Chinese Main-melody Cinema History, institutions, languages, and narratives

This thesis is dedicated to the study of Chinese propaganda cinema, with particular reference to the so- called “main-melody cinema” (zhuxuanlü dianying 主旋律电影), a category established in 1987 to main- tain the propagandistic tradition of cinema in the People’s Republic of China. Since the 2000s, main- melody cinema has become one of the most commercially successful genres in the Chinese film industry. The “main melody” is analysed here in two sections, both of which draw upon Chinese Media Studies and Chinese Film Studies.