Asian Perspectives and Ritual Politics in Recent Popular Film and Television

Abstract

Asian film displays a range of perspectives on ritual and political issues of contest and contestation. Using modified snowball and purposive sampling, film and some television is selected for the presence of ritual politics, political theater, and important Asian cultural, religious, and/or political perspectives. Some perspectives identified are localized, regional, or may have resonance (not representativeness) in many parts of Asia from Kazakhstan, Nepal, India, and eastward; a few preliminary observations are offered in this regard. The current work is an effort in cultural de-coding, and perhaps cultural translation, using qualitative content analysis, coding, and comparative historical–institutional analysis at the intersection of culture and politics. The argument is methodological (qualitative), encouraging political scientists and others with interests in cross-national, comparative, and international religion and politics to delve into thick description using international, foreign-language film as a (relatively unmined) source of cultural data and cultural, values-oriented, and political messaging. Ritual politics is treated herein as formal or informal ritual involving symbolic activities occurring in a religious, semi-religious, or secular context that is used for political purposes, in a political context, or to effect a political message. The current work is preliminary and is part of a larger project; it provides a preliminary spreadsheet of 24 out of over 100 canvassed films seeking to combine conceptual variables with binary coding.

1. Introduction

Asian film displays a range of fascinating perspectives on ritual and political issues of contest and contestation (Tilly and Tarrow [2006] 2015; Tarrow 2011). Using modified snowball and purposive sampling (Guetterman 2015; Yin 2009, p. 56; Ackerly 2008; Gusterson 2008; Reinharz 1992),1 film and some television is selected for the presence of ritual politics (Sohn 2023), political theater, and important Asian cultural, religious, and/or political perspectives. The current research seeks to identify symbolic representations, narrative framing, and allocations of meaning (Geertz 1973; see also Mitchell [1988] 1991, 1989), offering attention to dimensions of locality and regional cultures (Geertz [1983] 2000), the sum of which this work defines as perspective. It seeks to do so through a study of Asian foreign language and popular or mass market film and television works. Perspectival politics, then, occurs when those elements (symbolic representations, narrative framing, and allocations of meaning) combine with politics in important ways. Relating to political debates, shifts, or occurrences, theoretically, perspectival politics may act as direct cause; subject or object of policy; causal factor (indirect or mediating); effect (outcome); or it may be non-causal. The perspectives discussed herein in the themes identified from the canvassed films suggest that perspectives are important objects of analysis particularly in cross-national, cross-cultural, and international context; hence, in this case, the focus, limited to film and television, on Asian perspectival politics.

Perspectives and themes emphasized in the film and television may be localized, national, or broadly pan-Asian, as outlined below. Regarding the dubious notion of the “pan-Asian,” a tendency to value (a usually moderate) Asian Romanticism is highlighted as a theme that appears across the Asian film and television works addressed. That Asian Romanticism frequently appears in relation to magical realism. Magical realism softens realism while remaining tethered to the real (in South Asia, see Bhattacharya 2020). Romanticism may be discussed in terms of romance (Rappa 2023), although Romanticism is far broader. Romanticism and magical realism are related to realism in a rejection or creative tension (Tremblet 2021; on magical realism and realism, Bhattacharya 2020). A moderate Romanticism demands such a softening of realism or it may persist in tension with realism, whereas classic late-modern Romanticism rejected hard realism altogether. The Asian film and television works addressed, often (although not always) invoking magical realism, find a middle path between the poles of Romanticism and a hard realism.

This trend of a moderate Asian Romanticism in the film and television works discussed herein includes attention to male and female high heroism in monarchy; in battle and warfare; amongst otherwise human personages in god-like allegories; in grassroots context and amongst exceptional future leaders who are forced into low circumstances as youth; in mythological quests or stories involving mythological figures and beasts; as well as regarding loyalty in marriage and in romance, per se. Although the current work is not a normative analysis (on the normative see, for example, Cover 1983), it may be worth mentioning that the Romanticism in the selected film and television works might even go so far as to suggest a needed correction to an ethos (Geertz 1957) of the perennial skeptic. In that way, this foray into Asian perspectives as emerge through popular or mass market film provides a fresh reminder of some of the values of heroism, wholesome wonder, Faith, delightful magic, and strength of loyalty. It also suggests some messages of concern to a more realist worldly politics: dangers in warfare; dangers of civil fracture; dangers of (real) paranormal irregularities and trespasses; problems inherent in undoing traditional marriage institutions, and similar (discussed below).

