4 - Earthquake on Screen: Aftershock in film and Television

Presentation Abstract
This paper takes a comparative look at the film and television adaptations of Zhang Ling's novella Aftershock, which was published in Chinese in 2009 and is to be released in English translation in 2024. One year after its first publication, the novella was turned into the first Chinese IMAX film Aftershock, also known as Tangshan Earthquake, directed by China's renowned filmmaker Feng Xiaogang. The success of the film at the Chinese box office not only brought this Toronto-based Chinese Canadian writer increasing fame on the international literary stage, but also advanced the production of a 38-episode TV drama in 2013. Both cinematic and television adaptations take an overt sentimental turn and shift the focus from psychologic trauma to family reunions enveloped by a warm sense of healing. Less noticeably, however, the two adaptations, retelling the story in different media forms with distinct audiovisual languages and storytelling narratives, reveal mixed messages about forgiveness and reconciliation. The film connects the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake with the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake and foregrounds shared suffering and humanity in the face of natural disasters to facilitate the reconciliation process, whereas TV drama constantly delays forgiveness and presents transient but intriguing moments for the audience to reflect on the possibility of reconciliation.