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ASPA 3970: Popular Culture in East AsiaMain MenuImage Workshop ProjectThe Authenticity of Chinese Wu Xia CulturePost 1Post 2Post 3Group FacilitationFinal ReflectionAbout the AuthorSourcesJiajun Chenc58a28cc971bf43fd7daecd6fa147626f8b6fe06
Ang Lee, director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and a member of Chinese diaspora:
While the article Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Diasporic Reading concludes that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was mainly targeted at the market of Chinese diaspora, I suggest that the film was targeted at a much broader market, and Chinese diaspora was only a section of its target market. Even though all three producers of the film are ethnic Chinese, the production of the film was supported and financed by companies and bank in different countries. If the producers planned to market the film only at Chinese diaspora, those big film-making corporations might expect limited revenue and the financing bank might evaluate higher risks of the film. Therefore, the target market needed to be much broader than only Chinese diaspora. In addition, if the film was mainly designed for Chinese diaspora, the film would have only been played in theaters that generally had high volume of Chinese consumers, such as the theaters in Chinatowns. Instead, the film was showed across the United States, and many theaters around the world where not so many Chinese diaspora were inhabited.
I believe that most people in the world would like to tell people from other countries about their unique culture in their home country. The reason people do so is that they are proud of their homeland country. Being a member of Chinese diaspora, Director Ann Lee always feels his connection to his homeland China and feels that he has duty—in a voluntary way—to spread Chinese tradition and culture to the world. It is true that the contents in the film might be inauthentic and out of fashion, but the film itself does not bother to serve as Lee’s tool to spread Chinese tradition and culture in a proud way. Thus, I believe that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon produced by Ann Lee was intended not only for Chinese diaspora, but also for everyone in the world.