Ritual politics (Sohn 2023) is treated herein as formal or informal ritual involving symbolic activities occurring in a religious, semi-religious, or secular context that is used for political purposes, in a political context, or to effect a political message. Some ritualized political moments may relate activities of highly symbolic value patterned upon religious ritual in some way but occurring in an entirely secular context; these forms may occur in film and television relating to the modern period, whereas traditional and formal ritual is most common in historical film and television. Open as to sub-theme and historical period, the selection resulted in film and television falling in genres of historical drama, historical fiction, historical–political drama, and/or war drama; historical using some elements of magical realism; paranormal and/or social–psychological dramas; myth, mythic, or mythology often in action; and mafia or gangster film. Cartoons, cartoon fairy tales, anime, and entirely fantasy film reflect a wide body of work that often does fit the selection themes; they are excluded from the current research for issues of space but are discussed briefly below. Several selected film or television works include some fantasy elements without being entirely fantasy film. Most of the selection includes martial arts, some in realistic framing and others in magical or quasi-magical presentation. Some include moral, or even theological, lessons that appear to be aimed to build or support a given cultural worldview and system of values (defining cultural worldview and systems of values, see Geertz 1957).

Great men and women leaders; heroism; gender relations; tradition in modernity; and Paradise lost or remaining (often in Nature) are among the themes that appear most significant. The Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C and Appendix D code the film and television for the year of release; director; original language; location of availability (most are available for streaming in the U.S.); genre; historical markers as significant; mythological markers as significant; cultural markers as significant; appears to have intended teaching value; ritual politics (selection theme), or concern with ritual trespass; political theater (selection theme), and/or performativity; and sub-themes that are present within ritual politics and political theater. The works are analyzed in translation for imagery and narrative with usual drawbacks of non-access to the original languages (as relevant for most potential Western audiences). It is anticipated that the larger project will include further coding and analysis of conceptual variables, themes, narrative framing, and messages (not of language, per se); for the current work they are only canvassed and identified (e.g., first level of analysis). An effort to join conceptual variables and themes with binary coding is made in the Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C and Appendix D. The author has training in French, Hebrew, and Arabic but not in additional Asian languages; she had exposure to several East Asian languages as a child.

The selected film and television works emerge, geographically, from Kazakhstan and East to Mongolia and South Korea; and from India, Nepal, and East to China and the Pacific. Primary film languages of the larger body of discussed works include Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Mandarin, Mongolian, Nepali, Rajasthani, Russian, Tamil, Thai, and Tibetan. Arabic, English, and Persian languages are minor languages in a few of the film or television works. Russia is treated as both European and Asian where Asian themes are emphasized (e.g., the Russian–Mongolian relationship). The current research takes the approach that Asian filmmakers are setting out to educate Asian youth, perhaps their wider societies, and English-speaking audiences, where possible, in much of the selected film and television. That is, regarding certain critical historical moments in specific framing (herein, a range of framings emerge from different vantage points, for example, in relation to China’s warring states period); critical historical figures, ritual acts, or religious concepts in specific framing; and certain cultural values, ethical frameworks, and symbol systems. “Asian” is conceived in East–West terms rather than seeking to erase, mask, or ignore local and regional differences within the parts of Asia from which the film and television works emerge (regarding such intellectual perils and drawbacks, see Chen 2010; Pinkney et al. 2015). Indeed, the goal is to respect legitimate (e.g., lawful) difference on its own terms without recourse to relativism (Levinas 1999), and thinking East–West dimensions while accounting for sub-regional variation.

Why do these perspectives on ritual and politics matter? In some cases, such as the conceiving of the figure of Genghis Khan as a villain versus an Asian spiritual–political hero, or the presentation of important Asian goddesses who are invoked in questions of Sati and Jauhar,2 insistence on certain differences in approach can lead to real-world political loggerheads. Given tensions between the hemispheres in the past decade, the current research treats knowledge as the best solution to obviate such less-than-ideal ends, or at least to contribute to identifying increasingly correctly when such ends may, or may not, be necessary.

In analyzing the film and television works, the current research follows a conceptual trajectory, theoretical framework, and methods located at the meeting place of the discursive (words and their meanings); hermeneutic (situating context); and phenomenological (major lived experiences, and performativity) (see discussion in Sohn 2023). These are suggested by the combined insights of a number of important 20th century scholars in Anthropology, Political Science, the study of Religions, and Sociology.

Following the models of Smith (1984) and Geertz (1973), I adopt a sympathetic approach to the Asian perspectives offered in these film and television works. Benedict and Geertz emphasize the importance of identifying and de-coding cultural patterns (Benedict [1934] 2005; Geertz 1973). Douglas, Durkheim, and Turner, variously, analyze culture through attention to ritual; rules and laws relating to purity concerns, criminality, social status, hierarchies, or power relations; and social boundaries and/or social solidarity (Douglas [1966] 2003; Durkheim [1893] 1987; Turner [1969] 1995; on the relationship between Durkheim and Weber on democracy, see Prager 1981). Abu-Lughod addresses such cultural explanations of locale and of local societies when conducted as an insider rather than outsider (Abu-Lughod 2016, 2000). Gramsci’s musings from a prison, during an era best described as Kafkaesque, tell us that the power to define words, narratives, and meaning has a culturally hegemonic impact on the thinking of the average person (and perhaps also on elites, Gramsci [1947] 1992), particularly when it occurs from an unseen, hidden, or veiled locus. Indeed, it may shape the way that we are able to conceptualize socio-political questions, large and small, unless we are able to break free from (what Bourdieu calls) fields of power that may be constructed in the naming of words and concepts (and the reverse, fields of power may define words, concepts, and their meanings, Bourdieu 1987).

