National and Cosmopolitan Elements of Chinese Film Forever Young and Cross-Cultural Communication

Abstract

As an "atypical" historical film released in recent years, the film Forever Young gives up the usual grand narrative angle and pays attention to the small potatoes. It pieces together and links the hundred-year history of China's struggle and self-improvement through a "messy" and "broken" cross-narrative method and a consistent theme of "being true to yourself”. This paper analyzes the national and cosmopolitan elements reflected in the film and explores the acceptance in both domestic and foreign markets, indicating the weakness of contemporary Chinese films in the process of cross-cultural communication. It has been found out that the elements of nationalism are mainly embodied in three aspects, hundred years historical changes of China, oriental core values and oriental implicit artistic style and that the elements of cosmopolitanism are reflected in its narrative techniques, characterization and the theme.Based on the analysis of the weakness of  this film in cross-cultural communication, this paper suggests that it should avoid dealing with sensitive topics and obscure values for better cross-cultural communication effects.