Wuxia Cinema and Ethnic Minorities in China: The Han Imagining of Han–Nomad Interactions in the Western Regions

This article examines ethnic minority portrayals in wuxia cinema, distinguishing between productions from mainland China and Hong Kong. Through a comparison of portrayals of Han–nomad relations with Hollywood Westerns’ depictions of white settlers and Native Americans, it highlights mainland Chinese cinema’s unique approach to ethnic dynamics and illuminates the varied ways majority ethnicities depict other ethnic groups and frontier conflicts across different cultural contexts. Focusing on the depictions of historical Han–nomad relationships in the Western Regions (Xiyu), this article first outlines the underlying sociohistorical and ideological influences and then charts their cinematic evolution, culminating in an examination of recent shifts in the portrayal of ethnic dynamics in the new millennium. Unlike Hollywood and Hong Kong commercial films’ frequent oversimplification of ethnic conflicts into moral binaries, post-1980 mainland Chinese wuxia epics often emphasize the sociohistorical complexities underpinning ethnic dynamics and prioritize promoting ethnic solidarity and harmony while potentially sidelining in-depth explorations of the psyches of individual Han and nomadic characters. The new millennium has witnessed an increasing ideological alignment between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese narratives and their tendency to embrace transnational storytelling.