Bourdieu is sadly skeptical regarding the individual’s ability to do so (1987, 1994). Indeed, Bourdieu argues that words, concepts, and meanings intentionally constructed to suppress or dominate—particularly those with the power of the state behind them—may be used as symbolic violence to dominate the dominatable (Bourdieu 1991, pp. 39–42, 51, 140; see also Bourdieu 1987, pp. 838, 849–50; and Bourdieu 1994, pp. 3–4, 17–18).3 Many have noted that the power of naming in religious contexts has been associated with, or seen as identical to, the Divine itself (Cover 1983, pp. 10–11).4 That is, naming and defining are not small powers. Likewise, regarding narrative in the context of law, Cover tells us, “The codes that relate our normative system to our social constructions of reality and to our visions of what the world might be are narrative” (p. 10). For Derrida, words have meaning beyond our own authorship, although we may also construct meanings from them or using them (Derrida [1967] 1978, pp. 285–93).

Derrida ([1967] 1978) addresses meaning, narrative, and myth associated with words as social constructs that change in a bounded way within and across history (e.g., they change, not infinitely; they are bounded by several factors including those structural as well as human—perhaps pernicious—propensity to play, e.g., taking on god-like powers, not unlike tricksters [p. 185]).5 For Bourdieu, by contrast, certain persons, disciplines, professions, or other powers may choose the meaning of words and narratives in ways that we might describe, today, more mechanically, as framing (Tarrow 1992: joining symbols, images, and ideology with collective action to make cultural change, see p. 175); that defining, for Bourdieu, is a clear and intentional assertion of power rather than constituting a more innocuous social or cultural process.

In phenomenology, this work is influenced especially by Jewish Studies approaches to paradigmatic Jewish experiences, as well as by the phenomenology of religion (e.g., religion in place, and as experienced by members). It may be worthwhile to approach in other contexts a phenomenology of politics using a similar methodological framework to identify paradigmatic experiences by demographic and other variables, patterns among lived experiences in personal accounts and material sources, and politics as lived and experienced in place and in time, that is, history, over time, in different moments and locales. For a situated example in the late 20th century, see Dahan-Kalev (2001). On paradigmatic Jewish experiences in history, see Goldberg (1996), Zohar (1996), Mendes-Flohr (1991), Sarna (1986), and Seltzer (1980). See also on phenomenology and performativity (e.g., theater), Goffman (1959, [1969] 2005; see also MacCannell 1983, and Moran 2000, discussed briefly in Sohn 2023). For the phenomenology of religion more broadly, see Eliade ([1957] 1987) and Berger ([1969] 1990).

Bourdieu reminds us that perspectives come with power (Bourdieu 1987, p. 829; Bourdieu 1986, p. 233). The current work suggests that we can use that impetus to empower ourselves with knowledge. Moreover, if naming may come with long-term implications regarding meaning, narrative framing, and conceptualization, then each scholarly research endeavor could be read as an act of seeking sacred knowledge; or, at the least, seeking to emulate or approach the sacred naming powers above mentioned. This work draws upon these scholars to suggest that we approach such powers self-consciously and with gravity. The remainder of this work is organized into the following sub-sections: (2) rationale, relating comparative historical–institutional analysis with some Asian film and television works; (3) selection methods; (4) perspective and ritual politics in relation to the films addressed; and (5) conclusions.

2. Rationale

Comparative historical–institutionalist analysis on the culturalist side, and qualitative comparative politics, more broadly, have a few not-so-obvious benefits. Non-culturalist yet qualitative historical and institutional analysis is well established in the field of comparative politics (Bellin 2005). Some cultural work identifies, elaborates, and may explain patterns developed from thick description and deep knowledge of a case, or cases, as informed by the ethnographic tradition amongst anthropologists (Geertz 1973, on codes, see p. 9, interpretation and construction, pp. 15, 218). For examples of works informed by this tradition in comparative politics from research in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), see Shahrokni (2020) on women and the political geography of spaces in Iran; Tessler (2019a, 2019b) on area studies and minorities, respectively; Gurses (2018) relating to dynamics of change from civil war, destructive, as well as positive social transformation; Wedeen ([1999] 2015) regarding symbols and police state in Syria; Coleman (2013) regarding women and politics, cross-nationally in MENA and internationally; Schwedler (2006) regarding the inclusion hypothesis for extremist religious parties in Jordan and Yemen; Singerman and Amar (2006) on urban politics in Cairo; Barzilai (2005) relating to communities and law among Jewish orthodox, women feminists, and Palestinians in Israel; Migdal (2001b) relating to people and institutional development in Israel (e.g., state–society relations); Peled (2001) on the development of Muslim religious institutions, policy, and debates in Israel; Sharoni (1995) relating to Jewish and Palestinian women in the Arab–Israeli conflict; and Mitchell ([1988] 1991, 1989) regarding representation and colonial/post-colonial politics in Egypt.

