APSIRI Research: Reimagining Ancient Aesthetics on the Modern Screen
When an ancient civilisation is brought to life on the modern screen, a complex act of translation takes place — not only between languages, but between eras, sensibilities, and cultural worlds. A new research outcome from the Asia-Pacific Social Innovation Research Institute (APSIRI), authored by Zhehao Yan and Yueteng Li, analyses the cross-cultural reconstruction of Shang dynasty aesthetics in the film Creation of the Gods I, viewed through the dual perspectives of film aesthetics and translation aesthetics.
The challenge the study examines is a fascinating one. To depict the aesthetics of the Shang dynasty for a contemporary, and increasingly international, audience, filmmakers must do more than reproduce historical artefacts. They must interpret an ancient visual and symbolic world and render it in a cinematic language that today’s viewers can feel and understand. This is a form of translation in the deepest sense — carrying meaning across a vast cultural and temporal distance while keeping it alive and resonant.
By combining film aesthetics and translation aesthetics, the research offers an unusually rich analytical frame. Film aesthetics attends to how visual language — image, design, composition, movement — creates meaning and feeling. Translation aesthetics attends to how meaning is carried, adapted, and transformed as it moves between cultural contexts. Brought together, these perspectives allow the study to examine not just what the film shows, but how it reconstructs an ancient aesthetic for new audiences, and what is preserved, transformed, or created anew in the process.
The questions the study raises matter well beyond a single film. How should cultural heritage be represented for contemporary audiences? How can a tradition be made accessible without being flattened or distorted? What is gained, and what is risked, when an ancient aesthetic is reimagined through modern media? As cultural works increasingly travel across borders, these questions become central to how heritage lives in the present and reaches the world.
The research also illuminates the creative power of cross-cultural reconstruction. Far from being a mere act of preservation, the reimagining of Shang aesthetics on screen is a creative achievement in its own right — one that bridges visual storytelling and cross-cultural communication, and that allows an ancient heritage to speak to a global audience. Understanding how such reconstruction works is valuable both for scholarship and for the practice of cultural creation itself.
In a region as culturally rich and diverse as the Asia-Pacific, the thoughtful representation and translation of heritage is a matter of real significance. Work that examines how it is done — with what sensitivity, by what means, to what effect — contributes to the wider project of cultural understanding and exchange.
This research connects to APSIRI’s interest in culture, knowledge, and cross-border exchange. By examining how heritage is reinterpreted for contemporary and international audiences, the Institute seeks to support the kind of cultural communication that allows the Asia-Pacific’s rich traditions to be shared, understood, and renewed.