Chinese Traditional Folklore & Steampunk? -- A Review for Love, Death and Robot S1E8 | Teen Ink

Chinese Traditional Folklore & Steampunk? -- A Review for Love, Death and Robot S1E8

July 4, 2022
By SissiKang BRONZE, Beijing, Other
SissiKang BRONZE, Beijing, Other
2 articles 3 photos 0 comments

The theme for Good Hunting is a perfect combination of Chinese folklore (the myth about Hulijing) and steampunk. These two topics make a seamless transition from idyllic life to urban life, which shows the class stratification and unrealistic transformation of nature. Normally, we would suppose the ending for this kind of film is a dramatic apocalypse, and then everything returns to nature; however, the ingenious conception of this episode is Yan (the Hulijing) remodels her physical body to reclaim her spirituality, something vanished along with the proceeding industrialization. Thus, under the assistance of Liang, Yan revitalized her power and reverse into a fox, in a mechanical version. This alteration inspires me that one might lose the primordial spirituality and tenderness due to the proceeding development of human civilization, but we can retrieve them back by the advanced technology in a nuanced way. The process of history can never be hindered by any individual unwillingness, but anybody can take advantage of the unique edge in the era, like the advanced technology, for example. Compared with accumulating those resentments and hatred inside the heart, utilizing the existing resources and making yourself stronger is a wiser choice. In the 21st century, lots of people complain about the loss of cultural and ideological diversity due to globalization. Indeed, glocalization homogenizes the mindset and the development pattern in many areas, but indisputably, the efficiency and connectivity get better along with the increasing time-space compression, so more tribes and ethnicity have the opportunity to propagate their culture through online tourism and social media platforms. Although some platforms commercialize the culture and turn it into a selling point, the Internet still allows more people to recognize those groups which promote tourism or other tertiary sectors’ development. Thus, the local government can use the money to subsidize the residents and revitalize their cultural construction. In this case, perhaps the things we lost can be compensated by the edge of the era.


The author's comments:

Most sci-fi shows a pessimistic outlook about future, but Good Hunting provides us a unique viewpoint that make the future optimistic again. If we cannot let future change in the way we like, then utilized the advantages in this era to retrieve what we loss. Thus, we should not always be disappointed about the future, it's not as devastating as we imagine.


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