Abstract
American director David Kaplan’s 2007 Year of the Fish moves the Chinese variant of the ninth-century Cinderella story “Ye Xian” to New York City’s Chinatown in the twentyfirst century. The film stands out among other Cinderella films in its accentuation of the complexity of cultural identification and offers American and other viewers a new perspective on Chinese culture through a Chinese Cinderella’s struggle in an alien and hostile environment. Fictionalizing the challenges of a specific community and representing different approaches to acculturation and cultural identification, Kaplan seems to criticize American capitalism and indicates the significance of ethnic traditions in surviving in a different culture.
Recommended Citation
Qiu, Xiaoqing. "Cinderella in Chinatown: Seeking Identity and Cultural Values in Year of the Fish." Marvels & Tales 31.2 (2017). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol31/iss2/8>.
