeles or New York City, Hammett opted to place the events of his text in the lesser-known, yet similarly exotic cultural confines of San Francisco. Hammett used his own intricate knowledge of the San Francisco Bay Area - coupled with details collected during a stint as a detective for the now defunct Pinkerton Agency - to craft a distinctive brand of detective fiction that thrived on such an original setting (Paul 93). By examining the setting of 1920’s San Francisco in The Maltese Falcon, it becomes apparent that one of Hammett’s literary strengths was his exceptional ability to intertwine non-fictional places with a fictional plot and characters in order to produce a logical and exceedingly believable detective mystery.
In The Pathos of Failure, Thomas Elsaesser explains the emergence of a new ideology within American filmmaking, which reflects a “fading confidence in being able to tell a story” (280) and the dissolution of psychologically relatable, goal-oriented characters. He elaborates that these unmotivated characters impede the “the affirmative-consequential model of narrative [which] is gradually being replaced by another, whose precise shape is yet to crystallize” (281). Christian Keathley outlined this shape in more detail in Trapped in the Affection Image, where he argued that shifting cultural attitudes resulted in skepticism of the usefulness of action (Keathley). In Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, this crisis of action is a key element of the main characters’ failure, because it stifles the execution of classical narrative and stylistic genre conventions.
“In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that ‘stressing academic success is not good for children’ or that ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.’ By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be ‘the best’ students, that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting,’ and that if children did not excel at school then there was ‘a problem’ and parents ‘were not doing their job.’ … Chinese parents spend approximately ten times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams” (Chua 5). Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua is an engulfing novel which clearly distinguishes the difference between Western style of parenting and the Chinese style of parenting. The quote stated above shows some of the statistics that we completed to write this book. The story is a breathless and emotional memoir of Amy Chua, consisting mostly her two daughters and husband. While the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother appears to be about the battle between a parent and a child and the relationship they share, the author, Amy Chua, has actually implied that it is important for the children to start developing skills early on to benefit in the future as well as be successful in their lives.
By juxtaposing the implications of this sale with Xiao Hong’s exaggerated innocence, Yuan appeals to his audience’s emotions, stoking anger toward social values that could enable such barbaric exploitation of the poor. Yuan employs a similar juxtaposition later in Street Angel, when Wang visits a lawyer’s office in a skyscraper – an environment so divorced from his day-to-day realities that he remarks, “This is truly heaven.” Wang soon learns otherwise, when the lawyer rebuffs his nave plea for assistance by coldly reciting his exorbitant fees. The lawyer’s emotionless greed – a callousness that represents capitalism at its worst – contrasts strikingly with Wang’s nave purity, a quality betrayed by his awestruck expression while inside the skyscraper. Again, this juxtaposition encourages the film’s audience to sympathize with a proletarian victim and condemn the social values that enable his oppression.
Ever since the establishment of cinema in the early 1900s, Hollywood has continuously recreated elements of history to reenact for its future generations. In order to clearly broadcast a specific theme or message to relay to viewers around the world, Hollywood executives tend to embellish real life events, in order to provide a “fairytale” aspect to a seemingly not so “happily- ever-after” story from history. As part of this “fairytale” aspect, Hollywood tends to delegitimize as well as provide a more disrespectful and more comical version of societies and cultures in the specific time frame that the film is being set. Through the art of story telling, the movies Mulan and Kung Fu Panda, depict the two sides of Hollywood, the falsifying and mockery making of Chinese people, their society, beliefs and true events of history and that of an accurate portrayal.
This analysis draws focus on the differences between Hua’s novel and Zhang’s film by juxtaposing two key themes and dual-symbolism that had changed from one format to another. The paper is broken up into two parts and begins with an introduction and analysis of Yu Hua’s novel and Zhang’s film. Finally, the second part analyzes the film and novel’s representations of two themes and symbolism that tie in with the GPCR. This paper posits that while Zhang’s film does contain many adjustments based on its adaptation, those changes were not simply a means by which he would meet the status quo, rather they were a means by which the film could become more realistic and exploits the true nature of the GPCR.
The history of the human race follows a plot detailing the struggles and triumphs of various individuals with the concepts of power and control. In George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm, these elaborate concepts are further explored through various characters such as the shire boar, Napoleon. Napoleon’s ability to exercise control over the animals derives from his capability to indoctrinate them with his partial ideologies. Napoleon then further clasps his power by his avail of expert power throughout the novel. Finally, the excessive and abusive use of coercive power, secures Napoleon’s control over the animals. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm Napoleon assumes the reins of power over the animals and controls them by means of physiological manipulations.
1. After reading the Rock and the River by Kekla Magoo, the theme is dont be afraid to take risks because you dont know what good might come out of it. This book takes place in 1968 in Chicago during the Civil Rights Movement. The main character Sam doesn't know to follow his father in a nonviolent way or his brother, stick in a more violent way. Father is a well-known person at the MLK party.
The 1993 movie directed by Kaige Chen, Farewell My Concubine, addresses the Chinese political issues during the war against Japan via interpersonal issues of an opera troupe of young male actors. The movie is as long as it is engaging. With two orphan boys who are raised to act in an Opera for their entire lives, dedication obtains a whole new meaning. Dieyi's training to act as a woman and to reflect femininity in his whole life increases the dissension that is observed within the film as well as its connections to the politics of China. The use of ghastly sound effects, close-up cinematographic techniques, and military involvement combine together in this movie to create a devastatingly dramatic experience.
The film Hero depicts one of the most culturally rich and diverse country, China. China is one of the largest countries in the world with the long profound history. It is also the most diverse country in terms of language, religion, rituals, traditions, and beliefs. The film Hero has an unusual movie theme, it repeats similar events through flashbacks and with different outcomes. The tale is about the nameless warrior and the triumph of Qin’s idea of unifying China. The king invites the warrior to honor him for defeating his three most dangerous enemies, who are often proclaimed as the unbeatable warriors. The film is a cultural description of Chinese traditions. It has expanded my understanding of Chinese culture by portraying the spectacular
Few movies have been panned by critics but widely accepted by viewers across the nation. National Treasure is one of them. Even after receiving sub par reviews including only two stars from Roger Ebert, National Treasure won over the public, earning almost $350 million worldwide. Even though the movie is under the Walt Disney Company and has a PG rating, this movie is not just for children. Superb acting and action from beginning to end will keep people of all ages glued to their seat as they follow one man’s quest for a hidden treasure.