Local Culture and National Identity: The Conflict and Convergence of Mandarin Films and Cantonese Films in Nanyang in the 1930s

In the 1930s, after the emergence of sound films, Chinese films were divided into two production directions: Mandarin films and Cantonese films. As an important distribution market for Chinese films, Nanyang has become a competitive place for these two types of films. During this politically unsettled decade in China, even in Nanyang, far from China’s political center, the competition between Mandarin films and Cantonese films implied the conflicts between local culture and national identity, as well as between mass entertainment and elite discourse. However, under the principle of the supremacy of national interests, Mandarin films and Cantonese films would jointly build, within the framework of “Chinese films,” a nation-state concept far above local identity for overseas Chinese in Nanyang.