Once Upon a Time in Shanghai

I am fascinated by how movies can shape our beliefs about other cultures and about history. Interestingly, most of the permanent film sets shown here represent periods in Chinese history that form the settings for so many films and television episodes. Yet movies frequently play on ambiguity between fact and fiction. Given film censorship codes in China, period films provide a safe and familiar format to tell stories based around “official” narratives. However, historical films can also be used to make veiled criticisms about current events. The movie sets, rivaling real-world cities and monuments in their scale, have themselves become destinations for domestic and international tourists. Despite the fiction, they bear witness to a dynamic and changing China.