Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean Symmetry
The twelve-episode Chinese TV series Yinmi de Jiaoluo (隱秘的角落 Hidden Corner, translated as The Bad Kids [2020]) dances on a Blakean “The Tyger and the Little Lamb” tightrope between childlike innocence and homicidal nihilism, between an art house sensibility and a pop culture chained to party propaga...
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| Language: | English |
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Michigan Publishing
2023-07-01
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| Series: | Global Storytelling |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/gs/article/id/2756/ |
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| author | Sheng-mei Ma |
| author_facet | Sheng-mei Ma |
| author_sort | Sheng-mei Ma |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The twelve-episode Chinese TV series Yinmi de Jiaoluo (隱秘的角落 Hidden Corner, translated as The Bad Kids [2020]) dances on a Blakean “The Tyger and the Little Lamb” tightrope between childlike innocence and homicidal nihilism, between an art house sensibility and a pop culture chained to party propaganda. Amidst the flood of ethnocentric and jingoistic police procedurals “with Chinese characteristics” on TV, director Xin Shuang (辛爽) energizes his tour de force with a sensibility ranging far beyond Chinese shores, flirting with Western artists and metaphysical self-reflexiveness torn between good and evil, innocence and meaninglessness. Xin Shuang adapts Zijin Chen’s (紫金陈) eponymous web novel while imbuing the series with an off-kilter, haunting Yeatsian “terrible beauty” of violence and attraction.1 The Bad Kids made a killing not so much in profits as in the true art of Sino Noir, or Red China Noir. The eponymous “bad kids” blackmail a murderer to obtain funds for a life-saving surgery. Courting his own death, this “loving” killer saves one of the three kids from an asthma attack and spares the other two out of a fatherly compulsion to sire his own offspring, to pass on the legacy of revenge and guilt, to prolong his life—his afterlife, rather—as he confides: “I want you all to live—to live like me.” The Bad Kids’ Red China Noir teeters on a Blakean symmetry of love and hate, East and West. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-44b5847a1d9747a9b637bcc4eaca16f7 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2769-4941 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-07-01 |
| publisher | Michigan Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Global Storytelling |
| spelling | doaj-art-44b5847a1d9747a9b637bcc4eaca16f72025-08-20T02:25:34ZengMichigan PublishingGlobal Storytelling2769-49412023-07-013110.3998/gs.2756Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean SymmetrySheng-mei Ma0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4107-4693English, Michigan State UniversityThe twelve-episode Chinese TV series Yinmi de Jiaoluo (隱秘的角落 Hidden Corner, translated as The Bad Kids [2020]) dances on a Blakean “The Tyger and the Little Lamb” tightrope between childlike innocence and homicidal nihilism, between an art house sensibility and a pop culture chained to party propaganda. Amidst the flood of ethnocentric and jingoistic police procedurals “with Chinese characteristics” on TV, director Xin Shuang (辛爽) energizes his tour de force with a sensibility ranging far beyond Chinese shores, flirting with Western artists and metaphysical self-reflexiveness torn between good and evil, innocence and meaninglessness. Xin Shuang adapts Zijin Chen’s (紫金陈) eponymous web novel while imbuing the series with an off-kilter, haunting Yeatsian “terrible beauty” of violence and attraction.1 The Bad Kids made a killing not so much in profits as in the true art of Sino Noir, or Red China Noir. The eponymous “bad kids” blackmail a murderer to obtain funds for a life-saving surgery. Courting his own death, this “loving” killer saves one of the three kids from an asthma attack and spares the other two out of a fatherly compulsion to sire his own offspring, to pass on the legacy of revenge and guilt, to prolong his life—his afterlife, rather—as he confides: “I want you all to live—to live like me.” The Bad Kids’ Red China Noir teeters on a Blakean symmetry of love and hate, East and West.https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/gs/article/id/2756/Yinmi de JiaoluoThe Bad KidsXin ShuangQin HaoRed China Noir |
| spellingShingle | Sheng-mei Ma Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean Symmetry Global Storytelling Yinmi de Jiaoluo The Bad Kids Xin Shuang Qin Hao Red China Noir |
| title | Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean Symmetry |
| title_full | Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean Symmetry |
| title_fullStr | Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean Symmetry |
| title_full_unstemmed | Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean Symmetry |
| title_short | Three Bad Kids, One Loving Killer: Red China Noir in Blakean Symmetry |
| title_sort | three bad kids one loving killer red china noir in blakean symmetry |
| topic | Yinmi de Jiaoluo The Bad Kids Xin Shuang Qin Hao Red China Noir |
| url | https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/gs/article/id/2756/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT shengmeima threebadkidsonelovingkillerredchinanoirinblakeansymmetry |