Topography of cinematic heroism: The transregional remakes of A Better Tomorrow (1986)

Abstract

This article investigates the cultural politics and identity discourses in the two East Asian reproductions of A Better Tomorrow (1986). Rethinking the power dynamics of a homogenizing transnationalism from a vantage point that is alternative rather than resistant, this article employs a critical approach that is interconnective instead of hierarchical to refocus on the local and the heterogeneous and argues that each remake renegotiates Woo’s cinematic heroism and retools it into the trope for nationhood and identity. The transnational circulation of John Woo’s classical hero narrative traces how heroism and its historical, cultural, political, gender and ideological connotations are renegotiated and reconfigured for unique representational purposes and sociopolitical agendas. As a politically charged, culturally specific and historically circumscribed concept, heroism is deceptively transcendental, in the sense that its definition and expression defy ideological abstraction and cognitive certitude. This elusiveness precludes a consensus on heroism in the remakes; instead, each film contributes to a shifting topography of cinematic heroism mapped by the intricate dynamics of identity, politics and nationhood. Thus, whereas the tragedy of fragmented brotherhood metaphorized, divided and fractured nationhood in Moo-jeok-ja, Tomorrow 2018 propagandized heroism by replacing violence-glorifying brotherhood with nationalist patriotism.