In Asia, see Midlarsky and Lee (2022) regarding violence and non-violence in Buddhist states; Lev ([2000] 2021) on courts, interests, and ideas in Indonesia, an analysis that is at once culturally sensitive and challenging to cultural reifications; Bei (2012) regarding Chinese and Japanese policy on Jewish refugees in World War II; Peerenboom (2010), on judicial independence in China; Radnitz (2010) on elite-driven social protests in Central Asia; Ashiwa and Wank (2009), relating to the presence of religion, religious institutions, religious practices, some attention to informal religion, and religion policy in China; J. C. Scott ([1985] 2008, 1977) relating to the politics, economics, and moral–ethical frameworks in peasant cultures, and exploitation, insubordination, and everyday resistance in Southeast Asia; and Galanter ([1989] 1992) regarding legal pluralism in India. Elsewhere, see Migdal (1988, 2001a) regarding state-in-society and strongman politics and state-building, respectively, and J. C. Scott ([1998] 2020) regarding state-building projects and authoritarian high modernism in Europe and elsewhere.

In American politics, a few examples of culturalist, political-ethnographic, and/or fieldwork of similar scope and approach include Flemming et al. (2016) and Eisenstein et al. ([1988] 1999) relating to local courts and their communities; Kramer (2016) regarding conservative and rural politics in Wisconsin; and Dahl ([1961] 2005) defining elites, their normative values, their policy-making roles, non-elites, and distributions of power in a democratic city.6

For other work and disciplines, see Liang (2022) regarding the remaking of Tibetan Buddhism through Chinese religious revival; Mallick (2022) on hindutva in India; Wongsurawat (2022) regarding religion and syncretism in China; Walsh (2020) on religion in China; Mares (2019) relating to food, agricultural, and farmworker politics in the U.S.; Abu-Lughod (1998a, 1998b, 2000, 2016) regarding women in the MENA; Marx ([1867] 2019) regarding factory workers in mid-19th century London (see political-ethnographic approach, chapter 10, or, for example, p. 273); Najmabadi (1998) regarding women, slave trade, and political transition in historical Iran; and Moore (1944) relating to the communist party and the formation of new elites in the USSR. There is a strong tendency in comparative politics to favor explanatory frameworks even related to cultural variables (King et al. [1994] 2021, pp. 33, 73–74; see also L. Anderson [1983] 2006).

Such works seek to provide studies that are based upon archival, cultural, economic, ethnographic, demographic, social, political, and observational data, to name a few types of material data/sources typically used (Khatib 2012; Radnitz 2010; Slater 2009, 2010; Allina-Pisano 2007; Newberg 1995; and institutionalist and culturalist, Huntington 1968). That is, while Geertz (1973) (on patterns, drawing upon Benedict [1934] 2005, and others) enjoins (political) ethnographers to de-code cultures (e.g., to identify and establish a culture’s patterns, Geertz 1973, pp. 17, 44, 168, symbols, p. 89, and practices, p. 183), the current work joins that call with the focus in comparative political science on analytical distance, explanation, and, similar to Geertz, on patterns and practices (Migdal 2001a, pp. 18–19, 23, 49, 203, 250, 235). It frequently includes an important historical dimension to the analysis (Pierson and Skocpol 2002; Thelen 1999). Cultural and/or qualitative comparative politics, often based upon regional and area studies research, contribute to the field’s overall goal of theory building (Bates 1997; see also Tessler 2019a; Mahoney 2017; Goertz and Mahoney 2012; Bates and Jenkins 2007). That is, such research provides analyses based upon cultural materials; historical accounts from a wide range of archival sources; personal accounts seeking to identify patterns by demographic, ideational (Tarrow 1992; Morris and Mueller 1992), and other variables rather than facts; observed practices and events; qualitative data more broadly; and, on more rare occasion, quantitative sign posts and affirmations. These works provide sometimes completely new information (or new and detailed information within certain pods of knowledge).

Comparative politics seeks to be part of that which is scientific in method and analysis, leaning in more recent years upon statistical research. Culturalist work remains steadfastly qualitative even if it includes economic, demographic, or other quantitative indicators; even if it uses numbers in content analysis; and even if it engages in (original) survey research. It is, nonetheless, asked to justify its existence in methodological terms.

