A Study of Chinese Kung Fu Films based on the analysis of uses and Gratifications Theory

Abstract

Kung fu films stand out among many types of films and are sought after by a large number of loyal audiences. In order to explore the mystery, we use the theory of uses and gratifications theory to study kung fu films in order to explore the audience's viewing needs of kung fu films In the existing research, most scholars adopt qualitative research and Chinese culture contained in kung fu movies. Few people use quantitative research, and this area of research is almost blank. Therefore, we conducted a quantitative research on kung fu films based on the methodology of uses and gratifications. The questions revolve around: Can kung fu movies meet audiences' needs? What is the purpose of watching a kung fu movie? After analysis with SPSS, interesting results emerged. In the regression analysis, we found that the psychological need for compensation has a positive impact on Viewing satisfaction, while the social need has a significant negative impact on viewing intention. At the end of the article, we also put forward my own solutions. We also hope to provide better suggestions for the development of Chinese kung fu films through my research, so as to make kung fu films more perfect.

1. Introduction

In many movie types in China, there is a film genre with China film was born with long, this film type class contains rich Chinese traditional culture essence, and martial arts, ethics, religion, philosophy, etc have deep inside in contact, is that we know a cultural paradigm of Chinese history and society, its culture significance far more than other Chinese film type. The genre spread to Hollywood in the 1970s, It is warmly pursued by western filmmakers and has now become the object of study and imitation of similar theme films in the West. Rooted in the soil of Traditional Chinese culture, and accepted by both eastern and western societies, the film genre is Chinese Kung Fu film.

The honor and commercial value achieved by kung Fu films are difficult to be achieved by other types of Films in China. In terms of honors, crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won four oscars including the Best Foreign Language Film at the 73rd Academy Awards and the Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director at the 58th Golden Globe Awards in 2001. In 2003, Hero was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film award at the 75th Academy Awards and the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the 60th Golden Globe Awards. In 2014, the Grandmaster was nominated for best Cinematography and Best Costume Design in two technical categories at the 86th Academy Awards and won an unprecedented 12 awards at the 33rd Hong Kong Film Awards. Hou hsiao-hsien won the Best Director award at the 68th Cannes International Film Festival in May 2015 for his directorial debut of the period martial arts film “The Assassin.”

In commercial terms, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon grossed $128 million in North America and $213 million worldwide. Hero grossed 53.71 million US dollars in North America and 177 million US dollars worldwide. The mainland box office took 250 million RMB, accounting for 83% of the global total. Hero not only opened a new era of commercial blockbusters in China and played an important role in promoting the development of The Chinese film industry, but also truly introduced Domestic films to the world.

Kung fu films have a strong international influence. Just take the North American market as an example. Among the top 10 foreign language films in North America, four Chinese films on the list are kung fu films, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Top 10 grossing North American foreign language films of all time.

The 2013 research project of “Research on the International Communication of Chinese Film Culture” hosted by the Institute of International Communication of Chinese Culture of Beijing Normal University collected 1, 436 valid questionnaires from foreign audiences in 99 countries and regions and nearly 40 languages worldwide. Worldwide, the results show that the most famous Chinese actor followed by Bruce lee, Jackie Chan, jet li, referring to the Chinese film when overseas audience with first think of the Chinese kung fu, one of the most recognized by overseas audiences 10 Chinese films in which 7 is a kung fu movie, the most recognized by the world Chinese film type is Kung Fu, The most attractive element of Chinese films is the ability to make violent kung fu scenes beautiful and entertaining. “After watching Chinese films, foreign audiences have the impression that Chinese people are aggressive and chivalrous [1].” It can be concluded from the questionnaire that the most popular type of Chinese film for foreign audiences is kung fu film, and kung fu film is an important way for foreign audiences to know Chinese film and China.

Chinese kung Fu films are the only mature genre films in China. The study of kung fu films can find out the development of this type of films, so as to provide a certain reference for the development of other types of films. The success of kung fu films in the development of genre is closely related to the active movie-watching behavior of the audience.

