Abstract:
Like many other national and/or semi-national cinemas today, contemporary Chinese film tends to be youth or teen-driven. Recent years have seen a plethora of youth films produced by Chinese filmmakers working in and outside the official studio system. Nevertheless, school film, i.e. those set on school campuses and focusing on education activities within the campus context, has not received sufficient attention despite its being a most “definable” subgenre of youth films. This paper aims to trace the development of school films in the People’s Republic of China since the 1950s. It also attempts to discuss some reasons why there has been a shortage of school films being made and why the filmic representation of teacher- and/or student-heroes is often stereotyped in the limited number of school films. The paper concludes with an in-depth study of a more recent school film Thirteen Princess Trees (Lu Yue, 2006), which displays some interesting departures from the existing tradition.