Wherein description? While thick description may be overly discursive for some and not yet fully organized in raw form, and quantitative data may be insufficiently thin if it is asking binary questions, the two can complement one another (Coppedge 1999). Scholars disagree regarding which side of that spectrum leans toward generalizable theory, as culturalists tend to define theory in terms of linking empirical observations with patterns, themes, and concepts in social theory (for example, regarding nationalism as cultural artifact, both real and imagined, B. Anderson [1983] 2006); state centralization and homogenization programs in late-modern state development (J. C. Scott [1998] 2020); peasant politics (J. C. Scott [1985] 2008, 1977), and (L. Anderson [1983] 2006); the gaze and representation in colonial and post-colonial context (Mitchell [1988] 1991, 1989); genocide as unwillingness to self-restraint (contraction), as well as social and territorial contraction (Midlarsky 2005); people and institutional development in state building (Migdal 2001b); judicial power in judicial–executive relations (Newberg 1995); informal networks and informal economic practices (Singerman [1995] 2020); control of discourse and symbol in police states (Wedeen [1999] 2015; in other disciplines, see Weiss 2022); religion and politics in practice as against modernization theory’s prediction of the death of God, in both the East and West (Raudino 2022; Raudino and Sohn 2022; Sohn and Raudino 2022; Haynes 2020, 1998; Fox 2015; Kertzer 1988; on religion as a causal variable, see Weber [1904] 2011); and religion and modernization theory (Tessler 2022). Quantitative and behavioralist scholars seem to see their work as deriving from (or proofing) grand theories regarding methods and methodologies themselves (Coppedge 1999). Thus, they may lean on the deductive end, while we lean to the inductive end of the spectrum in social scientific analysis. And we all engage in both to some degree; it is an old debate (Perry 1927, identifies the scientific method with inductive research, pp. 69–70).

Scientific analysis requires both deductive (e.g., analysis of existing theories and development of hypotheses or argument from that prior work) and inductive (e.g., new information from original research, which may come from field observations, newly developed data sets, lab experiments, and more); or there is no research process, no falsification, no yea or nay to a hypothesis/argument (Kuhn [1962] 2012, p. 32, identifies Sir Isaac Newton as an inductive researcher). For culturalists, what counts as data is (completely) new information derived from (often field) research, and other sources relating at least in part to culture. What counts as generalizable theory and what count as data may, each, be different for the two generalized research paradigms as they are usually expressed in comparative politics: qualitative (e.g., culturalist [more often post-structuralist or post-positivist], discursive, historical–sociological, and/or interpretive [more often postmodernist]); and quantitative (e.g., behavioralist [attitudes], behavioralist–rationalist [interests], rational choice modeling [symbolic logic], and/or statistical). That is, the scientific method is not a measure of statistics; it includes vastly descriptive research, qualitative and historical, field observations, lab-related observations, as well as purely quantitative, and more.

Therefore, when Charles Darwin wrote, The Voyage of the Beagle (Darwin [1939] 1989), he offered an account well-fitting Geertz’ notion of thick description (Geertz 1973). It was based upon observations in the field of certain animal species’ observable traits and behaviors on the continents and/or islands of South America, Africa, the South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean. It provided new, inductively produced information (often in the form of thick description); taxonomies (the discipline of Biology’s term for analysis into categorizations or typologies); and the foundations of a theory developed by Darwin over the following twenty years: evolution (Darwin [1859] 1998; regarding concept formation and typologies in the social sciences, see Collier et al. 2012, p. 224).

Likewise, when comparative political scientist Diane Singerman wrote, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo, Singerman ([1995] 2020) reported what she had observed in women and family behaviors in urban Cairo. Many times in the text she wrote of the “informal” arena as critical to women’s participation, social stature, political activities, economic activities, and the like; and, many times she identified “processes” that were important. She, like James Scott, was interested in informal networks and informal economic processes (J. C. Scott 1977, p. 206). What she was identifying were informal processes, a concern of Geertz and others (Geertz 1973), but less often an object of analysis in comparative political science at the time (with some exceptions, including Mitchell [1988] 1991, on “continuous representational process,” p. 130; Mitchell 1989; J. C. Scott 1977; see also Lev [2000] 2021).

Similarly, Newberg (1995) was able to map the landscape of courts and constitutionalism, across time, in the ebb and flow amongst authoritarianism and constitutional order in Pakistan over the course of several decades of the 20th century (pp. 150–52, 162). Newberg drew upon court documents and national- and regional-level court decisions; archival information, including government documents, private manuscripts, and other documents; extensive treatment of local and regional scholarly studies; and interviews (usually published elsewhere). She explained the courage of justices who stood up to executive branch rulers, as well as the dangers to them (pp. 201–2, 250).

Singerman and Newberg—working in MENA—were each involved in a form of process tracing initiated by scholars such as Collier and Collier ([1991] 2002) in their work on critical junctures in comparative historical–institutional analysis, and others (such as J. C. Scott 1977, [1985] 2008; Mitchell [1988] 1991, 1989). Singerman decidedly included anthropological methods, which, as noted, specifically identify patterns and processes as objects of analysis. For Singerman, the focus was informal social and economic processes in a specific bounded timeframe; in the case of Newberg, the process tracing centered upon identifying causal chains across several decades of historical events. Some of the more political-ethnographic among these works are often not cited in behavioralist and rationalist traditions; the point, herein, is to highlight their place in the historiography of such important concepts, as well as their utility to studies such as the current research. Given the importance of qualitative, cultural, political-ethnographic, and related fieldwork-based research to concept formation, the current writing, while brief and not exhaustive, views their inclusion as significant for substantive conceptual and theoretical reasons.

