From National Allegory to Global Commodity: The Cinematic Images of Gong Li

Abstract

One of the prevalent images of the New Chinese Cinema manifests itself in a woman. Bold and beautiful, strong and sensual, she is trapped in an oppressive world from which she determinedly struggles, oftentimes in vain, to escape. Emblematic of this popular fi gure is Gong Li. In Zhang Yimou’s landmark “Red” Trilogy-Red Sorghum (1987), Ju Dou (1989), and Raise the Red Lantern (1991)—the “magnetism” of Gong, for many critics like Berenice Reynaud, signifi es “Chinese-ness, femininity, and mystery outside her own culture” (28). Gong continues to enthrall under other renowned directors-both Chinese and American-such as Chen Kaige, Wong Kar-Wai, and Rob Marshall. Film stars epitomize, as Richard Dyer suggests, “constant features of human existence,” and such “features never exist outside a culturally and historically specifi c context” (Heavenly 3, 17). From national allegory to global commodity, Gong is a bona fi de Chinese star precisely because her onscreen image embodies certain important features-be they real or imagined-of Chinese existence. As Shu-mei Shih explains, postmodern cultural identities have increasingly turned to visuality for construction and representation (8-16). Exemplary of this trend, Gong’s cinematic images have become a critical site to look at how China and Chinese-ness, and to a great degree, Asia as a whole, are depicted, translated, and transformed on the global stage.