Gender and Adaptation: The Phases of Zhang Yimou’s Cinema

<p dir="ltr">Zhang Yimou is a celebrated Chinese director who established his international fame through film adaptations from successful Chinese literary works. This project examines 12 adaptations in four phases of Zhang’s directorial career: 1987–1991: <i>Red Sorghum</i>, <i>Judou</i>, <i>Raise the Red Lantern</i>; 1992–2000: <i>The Story of Qiuju</i>, <i>To Live</i>, <i>Not One Less</i>, <i>The Road </i><i>Home</i>, <i>Happy Time</i>; 2002–2006: <i>Hero</i>, <i>House of Flying Daggers</i>, <i>Curse of the Golden </i><i>Flower</i>; and 2011: <i>The Flowers of War</i>. This thesis focuses on the gender politics of Zhang’s films to illuminate his adaptation practice as well as the evolving goals that have shaped his cinema into distinctive phases.</p><p dir="ltr">Drawing on adaptation and gender theories, my project takes an interdisciplinary approach, adopting the methodology of textual analysis, close reading, historical contextualization and cross-cultural comparison. I argue that gender is not a major priority in Zhang’s adaptation practice, yet it nevertheless reveals much about his films’ politics and the ambitions distinct to particular phases of his career, in which his artistic and commercial goals shifted alongside his global aspirations and his stance on Chinese politics. Overall, in his adaptations, Zhang privileges masculinity and constructs a phallocentric cinematic world that accommodates strong-willed women and dynamic men in various historical periods of Chinese society to suit his narrative purposes, though the purposes are necessarily gender oriented. </p><p dir="ltr">This thesis enhances the critical understanding of the link between the gender politics of Zhang’s films and the ambivalence of his approach to adaptation, especially in regards to his translation of women characters from print to screen. In addition, it contributes to the fields of Chinese film and gender studies by highlighting Zhang’s later film adaptations and his reconceptualization of both femininity and masculinity. Finally, it denaturalizes the images of Zhang’s men and women characters, exposing them as cultural constructs resulting from the director’s engagement with pivotal developments in Chinese society and culture.</p>