Changing Representations of Youth: "Youth Films" in the People's Republic of China

Youth culture is an indicator of social transformations. In a context where youth cultures have been shaped by globalization, contemporary world cinema increasingly becomes youth-oriented in terms of style, subject, and reception. The present paper aims to trace the development of "youth films" in the People's Republic of China since the end of the 1940s within this global context. An examination of how "youth films" talk to and about young people-and how young people are seen in these films-is a particularly revealing way to explore the profound social and cultural changes that have been taking place in that society. It can also highlight the global-local interactions that have reshaped Chinese life and the ways in which certain developments and influences in youth culture have acquired a distinctive Chinese inflection.