Raiding China’s Tomb Adventures
Our penultimate post is about popular Chinese fiction of the ghostly, grave-robbing kind. We are thrilled to post this piece by writer and translator Xueting Christine Ni, who is currently working with the fantasy and science fiction author Tang Fei, and writing a book on Chinese deities. Having studied English literature in London, and Chinese literature in Beijing, she is now based mainly in the UK.
As a writer on Chinese culture, specialising in pop culture, I’m often asked about genre fiction. “Do the Chinese do science fiction?” or “Does China have Horror?” Over the last two decades or so, Chinese pop culture has grown exponentially. Economic growth and relative political stability have allowed writers and artists the space to let their imagination run free and to create in readers a taste for such entertainment and variety.
Posted in Blog and tagged books, china, Chinese, comic, culture, film, ghost story, horror, literature, novel, tomb raiding, translation
The Path to Freedom
written by Tang Fei, translated by Xueting Christine Ni
“Imagining the worst tomorrow makes me happy.
The gloom of the future lights my path.”
Posted in Blog and tagged china, Chinese, horror, literature, science fiction, translation
Kuai Xian
“Kuai Xian”, given the English title of “The Curse of the Chopsticks” is directed by Ji Yu. It begins with an attack on a patient who has just received a transplant at a private eye hospital, their new eyes mangled and a pair of bloody chopsticks left at the scene.
Posted in Blog and tagged china, Chinese, culture, film, horror, review
Midnight Bookstore II
Directed by Du Jingfeng, “Midnight Bookstore II” is an anthology film, linked by the tale of Daoist monk Lu Shiyi (Peng Yusi) on a mission to recover a lost book of secret techniques. During his search Lu senses the auras of those possessed by bad spirits and offers his help along the way. The possessed characters are all drawn to a 24-hour bookshop and the shopkeeper Wu Xiubo (Zhao Jiaqi), a demon slayer whom Lu finds in possession the lost book. During their battle for this book. Wu and Lu end up saving the lives of these people by either restraining the bad spirits with their powers or converting them to good with benevolence.
Posted in Blog and tagged china, Chinese, culture, film, horror, review
Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal
The Chinese Lunar calendar doesn’t always match up with ours, and our festivals hardly ever overlap. Whilst the West gets all its gruesome ghosts and ghouls taking centre stage at the end of October, the biggest festival of the dead in China takes place half way through the seventh lunar month. This friday saw the end of Zhong Yuan (or Ghost Month http://snowpavilion.co.uk/zhong-yuan-ghost-month/), and to celebrate, here’s a review of 2015’s big fantasy monster movie, released internationally (but not in the UK yet) in August.
Posted in Blog, Reviews and tagged Attack on Titan, Bingbing Li, china, Chinese, cinema, culture, demon, demon slayer, DevilMan, fantasy, film, Frozen, Ghost Month, horror, Kun Chen, Labyrinth, Lord of the Rings, monster, Peter Pau, Shaw Brothers, Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal, Tsui Hark, Wuxia, Zhang Ji Zhong, Zhong Kui, Zhong Yuan
On Chinese Horror: Mainland Classics
Happy Halloween. To celebrate, I’m going to tell you about the history of horror films in mainland China. It’s true that there haven’t been as many horror classics produced in the People’s Republic, as in Hong Kong, due to closer control of more “sensationalist” content, but we should remember that it was the film talent from Shanghai, who migrated to Hong Kong in the early twentieth century that helped Hong Kong’s legendary cinema industry flourish.
Posted in Blog and tagged china, Chinese, cinema, culture, film, horror, mainland, Music at Midnight, noir, Phantom of the Opera
On Chinese Horror: the Jiangshi
In honour of World Zombie Day 2014, I wrote about the China’s traditional monster of the undead, which I have revised and updated for Ghost Month 2021. You might know these are the “hopping vampires” (a misnomer that I shall address in this article). The proper name for them is Jiangshi, and in fact, they had lived in the Chinese fictional imagination for 900 years before the movies.
Posted in Blog and tagged china, Chinese, cinema, culture, film, horror, Jiang Shi, literature, movie, zombie
On Chinese Horror I: Tales of the Strange
2014’s Zhongyuan or Ghost Month, took place in August, and Xiayuan was not until December. Nevertheless, with the crisp scent and keenness of the autumn air, I felt the delicious anticipation for All Hallow’s Eve. So I started a series on the Chinese horror genre. This was the first in the series, now with updates and revisions. It will focus on attitude towards the supernatural and the history of this kind of storytelling.
Posted in Blog and tagged china, Chinese, culture, film, Hong Kong cinema, horror, Liao Zhai, Pu SongLing, zombie