The audience's movie-watching behavior is the guarantee of film box office, provides a steady flow of operating funds for the development of kung fu films, and promotes the benign development of this type of films. Studying the audience of kung fu films is one of the important ways to explore the development of Chinese kung fu films, and the uses and gratifications theory in communication studies provides a scientific method of audience research.

Chinese kung fu films have attracted numerous fans both at home and abroad, and are highly appraised by people. Facing the current situation that people are so fond of Kung fu films, it is necessary to analyze the behavior and psychology of the audience, and understand the needs and behaviors of the audience through the uses and gratifications theory.

By comparing with previous studies, I found that most researches on Kung fu films in China adopt qualitative research. Most researchers analyze the evolution of Chinese kung fu films from the history of Chinese kung fu films, or Chinese Kung fu films and national spirit.Such as: “When seeing the chivalrous scenes of punishing evil and promoting good deeds in Chinese kung Fu Films, The scene in which the invaders and the enemies of the nation were beaten to the ground in order to preserve the dignity of the nation and the nation[2].”There will always be cheers and applause in the cinema. “It can be seen that in the inner world, people still have a strong identification with the national spirit [3]. This thesis chooses the kung fu films created by Bruce Lee as the research object, and tries to analyze the Chinese philosophical thoughts and national imagination conveyed in them from the perspective of semiotics.

At the same time, I also found that scholars' quantitative research on kung fu movies mainly focused on audience's preference and satisfaction with the content of kung fu movies, but rarely involves the relationship between audience's demand and satisfaction with kung fu films.Such as:“Hong Kong kung fu films have become the main form of introducing Chinese films and some quintessence of Chinese culture to the world[4].” kung fu films in the personage inside course of study, with the help of the show is no longer a simple fighting or violent scenes, nor to the loyal, righteousness, spiderman, etc on the plot performance orientation, is actually in the pursuit of pure beauty, namely, movement, strength and masculinity, with the power of the movement presented out rhythms and unique charm, give a person with strong visual impact. Due to the variety of Chinese martial arts, its form on the screen is much richer and more interesting than boxing or western action films. And this is also an element of the audience's early favorite kung fu films.

Therefore, I hope to make up for the shortcomings of previous studies by classifying the audience's demand for watching kung fu films. I will take Kung fu films as an example and Chinese audiences as the research object. Through questionnaire survey and analysis results of SPSS software, and I explores the classification of audience's demands for kung fu films and the relationship between demands and satisfaction. Therefore, an objective analysis is made from the perspective of the audience and kung fu films. I hope this study will contribute to the improvement of kung fu film presentation.

2. Theoretical background and literature review

2.1 Uses and Gratifications Theory

The establishment of the uses and gratifications research school aims to explore the reasons and purposes of audience's use of media. As early as the 1940s, there was a study on the audience's listening to radio plays in the United States. The study found that listening to radio plays provided an opportunity for the audience, mainly housewives, to vent their emotions.

In the 1970s, uses and gratifications research entered a new stage of development. American scholars Katz, Grevitch and Bramler found that the audience's use of media originates from the social and psychological needs of the audience, and the expectations of mass media or other sources lead to different modes of media contact. This leads to the satisfaction of needs, while other outcomes are mostly unintentional.“The audience has self-awareness, and each person has different degrees of self-awareness[5].” The higher the degree of self- awareness, the better the understanding of their own needs, and the more likely they are to use the media. To put it simply, different audiences use media for different reasons, and audiences are dominant in the use of media. Katz et al pointed out that“the theory of uses and gratifications regards the audience as a group with specific ‘needs’ and believes that they ‘use’ the media based on the motivation of specific needs, so that these needs can be ‘met’[6].”