Scholars such as Wedeen ([1999] 2015), also using political ethnography in MENA, have argued that variables including discourse, symbols, and (usually secular) political ritual were crucial in gaining and sustaining authoritarian domination of society through control of the same (pp. 6, 26, 223). Indeed, she suggests that authoritarian power in states such as Syria was maintained to the extent that the regime/state (where they were the same) was able to control these variables across society—at least in public—in the everyday (pp. 126–27, 129, 168). She includes (contest regarding content of) film (p. 112) as part of this process of asserting discursive and symbolic control in the secular context of the Syrian police state (a secularist and secularizing state often misunderstood to be religious because Islam is present in society, p. 47; regarding weakness of secular opposition, p. 167; see also Ziadeh 2012; and in other disciplines, see Weiss 2022). Scholars in Anthropology such as Abu-Lughod (1998a, 2008) have addressed women and television soap opera watching in the context of feminist longing under postcolonial conditions and in terms of the development of national identities.

By the early 2000s, scholars such as Woods (e.g., Sohn) (Woods 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, [2008] 2017) relating to informal processes and interactions among state and social actors; Helmke and Levitsky (2004, 2006) and Mahoney and Thelen (2010) on informal institutions; and still others expanded research related to informal dynamics and their impact upon socio-political and/or institutional processes (Mahoney 2017, 2012; Collier 2011; Mahoney and Thelen 2010). Some of these may have been influenced by Migdal, who highlighted the roles of social actors, as well as informal and formal social organizations (Migdal 2001a, p. 49) and explained the importance of processes (Migdal 2001a, pp. 23, 203, 250) and practices (Migdal 2001a, pp. 18–19, 49, 235) for understanding image, myth making, and power in modern states. Migdal (2001a, p. 235) notably emphasized (what today we might call, using Anthropology’s term, micro-level) practices by contrast to systems approaches. That is, we in Political Science may, yet, remain stuck in the battle over structure versus agency, albeit framed in a new current cloth as one between a level of analysis centered on the more (using Economics’ term) macro-level (behavioralist and rationalist approaches grounded in macro-level themes and epistemologies even where queries may be individual and remote) versus one centered upon the more micro-level (cultural and regional analyses grounded in case and observations often conducted in the field, in locale, where queries may be in-person and influenced by ethnographic methods at least to some extent) (see also Lichbach and Zuckerman 1997; and, in Anthropology, Abu-Lughod 2016).

Thus, in the words of Giddens, “Human beings, in the theory of structuration, are always and everywhere regarded as knowledgeable agents, although acting within historically specific bounds of unacknowledged conditions and unintended consequences of their acts” (Giddens 1995, p. 165). This project, following Giddens to this extent, adopts an assumption that structures matter and that humans have agency. Humans may, or may not, have the ability to climb the walls of social hierarchies, or the Supernatural, which create the conditions that bound their existences in the Asian film and television addressed herein. Indeed, heroism in the film and television lies in those who achieve both: acknowledge and politely accept structure and hierarchy (which may be referred to as Fate); and defy, decry, and deny it to great effect for self and others even to the extent of heroic deaths, and/or establishing new empires.

Analyses of informal factors and process tracing are now, each, entrenched as major research programs in comparative politics. That is, new, inductively derived knowledge linked with deductive research for the development of theory and theory building; the identification of new concepts, concept formation, concept building; categories (similar to taxonomies or typologies); and the development of new research programs are all important contributions brought to us, in large and small ways, through political–ethnographic and cultural–institutional research (see Tessler 2019a, 2019b; Mahoney 2017; Collier et al. 2012; Goertz and Mahoney 2012; Bates and Jenkins 2007; Collier and Collier [1991] 2002; Bates 1997).7

Methodologically, film and television works may be widely available for analysis when the travel usually required for qualitative and culturalist fieldwork becomes less available due to funding, war or conflict situations, and many other factors. Likewise, there is much important messaging, teaching of local or national populations, as well as additional cultural, institutional, religious, moral–ethical, values-related, and other political factors that are present in foreign language film and television works. These may not be analyzed in the same terms by other disciplines or fields. Important information is available that may be significant for basic knowledge (e.g., basic facts or first level of analysis), theory building, cross-cultural analysis, cross-national interactions, international relations at both micro- and macro-levels, and other purposes. The suggestion is that scholars of comparative politics and international studies—especially culturalists who may be able to live abroad less often, and for less time, than they would prefer for research purposes—should not shy from applying themselves to these material–historical–cultural sources (on film as material, cultural, and/or historical text, see Hodder 1989; Schneider 1987; see also Sohn 2021; for a brief discussion of film in political science, see Sohn 2023; for a suggestion that film can explain a country through narrative and other factors, see Celli 2011; regarding film and conceptions of national cinema in South Korea, see Chung and Diffrient 2015; regarding film in bilateral, domestic, or international relations, see Cohen 2006; Deniar and Effendi 2019; on American political culture and film, see Franklin 2006; I. Scott 2000; see also J. Kim 2018; Nelson 2015; Marinescu and Balica 2013; Panagia 2013; and Linley et al. 2012; regarding art more broadly, see Mitra and Kӧnig 2013; and Negash 2004; and in other disciplines, see Xiao 2019).

