Domesticity, Sentimentality and Otherness: The Boundary of the Human in Monster Hunt

Abstract

The 2015 Chinese box-office hit, Monster Hunt, in its appropriation of classical Chinese fantasy tales, raises questions about the differences between the human and its strange other. As a successful contemporary narrative that incorporates elements from both popular culture and Chinese classics, this film has much to tell about China in the new millennium. In what specific ways does a modern society try to reconnect with the imaginative world of early China, and to what extent are domesticity (family relationships) and sentimentality, or qing (personal feelings), identified in Chinese cinemas, applicable once again to these new-fangled monster films? This essay contends that the film’s assemblage of the strange and the miraculous as captured in traditional tales and the abnormal points to the haunting monstrosity of contemporary life.