Fusion Of Chinese And American Cultural Values In The Movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

With the rapid development of globalization, intercultural communication happens in many fields such as economics, literature, and sports, etc. In the movie industry, intercultural communication is also gaining more attention,which is evidenced in the increase of both the intercultural elements in the movies and in the number of movies produced each year. The movie, thus, has become one of the most effective means for intercultural communication and also carries the mission of disseminating cultures. Under this circumstance, it is necessary to work on how to make Chinese movies occupy a place in the global movie industry and spread Chinese culture to international audiences. Chinese knight-errant movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is a successful case. It is a winner in box office of both China and America, and a winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Film, which well demonstrates the recognition of this Eastern-culture-based production by the Western world across the Pacific Ocean.Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a transnational movie, as the movie itself has the old Chinese background, but the producers are from Hollywood and the target audiences are global. It is important to assure that such a transnational movie can bring about effective communication between audiences of the Chinese culture and the international or Western culture at large. The huge success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in both China and America raises a valuable research question on the handling of intercultural elements in movie production. Based on the study of director, Ang Lee's multiple cultural backgrounds and a lot of movie reviews, the research question for the present study is proposed: How can we account for the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon from the perspective of intercultural communication? More specifically, what has led to the recognition of the movie by both Chinese and Western audiences? And how is the fusion of Chinese and American cultural values realized in this movie? To answer such questions, the author first looks into the fundamental theories about cultural values and then works out the framework of analysis for the present study. Content analysis is used in this study. All the conversations of the four leading characters in the movie are analyzed along lines of their words and actions. Based on the study of the theories of Hofstede and Kluckholn, the author outlines some characteristics of Chinese and American cultural values, and uses them as coding criteria for judgement of specific cultural values embedded in the words and actions of each of the four main characters in each conversation. The results show that the movie is saturated with the fusion of Chinese and American cultural values. The two pairs--Li Mubai & Yu Shulien and Jen & Lo demonstrate the characteristics of both Chinese and American cultural values. Although Li Mubai and Yu Shulien are the representatives of people with traditional Chinese cultural values, they show their inner feeling in the end. While Jen and Lo always try to get out of the restrain of tradition, however end with a Chinese traditional way.Then the results--the fusion on three dimensions (collectivism/individualism, high/low power distance, and long-term/short-term orientation) are discussed. At last, the author comes to the conclusion that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is fused with both Chinese and American cultural values which can evoke resonance of the audience of both areas. Its success can be considered as the success of intercultural communication.