HEROISM ON SCREEN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN EASTERN AND WESTERN ACTION FILMS

Abstract

Concepts of heroism have been heralded into glory by action cinema over the past decades. This thesis critically analyses the connection between the heroic agency and action films through cinematic and narrative discourse analysis of the Eastern and Western motion pictures. The different social and cultural factors which influenced the representations of heroism on the screens will also be discussed. A detailed comparative analysis will be done across four films: Police Story (1985), Die Hard (1988), Ip Man (2008) and John Wick (2014), to allow clarity across different times and cultures.