However, there are still different views in the academic circle, which holds that the audience does not always use the media with a clear purpose and has certain randomness. In about a TV In the survey of the audience, there are two different tendencies. One of them is in line with the uses and gratifications theory, while the other holds that audiences decide to use film media before choosing program content according to their own needs. The survey results show that 91% of the cases are in line with the uses and gratifications theory, which also fully demonstrates that the uses and gratifications theory for audience analysis has a high degree of rationality. Similarly, this survey also shows that when audiences use media, they are not all rational and active choices, and may be caused by some habits. In this case, they use media to relieve pressure and escape from reality.The theory of uses and gratifications is undoubtedly of great significance. The research focus of communication studies is how the information sent by the communicator acts on audience to audience use of the message sent by the communicator.

Dutch scholar McGuire once said: “The motivation expressed by the audience to choose the media content and the way they explain and evaluate the media content all indicate that there is a fairly stable and consistent structure of audience needs [7].”In the study of the theory of uses and gratifications, we must pay full attention to the deep reasons for the audience to choose to use media, such as the influence of historical culture, values, social environment and other factors on the audience. Literature and art provide a world in which people need to compensate for what they lack in real life on a spiritual level. Chinese audiences have strong interest in kung fu films. In the final analysis, it is a reflection of the historical culture, values, social environment and other factors that urge audiences to use the media. uses and gratifications studies demonstrate that the audience is proactive and will use the media according to their own needs. This research method is particularly important for the development of kungfu films and the genre development of Chinese films. Only by meeting the needs of audiences and producing films desired by audiences can continuous funds be provided, so as to promote the industrialization and genre development of Chinese films.

2.2 literature review

The theory of uses and gratifications has become an important method to study media phenomena since it was put forward. “Many researchers have applied this theory to mass media, video, film, Internet and other media [8].”

Table 2. Use and satisfy theoretical literature previous research

In the previous research of the first paper:Based on the theoretical framework of uses and gratifications, this paper designed and verified the dimensions of cinema viewing to satisfy audience needs, and screened out the key influencing factors of audience behavior and intention through correlation and regression analysis.

In the second part of the previous research:Theoretical framework based on the uses and gratifications, through the form of questionnaire to understand the use of “earthy” short video audience behavior and meet the situation, analysis the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of media communication, and combining with the existing problems of forming "earthy" short video composite guide pointed out the ascension path, in order to achieve the goal of purification from media network environment.

In the previous research of the third paper:In order to analysis, personal characteristics, control variables, and then into the characteristics, as the independent variable, the municipal government intention as the dependent variable Spring Festival to implement multiple analysis results, a regression model in the existing channel, TV variety shows, users may be late establishment characteristic factors, the more positive, pay attention to watch the intentions can be seen as improving.

From previous studies, we can see that the uses and gratifications theory is an important method to study media phenomena. Therefore, the topic of this study requires the use and gratitude theory. Based on previous studies and combined with the research direction of this paper, the focus of this study is on the audience's demand and satisfaction for kung fu films. Therefore, the research contents of this study are as follows:

Research question:

RQ1: What are the use of motivation to watch kung fu films.

Assumptions:

H1: Assume that use of motivation has a positive impact on viewing satisfaction.

H2: Assume that use of motivation has a positive impact on viewing intention.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1 Research design

In order to achieve the research purpose, this study will adopt the research method of combining literature research and empirical research. Firstly, the concept of uses and gratifications theory is explained in detail through literature research. Secondly, the empirical study will develop questionnaires on the basis of literature research, and then use the Internet questionnaire surveyWen Juan Xing" special platform to send questionnaires to the domestic audience. Finally, SPSS will be used for empirical analysis.

3.2 Selection of variances

3.2.1 Survey Objects and Material Collection

Table 3. previous research of the measurement project

In previous studies, participants in the questionnaire were mainly in their 20s and 30s. Therefore, it can be seen from the above situation that the number of valid questionnaires colleㅠㅠㅠcted after the release of the questionnaire is 200-300, and the age group participating in the sample survey is basically 20-30 years old. Therefore, this study plans to conduct an online questionnaire survey using the Questionnaire platform Of China “Wen Juanxing” Professional, and distribute 420 questionnaires. The target population of the selected sample is 15-40 years old movie-goers. The study asked: What is your gender? How old are you? What is your educational background? What's your occupation? How much do you earn each month? How many kung fu films have you seen?