The overall findings include noteworthy and widespread high heroic Asian perspectives on rituals such as Sati and Jauhar, and historical figures such as Genghis Khan treated in high heroic and spiritualist light. In Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean works, a propensity emerges from the selected film and television to emphasize certain critical moments of war and peace (Sakra, Yen and Kam 2023; Samurai Marathon, Rose 2019; Steel Rain, Yang 2017; Once Upon a Time in Tibet, W. Dai 2011), especially the warring states period (Kingdom II: Far and Away, Satô 2022; Kingdom, Satô 2019; King’s War, Xixi and Liu 2012); several critical wars in the early modern period (for example, in a serious historical drama, see The Fortress, Hwang 2017); and a warlords period in the early 20th century before the establishment of modern China (Call of Heroes, B. Chan 2016). These include (at least partially) paranormal treatments of long-standing battles between what is now South Korea and what is now North Korea, as well as dynasties northward in what is now Russia (Kingdom: Ashin of the North, S.-h. Kim 2021); and art nouveau as well as mass market treatments of women in wartime periods (Mulan Legend, He 2020; Mulan: Rise of a Warrior, Ma and Dong 2009).

South Korean film displays a broad concern with the paranormal, addressed only in part herein (Asura: The City of Madness, S. S. Kim 2016; see also Sohn 2023). These include presentations of disturbances caused by cannibalism and vampirism, zombie conditions (medically-induced?), and possible human sacrifice as a wartime or peacetime strategic threat (Kingdom: Ashin of the North, S.-h. Kim 2021; Kingdom, Kim et al. 2019). Chinese and Southeast Asian film demonstrate interest in (entirely) fantasy, youth-oriented productions with moral–ethical stories, epic wars between the gods, dragons in the Heavens, and martial arts displayed in magical framing; these are not addressed in the current writing, as discussed below (in magical realism, see, for example, Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms, Wuershan 2023; Legend of Gatotkaca, Bramantyo and Miftach 2022; The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity, Guo 2020; Dynasty Warriors, Chow 2021; Dragon Master: Dragon Spell, X. Dai 2020; Buddha Palm Technique, Huang 2020; Investiture of the Gods, Lu and Yang 2019; Monkey King Reincarnation, Liu 2018; and The Guillotines, Lau 2012).

Strongly present in India, South Asia, and in film from across Asia, including South Korea, are themes of Paradise retained, Paradise lost, or the natural ideal (Arthdal Chronicles, Dong-gun et al. 2019–2023; The Legend of Tomiris, Satayev 2019; Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan, Bodrov 2007; Veer-Zaara, Chopra 2004; and Himalaya: l’enfance d’un chef, Valli 1999); new nations contemplating tradition and (surrealist?) modernity in poignant contexts (Kalank, Varman 2019); ultra-modernism or surrealism in developed and less developed contexts, together with its contest against traditionalism (U Turn, Khan and Tulsigiri 2023); Asian perspectives on what counts as heroism, male and female (for example, U Turn, Khan and Tulsigiri 2023; Panipat, Gowariker 2019; The Legend of Tomiris, Satayev 2019; Padmaavat, Bhansali 2018; Call of Heroes, B. Chan 2016); and the Russian–Mongolian relationship in both Asian–Russian and East Asian contexts, including old world conflict resolution institutions, such as the mutual exchange of indentured servants, and, especially, female (and sometimes male) slavery in marriage (The Golden Horde [Zolotaya Orda], Alpatov 2018 [MA]; Sofiya, Adrianov 2016 [MA]; see also Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan, Bodrov 2007).

Messaging from the selected films with intended audiences, initially, in Asia, and later in English-speaking countries, suggests (at least) the following significant concerns: (1) desolation as resulting from mass (civil) warfare even under just war conditions; (2) ritual atrocities or trespass (frequently as tied to civil or international warfare, and as a security threat to Asian communities); (3) the reaffirming and Asian framing of certain male and female heroes, including Genghis Khan and mythic ancient Asian queens and/or goddess figures; (4) the reaffirming and Asian framing of certain traditional religious practices (e.g., often in Nature religions), institutionalized religious rituals, and local or regional traditional gods as significant; (5) traditional forms of leadership such as monarchy and empire; (6) political marital alliances in monarchy and empire, and love and loyalty in romance as both female and male heroism in these contexts; (7) women’s heroism as warrior queen; (8) historical periods of vast, micro-level despotism, suggesting a need for centralized law, order, and governance (see also Lu 1999); (9) Paradise lost, or still remaining (often as Nature); (10) maintaining tradition (including ritual spiritual order) in modern environments; (11) certain values and/or value systems (local, regional, or broadly Asian); and (12) international encounter in the modern period, alliances, and the end of empire.

