SIAH PGR Seminar Series | Mapping Landscapes: Urban Space in Contemporary Chinese Neo-noir, Yushi Hou Event

Abstract

My thesis concentrates on the representation of urban space in contemporary Chinese neo-noir, to examine the tension between spatiality in film noir and urbanism in the 21st century China, as well as to explore the social symptoms of the Chinese post-socialist cultural context. My research defines that contemporary Chinese neo-noir is a crime thriller film phenomenon that presents crime cases with the visual elements of film noir, showing oppressed protagonists’ desires, anxieties, and disorientation, expressing moral ambivalence, pessimism, cynicism, and fatalism in the post-socialist cultural context. Simultaneously, I argue that contemporary Chinese neo-noir also forms a dual value system in relation to the PRC mainstream ideology about The Chinese Dream. On the one side, Chinese neo-noir sits between commercial genre and art-house cinema, reflecting the insecure vicissitudes, anxiety, and darkness of the urban space through its noirish outlook and storytelling. It metaphorizes the alienation, disenchantment, and disillusion versus the mainstream values of The Chinese Dream, wherein the appeal of this film phenomenon lies for the film cinephiles, critics and researchers. On the other hand, cultural conflict in the storytelling of Chinese neo-noir also eases the sharp tension between social classes in the actual Chinese society since the reform era, through a superficially peaceful ending and the release of audiences’ emotions, as well as resolving the dramatic opposition between rebellious independent filmmakers and government censorship, by means of following the commercial modes of the crime detective genre.  

Biography 

Dr Yushi Hou completed her PhD in Film Studies at the University of Southampton in 2022. Her PhD thesis focuses on the representation of urban space in contemporary Chinese neo-noir, and her research interests include Chinese cinema, film noir, genre studies, and cinematic space. She has forthcoming publications on contemporary Chinese femme fatale figure, and female spies in Chinese Cold War cinema. Currently she is a teaching assistant at the Film Department, University of Southampton, as well as working on her monograph.