These basic questions have been studied in advance, so they can become the questions in my questionnaire and have authenticity and reliability.

3.2.2 Motivation of Movie audience

The so-called "use motivation" generally refers to the user in order to meet their own expectations and needs. It can be defined as what to use for purposes, as well as the psychological needs and social needs of users to use media.

In this study, the motivation of the audience can be defined as: the purpose of the audience to watch kung fu films, namely to meet the diversified needs of the audience. On the basis of previous research results, this study summarizes the audience's motivation for watching kung fu films, which can be roughly divided into emotional needs, cognitive needs, social needs, aesthetic needs, moral and ethical needs and psychological needs for compensation.

Table 4. previous research of the motivation to watch kung fu films

In order to highlight the novelty of the article, I found two variables that are very suitable for the study of kung fu movies, and also very consistent with the Chinese people and the spirit of Traditional Chinese martial arts, that is, moral and ethical needs and psychological compensation needs. The moral and ethical demands are also very consistent with the national spirit of Chinese people. Many people believe that after watching Bruce Lee's movies, they are deeply moved by his national spirit and can enhance their national self-confidence and national pride after watching the movie. The same is true for psychological compensation. In real life, people can't defeat bad guys with kung fu like the strong ones in kung fu movies, so they make psychological compensation by watching kung fu movies. When watching movies, they imagine that they are the strong ones, defeat the bad guys and promote justice. These two variables are very consistent with my research and very special, not as common as other variables, so I think the research is novel.

3.2.3 Viewing satisfaction

Satisfaction is a psychological state that refers to a person's subjective evaluation of the quality of a relationship. It is the pleasure after the customer's needs are met, and the relative relationship between the customer's expectation of the product or service in advance and the actual feeling after the actual use of the product or service. If this psychological state is measured by a number, the number is called satisfaction, customer satisfaction is the basic condition of customer loyalty.

Table 5. previous research of the Viewing satisfaction

In terms of measuring the independent variable of ratings satisfaction, based on previous studies, this study changed the measurement item "Korean films" into "Kung Fu films" and applied it to the questionnaire survey of this paper.

3.2.4 previous research of the Viewing intention

The use of social media in TV viewing can ultimately influence audiences' decisions about whether or not to watch relevant programs, or whether to continue to watch the programs they are watching. To gauge this intent, I would continue to watch what I've been watching so far. “I'm willing to keep watching what I've been watching.” “I might keep watching what I've been watching [21]”. As can be seen from this pilot study, viewing intention is of great importance to media. Therefore, in this study also uses the variable of viewing intention to measure.

Table 6. previous research of the Viewing intention

4.Results

4.1 Characteristics of specimens

The questionnaire will be published from June 7, 2021 to June 17, 2021. A total of 420 questionnaires were obtained after 10 days. Delete untrusted data within 60 seconds of answering the questionnaire, and finally get 300 data. (n=300)

Table 7. Characteristics of specimens

4.2 Answer the research questions through factor analysis

Research Question:What are the use of motivation to watch kung fu films.

Table 8. motivation to watch kung fu films

Therefore, through factor analysis, the audience's demand for kung fu films can be divided into six categories. According to their characteristics, they can be divided into cognitive needs, social needs, aesthetic needs, moral and ethical needs, compensation psychological needs and emotional needs.

Table 9. viewing satisfaction and viewing intention

Therefore, through factor analysis, audience motivation can be divided into two categories. According to their characteristics, they are called viewing intention, viewing satisfaction.

4.3 Correlation analysis

In order to study the hypothesis proposed in this study, we conducted a correlation analysis of people's various demands, ratings satisfaction and ratings intention for watching kung fu films. The test results are as follows:

Table 10. correlation analysis

When Pearson correlation coefficient is between 0.2-0.4, there is a low correlation. There is a relatively high correlation between 0.4-0.7, a high correlation between 0.7-0.9, and an ultra-high correlation between 0.9 and 0.9.

