Exploring Narrative Expression in Jiang Wen’s Films

Abstract

As a representative figure of Chinese film author-directors, Jiang Wen's works show highly personalized characteristics in terms of narrative structure, language style and cultural metaphors. This essay takes In the Heat of the Sun and Let the Bullets Fly as its primary subjects of analysis, exploring the deployment of nonlinear narrative, irony, and absurdity in these films, as well as the distinctive articulation of characterization and visual language. Through a close reading of the text and contextual analysis, the article reveals how Jiang Wen constructs a narrative space with political allegory through metaphor, symbolism and parody in the context of censorship and society, to realize a deeper critique of historical memory, power structure and social reality. This study concludes that Jiang Wen's films not only break through the traditional narrative framework in terms of artistic form but also embody strong ideological tension and critical consciousness in terms of cultural expression, which has important aesthetic value and social significance.