Strategy+Business – August 2019

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In our early days — from 2005 to about 2010 — most of the scripts we read
and the pitches we heard from young filmmakers were stories about fate. The
lead characters had no agency. There was no free will, or self-determination. The
stories would usually end with the lead character accepting his or her lot in life,
rather than charting his or her own destiny.
This ran counter to the way film stories unreel in Hollywood, where our
films are founded on something called “the hero’s journey.” It comes from Jo-
seph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which examined ancient
mythology and heroic archetypes that still resonate today. Ultimately, faced with
dire consequences, a hero must find some deeper quality within that enables him
or her to grow, change, and triumph over adversity (see Rocky I–V). This gives
the audience someone to root for, something to aspire to, and a shared sense of
optimism and hope when they leave the theater. It’s the thematic underpinning
of virtually every successful Hollywood film, from The Wizard of Oz to Black
Panther — with the textbook example being that moment in Star Wars when
Luke Skywalker turns off the autopilot, finds the Force within himself, and de-
stroys the Death Star.
I would often find myself describing this thematic difference in storytelling
to my screenwriting pals back in Los Angeles. I’d explain that in both Chinese
and American cultures, you’ll find movies where a threatened king arranges for
his daughter to marry an evil warlord in order to maintain peace in the land. In
both cultures, the princess and her young guard (whom the king has chosen to
accompany her) fall in love during the journey. In the Hollywood version, the

I witnessed a kind of growth just

as important as the rising box

office: in the storytelling prowess

of young Chinese filmmakers.

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