The Human and the Beast: Humanity, Animality, and Cultural Critique in Contemporary Chinese Cinema

Abstract

With its capacity to visually demonstrate the interconnectedness of human and other life forms, cinema is perfect for interrogating the set boundaries between humans and animals. This article explores the cinematic representation of the human–animal relationship in two Chinese-language films, Cow and Wolf Totem, and examines the ways in which these two films foreground the animal figures and their interactions with humans to question and destabilize the conventional human–animal divide. Reading Cow through the Deleuzian lens of becoming, Yanhong Zhu argues that this film seeks to reposition humans and animals in “the zone of proximity,” where boundaries can be blurred or dissolved. Zhu further argues that through the shift from “becoming-animal” in the original novel to the animal’s Umwelt (environment) in the film adaptation, Wolf Totem reveals how cinema can possibly grant agency to animals and challenge the anthropocentric human–animal distinction.