Behind Chinese Walls: The Uncanny Power of Matriarchy in Wang Chao’s The Orphan of Anyang

Abstract

This article analyses the Sixth Generation director Wang Chao’s film The Orphan of Anyang in the context of China’s economic reforms that have so radically affected Chinese society in the past decades. Driven by a new capitalist market force, many state‐run factories have closed and laid off workers such as Dagang, the male protagonist in the movie. He struggles to survive with little help from a socialist party‐state also weakened by the same force of Chinese capitalism. Yanli, the female protagonist, works as a prostitute in order to support her newborn child and her ageing parents in the country. She represents a challenging matriarchal power that had long been absent under Mao’s socialism but seems to emerge as traditional patriarchy declines in dire economic circumstances such as state bankruptcy and nationwide unemployment.