Abstract

In the western movie history of more than one hundred years, Chinese themes have been an important part of western movies. Western movies that concerns China have both considerable quantity and diverse genres. Today’s China is witnessing a rapid development both socially and economically, meanwhile China’s international standing has risen notably and its international influence has increased significantly. As a result, more and more western countries pay close attention to China comparing with the past few decades. Along with the flourish of world film industry, movie is becoming one of the most vital ways of cultural transmission. At the same time it is also a principal channel that reflects China’s especially Chinese image in westerners’ minds. It seems more and more frequent of the westerners to take Chinese culture and Chinese people as the theme of their movies or just involve Chinese elements.

This paper mainly takes the Other theory and Orientalism as the theoretical basis and adopts content analysis and case study as research methods in order to study China’s, especially Chinese people’s image that are reflected in western movies. The thesis paper first introduced the definition and backgrounds of the Other theory and Orientalism. Then it goes to the part of the mystified and beautified image of China reflected in western movies; The Lost Horizon is an example. After that it will talk about the uglified part of China’s and Chinese’s image in western movies. This part includes demonized, stereotyped and other images of China. Movies like the Last Emperor, film franchises of Doctor Fu Manchu are used as studying cases. Then it puts forward the positive image of China in western movies. And this point of view is reflected in 2012. Each part contains brief explanation of possible reasons that caused the occurrences of Chinese images in western movies.

This article makes every effort to analyze China’s and Chinese images embodied in western movies from the perspective of objectivity and dialectical analysis and get a deeper understanding of the practical significance of western movies that involve Chinese elements.
 
Key words: the Other theory, Orientalism, Chinese image, western movie, uglify