Screening War in Contemporary China: The Case of The Assembly

Abstract

War has been a prominent theme in cultural productions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Repeated representations by the socialist cinema and beyond have produced a revolutionary imagination of war that glorifies death and sacrifice, subsuming individual experience of pain and loss under the discourse of the Communist nation-building. This article focuses on a revisionist reading of the revolutionary imagination of war in Feng Xiaogang’s 2007 New Year Film The Assembly. It has a dual focus. First, it discusses the genre practice of war film in the mainland cinema and the relation among war film, representation of violence, heroism, and nation building. Then it examines how Feng’s visceral depiction of combat redirects the focus from the master narrative of nation-building to the individual. Second, focusing on the main character’s quest for honor for his fallen soldiers, this article explores how the film critiques the power structure of the revolutionary honor system that valorizes the revolutionary imagination of war. Ultimately, the discussion proves that the film is as much a confirmation of the revolutionary nation-building as a poignant critique and subversion of the official vision of honor and history.