Abstract
Since China launched its reform and opening-up campaign, the country experienced significant economic growth and infrastructure expansion, which helped spur the release of numerous science fiction works. Among these works, Zhang Zhilu’s three children’s sf films presented an alternative future for Chinese children and teenagers. This essay contends that while these films portray children as integral to infrastructure and the construction of a market economy network, they opt for natural and playful growth driven by a longing for freedom and emotional connection, and by doing so they circumvent the predetermined and goal-oriented trajectory of social development.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Introduction
- Research Articles
- Between Shenguai and Science: The Visual Imagination of Technical Objects in Republican China
- The Broken Human–Object Continuum: The Technological Future and Socialist Contradictions in Rhapsody of the Ming Tombs Reservoir (1958)
- Myth and Cyber: A Study of the Narrative and Visual Language of Chinese Cyberpunk Anime Films
- Navigating the World of The Stranger (1979) After the Cultural Revolution: Unveiling Hong Kong Leftist Science Fiction Film by Bao Fang
- Imagining an Alternative Future: Children’s Bodies in Wonder Boy (1988), Magic Watch (1990), and Mad Rabbit (1997)
- A Palimpsest of Hong Kong Futures Across Three Fictions (1962–2046)
- Cinematic Science Fiction, Indigenous Mythology, and Multispecies Entanglement: An Ecological Reading of The Mermaid (2016)
- Dreaming Fish, Becoming Fish: Animating Modern Mythology and Zhuangzian Philosophy in the Fantasy Film Big Fish & Begonia
- The Poetics of Journey to the West (2021): Disclosing a Way to Dwell in the World
- From Home to Homeland: Re-Imagining Chinese Diaspora in Recent Science Fiction Films
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Introduction
- Research Articles
- Between Shenguai and Science: The Visual Imagination of Technical Objects in Republican China
- The Broken Human–Object Continuum: The Technological Future and Socialist Contradictions in Rhapsody of the Ming Tombs Reservoir (1958)
- Myth and Cyber: A Study of the Narrative and Visual Language of Chinese Cyberpunk Anime Films
- Navigating the World of The Stranger (1979) After the Cultural Revolution: Unveiling Hong Kong Leftist Science Fiction Film by Bao Fang
- Imagining an Alternative Future: Children’s Bodies in Wonder Boy (1988), Magic Watch (1990), and Mad Rabbit (1997)
- A Palimpsest of Hong Kong Futures Across Three Fictions (1962–2046)
- Cinematic Science Fiction, Indigenous Mythology, and Multispecies Entanglement: An Ecological Reading of The Mermaid (2016)
- Dreaming Fish, Becoming Fish: Animating Modern Mythology and Zhuangzian Philosophy in the Fantasy Film Big Fish & Begonia
- The Poetics of Journey to the West (2021): Disclosing a Way to Dwell in the World
- From Home to Homeland: Re-Imagining Chinese Diaspora in Recent Science Fiction Films