China’s New Mainstream Blockbusters’ Characteristics and Trends from the Perspective of Film Industry Aesthetics in the Post-Industrial Era

Abstract

As China became a post-industrial society in 2015, with the development of the film industry, establishing the concept of “film industry aesthetics” is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, as the soft power has become more significant in the international arena, and several Chinese new mainstream blockbusters (CNMB) have suddenly sprung into the box office, making it worthy of attention. CNMB are inseparable from the construction of film industry aesthetics. This paper first explains the relationship between the three concepts—post-industry era, film industry aesthetics and CNMB. Some places of CNMB follow the principles of film industry aesthetics. With the concepts of a Community of Shared Future for Mankind and the China Dream proposed by Chairman Xi Jinping in 2012, the themes of CNMB have been upgraded, presenting many new features and reflecting mainstream values of the rapidly developing Chinese society. Therefore, this study also determines the new characteristics of CNMB. At last, the author reports their development trends in the post-industrial era. This paper hopes to provide reference values to their development, and also to the method of how to form a cultural characteristics of a country and its image and convey its mainstream values in the country and the world. This is beneficial to a country's cultural output and improvements of soft power. It also conforms to the development of China's national “Belt and Road” strategy. This paper uses literature research and an interdisciplinary approach to clarify the correlation between the concepts and the contexts, and then uses the method of generalizations and contrast to sum up CNMB features from the perspective of film industry aesthetics. Furthermore, this paper adopts the literature research method to point out that in the background of the post-industrial era and its development trends, it adopts the method of data analysis, comparison of form, and typical case study. By these research methods, it is found that CNMB' some places are similar to the aesthetics of the film industry. But with the development of the era, there are new characteristics of CNMB. Under industrial rules in the post-industrial era, it should strengthen ways to convey the mainstream values of a country to the world and, thus, enhance a country’s soft power.