I found this week’s lesson very interesting. I loved the activity we did during the lesson where we put stickers on the board about the film genres that we know. I especially like how we had the time to research a genre from the broad written by someone else, as it allowed me to add something new to my “potential master research direction list”. I have been trying to actively look for things that interest me for a *potential* master degree, and this activity opened me up to so many different genres that I have never exposed myself to. For the research we did during the lesson, I chose to research into “horror”, because it’s a genre that I know but not familiar with.

As a student born in China but now live in Australia, I have encountered a lot of culture differences, so I naturally wanted to look for the difference between this genre in China and the one in Australia – or more broadly, between the East and the West. This led me to the discovery that there are actually a few different horror genres in Asia: horror films from China mainland, Taiwan, and Hongkong are more similar and are often called Chinese horror, whereas Japanese and Korean horror are more similar and are often compared together. From my personal experience, what makes Chinese horror different to the rest of the horror genres is its high relevancy to the Chinese history. China values its history very highly, and often provokes patriotism within the younger generations through the compulsory history courses at school. Consequently, Chinese citizens have developed a very high awareness of the history of China – what it was like before it unified, what dynasties it had and how they were like, and how it has been invaded and colonised… Therefore, when an element related to the history appears in the film, Chinese audience can quickly catch it, comprehending it, relating it to the real historical event that they are so familiar with, and therefore the sense of horror is intensively amplified.

As the lesson has evoked my interest in this genre – particularly about Chinese horror, I decided to do some further research. I then found an interesting article which evaluates the frequent employment of historical elements in Chinee horror films from a completely different angle. According to Li (2021), the reason why Chinese horror films feature so many traditional elements is because of censorship. Filmmakers are prohibited from featuring any religious / superstitious / supernatural / violent elements, which are the core components of western horror films. Therefore, Chinese horror films had to lean toward ancient elements, such as ghost marriages, and traditional beliefs such as afterlife (2021:14).

Overall, the activity in Monday’s lesson led me to a lot of interesting articles and perspectives. I discovered that I am definitely interested in studying Chinese horror film, its components, its difference to the West, and its effects on the society, which is something that I have noted down for my future self when I decided to choose a master’s degree.

References:

Li Y (2021) ‘Contemporary Chinese Horror Films: Genre, Censorship, Market’, Davis ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: 1-14. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/contemporary-chinese-horror-films-genre/docview/2572615409/se-2?accountid=13552