Selling nationalism: the Hong Kong teleplay the legendary Huo Yuanjia in 1980s Mainland China

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 1984, the Hong Kong teleplay Legendary Huo Yuanjia was officially released on national television stations in Mainland China. The teleplay, shot against the background of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century China, tells the story of Huo Yuanjia, a nationalist kung fu hero who carries forward the national spirit and constructs a national identity through practicing martial arts. Upon its release, the teleplay was well-received across Mainland China; much better received than it was in Hong Kong. It was released when the reform and opening up of Mainland China was at its initial stage and when China and Britain had just reached substantive conclusions on the issue of Hong Kong’s return to China. There are two main reasons for the play’s popularity. First, the historical and cultural information associated with the image of Huo Yuanjia, together with its rhetorical expression in the teleplay, brought “Old China” back to life, helping to relieve the identity crisis the Chinese people were experiencing during the process of modernization. Second, the teleplay provided mass media (as well as the Chinese government) the logic to mobilize national support for its “qu bingfu” efforts, enabling the media to integrate individual resources during the process of modernization. Therefore, Legendary Huo Yuanjia set a good example for Mainland media to follow regarding how to communicate nationalist ideology through commercial narrative. The rhetorical method it adopted became the basic method of nationalist heroic narrative in the Mainland for the following three decades.