As can be seen from the above table, correlation analysis was used to study the correlation between emotional needs, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, social needs, moral and ethical needs, Compensate for psychological needs, viewing intention and viewing satisfaction, and Pearson correlation coefficient was used to show the strength of the correlation.

Specific analysis shows that: All the 8 items of emotional needs, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, social needs, moral and ethical needs, psychological needs of compensation, viewing intention and viewing satisfaction showed significant correlation values of 0.417, 0.367, 0.525, 0.390, 0.433, 0.370, 0.376, respectively. And the correlation values are all greater than 0, which means that there is a positive correlation between emotional needs, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, social needs, moral and ethical needs, psychological needs of compensation, viewing intention and viewing satisfaction.

4.4 Hypothesis Verification

Regression analysis was used to conduct hypothesis testing, and the results were as follows.Hypothesis 1:It is assumed that audience demand has a positive impact on audience satisfaction.

Table 11. regression analysis

As can be seen from the above table, 6 demands are taken as independent variables, while viewing satisfaction is taken as dependent variable for linear regression analysis. As can be seen from the above table, the model formula is: Viewing satisfaction =0.806 + 0.045 emotional needs. Aesthetic needs +0.386. Cognitive needs +0.017. Social needs +0.012. Moral requirements +0.190. Compensation for psychological needs +0.151. The r-square value of the model is 0.452, which means that emotional needs, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, social needs, moral and ethical needs, and compensation psychological needs are 45.2% of the reasons for the changes in audience satisfaction.

When conducting the F-test on the model, it was found that the model passed the F-test (F=40.237, P =0.000<0.05), which indicated that at least one of the emotional needs, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, social needs, moral and ethical needs and compensation psychological needs would have an impact on the satisfaction of viewing. In addition, the multi-collinearity test of the model found that, All VIF values in the model are less than 5, which means there is no collinearity problem. In addition, durbin-Watson value is near the number 2, which indicates that the model does not have autocorrelation and there is no correlation between sample data. Therefore, the model is good.

Hypothesis 2:It is assumed that the audience's demand has a positive effect on the audience's viewing intention.

Table 12. regression analysis

As can be seen from the above table, 6 demands are taken as independent variables and viewing intention as dependent variable for linear regression analysis. As can be seen from the above table, the model formula is: Viewing intention =0.621+ 0.065 emotional needs. Aesthetic needs +0.220. Cognitive needs +0.232. Social needs -0.110. Ethical requirements +0.301. Compensation for psychological needs +0.140. The r-square value of the model is 0.540, which means that emotional needs, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, social needs, moral and ethical needs, and compensation psychological needs are 54.0% of the reasons for the changes in audience satisfaction.

When conducting the F-test on the model, it was found that the model passed the F-test (F=57.311, P =0.001<0.05), and at least one of the emotional needs, aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, social needs, moral and ethical needs and compensation psychological needs would have an impact on the viewing intention. In addition, the test of the model's multicollinearity shows that all VIF values in the model are less than 5, which means there is no collinearity problem. In addition, durbin-Watson value is near the number 2, which indicates that the model does not have autocorrelation and there is no correlation between sample data. Therefore, the model is good.

5.Discussion and Conclusions

Firstly, through factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis, the research questions of this study are completed. The research divides audiences' different needs for kung fu films into aesthetic needs, emotional needs, cognitive needs and social needs, psychological needs for compensation, and moral and ethical needs. Audience's motivation can be divided into satisfaction and intention.

Secondly Two assumptions from the beginning of the article. 1. It is assumed that the audience's various demands for kung fu films have a positive impact on audience satisfaction. 2. It is assumed that the various demands of the audience for kung fu films have a positive impact on the viewing intention, and the two hypotheses are basically consistent.

