Reconfiguring the Chronotope

Abstract

This article adopts Mikhail Bakhtin's conception of the chronotope to analyze the 2015 film Laopaoer 老炮兒 (Mr. Six), directed by Guan Hu 管虎 and starring Feng Xiaogang 馮小剛, exploring its representation and reconfiguration of the real as well as the imagined time-spaces of Beijing. Revolving around generational conflicts against the grain of a globalized and gentrified Beijing, Mr. Six creates a strong nostalgic appeal and laments the withering of mores from the past. The film not only attends to the physiognomic remapping of contemporary Beijing but also incorporates topographical imaginaries from the culture of the martial arts. By invoking hybrid sites of memory, Guan Hu mobilizes cultural legacies associated with Beijing and creates a palimpsestic urban chronotope. Furthermore, this article compares Mr. Six to its literary and filmic predecessors, probing its insights and oversights in restoring cultural memories and in capturing the zeitgeist of contemporary China. With gaps and conflicts on textual, contextual, and intertextual levels calling into question the efficacy of Mr. Six's exposé of China's social stratification and urban gentrification, the stories in, of, and around Mr. Six reiterate the coordination between cultural elites and consumer culture.