Families, Intellectuals, and Enemies in the “Red Classic” Remake New Tunnel Warfare

This chapter investigates how the animated film New Tunnel Warfare (Xin didao zhan, 2009), a remake of the red classic Tunnel Warfare (Didao zhan, 1965), reshapes the socio-political ideologies present in the original film for a twenty-first century child audience. The chapter particularly focuses, firstly, on how New Tunnel Warfare re-inserts the biological family into Communist discourse, in contrast to the original film where the biological family was less important than the Communist ‘family’ of people unrelated by blood. Secondly, the chapter analyses the overt representation of violence in New Tunnel Warfare and the responses of its characters to violent acts. Finally, the chapter examines the film’s revival of the intellectual as a positive figure in Communist mythology. The chapter argues that these changes have been made in New Tunnel Warfare to reflect the major socio-political changes in Chinese society between the 1960s and the early twenty-first century

The Politics and Aesthetics of Rediscovering Heroes of the “Red Classics” in Lianhuanhua of the Reform Era

Lianhuanhua (picture story books) became popular in China in the 1920s and 30s and had their golden age between the 1950s and 1970s when many of the “red classic” tales of communist heroes appeared in lianhuanhua form. With the advent of the Reform Era lianhuanhua lost their appeal as television took over popular entertainment and people turned away from the propaganda-style stories of class conflict. In the new millennium, however, economic and social uncertainty brought nostalgia for the past. The old stories reappeared, often as reprints, but also frequently in remakes and adaptations. It is argued that while the reprints catered to nostalgic longings, the remakes and adaptations addressed themselves to current concerns. In a case study of 2 new lianhuanhua versions of Red Classics, Red Sister-in-law and Who is the most lovable person? this chapter considers how socio-economic change and changing political needs of the Communist Party reshaped each of the lianhuanhua with respect to 1) the content of its textual component through the extension of the original story and 2) the graphic component through a changed aesthetics and politics of portraiture, marking a fundamental shift in the role of the working class as hero, subject and reader.

How Is Revolution “Popularized”?

Revolutionary popular novels that took revolutionary history as their subject matter appeared in the mid-1950s and became one of the most important genres in modern Chinese literature, garnering a large reading public. Tracks in the Snowy Forest, the most representative of these novels, employed three main elements from traditional fiction, namely “heroes, youths, and gods” to represent the modern concept of Chinese revolution, thereby using old bottles to contain new wine. Careful analysis of these novels demonstrates the complex, intricate relationship between revolution and tradition in modern China.