Through regression analysis, verification of hypothesis 1, the study showed that : Aesthetic needs, Moral and ethical needs, Compensate for psychological needs, has a significant positive influence on audience satisfaction. Emotional needs, Cognitive needs, Social needs, does not affect the satisfaction of viewing. In my submission Kung fu movies can satisfy the audience's compensation psychology. It reflects Chinese people's yearning for a fair and harmonious society. Watching kung Fu movies is a kind of spiritual sustenance and self comfort for ordinary people. In kung fu movies, swordsmen stand up and destroy evil, just like an ideal society. The audience's discontentment in real life can be compensated to a certain extent in Kung fu movies. Therefore, In my opinion, when the director creates kung fu movies in the future, the life of the leading role does not need to be plain sailing, but can be full of ups and downs and failures, because the success after experiencing failures is more in line with the life of the audience, and can also enable them to get more comfort and spiritual support when watching kung fu movies.

Through regression analysis, verification of hypothesis 2, the study showed that : Aesthetic needs, Cognitive needs, Moral and ethical needs, Compensate for psychological needs has a significant positive influence on viewing intention. Emotional needs will not affect the viewing intention. And Social needs have a significant negative impact on viewing intention. Watching kung fu movies can meet the audience's moral and ethical needs. At the same time, the moral and ethical needs have a positive impact on the audience's intention. The image of Kung Fu Master in the film is a way of presenting the moral pursuit in the kung fu film. 95% of the respondents have reverence for heroes in kung fu films, and 93% hope that chivalrous characters can also exist in real life. The chivalrous images depicted in kung fu films are deeply loved by the audience. The image of kung fu masters is equivalent to the "Superman" depicted in Hollywood films. What they have in common is that they are heroes of ordinary people, and they can do things that ordinary people can't do. In the history and literary works of various countries and nationalities all over the world, it is not difficult to find the depiction of the image of "Heroes" beyond ordinary people. Human beings need heroes. In the face of helpless real life and difficult life experiences, people have imaginatively designed an image that can "save all people in water and fire" in the field of literature and art. China has its own cultural background and historical origins. Hollywood heroes cannot arouse the emotional resonance in the heart of the Chinese people. In other words, American heroes cannot save the suffering of the Chinese people. The heroes in kung fu movies, who have unparalleled martial arts and eliminate violence and settle down, are highly respected, which reflects the heroic complex of the Chinese people.

To sum up, the audience's six demands for Kung Fu films have a positive impact on audience satisfaction and audience intention. Therefore, when creating kung Fu films, the creative team can take the needs of the audience into consideration, which will achieve twice the result with half the effort. Meanwhile, according to the research, the moral need is thorough my admiration for the national spirit, Strengthen national Confidence and pride The “good Samaritanism” and "chivalrous spirit" According to the survey data, the turnout is very high, which also shows that audiences have a strong sense of national pride in kung fu and a high recognition of national culture.

However, we also found problems in the research. There was a multiple choice question in the questionnaire survey. What shortcomings or problems do you think exist in the content and production of Kung fu films? In this choice, it is found that audiences think that the current kung fu films have the following shortcomings: 1. The content is so repetitive that many kung Fu films use the same plot. 2. Serious plagiarism damages the cultural market.3. Low production cost and simple special effects .4. These issues are also worth the creative team's consideration.

Back in one hundred the Chinese movie history, kung fu films as contains rich Chinese culture, after several generations of filmmakers of hard, has become influential in the international film industry types of films, because they are classic is the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancients, they not only enrich our field of vision and imagination, also shape our aesthetic and value judgment, this is why kung fu a timeless classic.

We should study the status quo and development of kung fu films with Chinese characteristics, pool wisdom, create a new style of kung fu films, tell Chinese stories well, explore overseas markets, let Chinese kung fu films revive, lead Chinese films to create brilliant. This is also the reason why the author is eager to make a contribution to the development of Chinese kung fu films and chooses the evolution and internationalization of Chinese Kung fu films as his research direction.