3. Selection Methods

The current research addresses two dozen film or television works that were released to English-speaking audiences between 1999 and 2023; in the subsequent pages, several of these film or television works are discussed in brief thematic synopses. Film and several television series were selected using a modified snowball method and purposive sampling (Guetterman 2015; Yin 2009; Ackerly 2008; Gusterson 2008; Reinharz 1992). Almost all selected film and television is available on Netflix or Amazon for streaming, purchase, or rental (see Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C and Appendix D). All selected film and television is in Asian languages with English subtitles; only a few offer English dubbing. Film or television in Asian languages made primarily by U.S. production companies, or Asian-themed work from Western sources in which English is a, or the, primary language, is excluded (for example, Asura, Mukôda 2025; Bangkok Dog, Supannarat 2024; House of Ninjas, Boyle 2024; Shōgun, Toye et al. 2024–2026; Tokyo Vice,8 Rogers 2022–2024 [TV-MA]; Alienoid, Choi 2022; Blade of the 47 Ronin, Yuan 2022; Kate, Nicolas-Troyan 2021 [R]; Mulan, Caro 2020; The Great Wall, Zhang 2016; The Outsider, Zandvliet 2018 [TV-MA]; Into the Sun, mink 2005 [R]; and Mulan II, Rooney and Southerland 2004).

The selection does not include film or television from 2024 or 2025. That is, Asian film or television since 2023 that fit the selection themes is not included in the current research (for examples, Harbin, Woo 2025; The Prosecutor, Yen 2025; Squid Game, Dong-hyuk 2021–2025 [TV-MA]; Shambhala, Bham 2024; The Whirlwind, Yong-wan 2024; Uprising, S.-m. Kim 2024; Kingdom 4: Return of the Great General, Satô 2024; Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell, Khomsiri 2024 [TV-MA]). Several film and television works fitting the selection themes and period have not yet been analyzed, will likely be included in the larger project, and may be of interest (for example, 12.12: The Day, S. S. Kim 2023; Ever Victorious, Mak 2023; The Tai Chi Master, Cheng and Lin 2022; Knights of Valour, Dai and Cheng 2021; Tomb of the River, Young-bin 2021; Vagabond, In-sik 2019; Investiture of the Gods, Wang et al. 2019; Designated Survivor: 60 Days, Yoo 2019; The Legend of Gobi, Tserenchimed 2018 [MA]; God of War, G. Chan 2017; The Assassin, Hou 2015; Ip Man 3, Yip 2015; Golden Cane Warrior, Isfansyah 2014; Kingdom of Conquerors, Wang 2013; Genghis: The Legend of the Ten, Dorj and Shagdarsuren 2012; War of Arrows, Han-min 2011; The Warlords, Chan and Yip 2007; House of Flying Daggers, Zhang 2004).

Five main selection processes were employed: (1) the Netflix and Amazon search engines were used to help in selecting film and television by the primary research themes, initially by country; (2) the Netflix and Amazon editorial recommendations, which appear during and/or after viewing a film, were used to help in selecting film and television by the primary research themes; (3) film and television works were watched with attention to text (e.g., subtitles usually for narrative rather than for language, per se), imagery, symbols, and narrative framing patterns to determine if they were a good fit for the project by primary research theme—many films were excluded; (4) selected directors and leading actors were followed to their film histories on the IMDB.com online database, and those film histories were, in turn, used to select additional films by the primary research themes; and, finally, (5) the IMDB.com search engine (and the Google search engine followed by the IMDB.com search engine) was used to identify film or television from a specific country or region, or on a specific theme in Asian film, and film and television works were selected on the primary research themes from those lists. From selection steps 3 and 4, the selection process repeated step 2, and sometimes steps 3 or 4 as well. And from selection step 5, steps 3 and 4 were repeated until two dozen film or television works were selected. The goal for the larger project is five dozen film and television works for the selection.

Thus, the selection process reflects an effort to be somewhat representative—or as representative as possible within significant limits—on the primary research themes, including a representation of a wide range of sub-themes, time periods, countries, and regions of Asia. There is no claim of full representativeness, nonetheless, within the selection process used, as full representativeness is not considered possible in the current work due at least in part to data availability. Thus, the results are illustrative and preliminary although important. Much of the film and television had joint international production teams located primarily in Asia; some were produced in one Asian country; and some had joint international production teams with some production collaboration from Western countries (see Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C and Appendix D and reference list). Two television series and one film had primary production in Moscow or St. Petersburg, Russia, and included significant dimensions of Asia-related themes (The Golden Horde [Zolotaya Orda], Alpatov 2018 [MA]; Sofiya, Adrianov 2016 [MA]; and Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan, Bodrov 2007).

Cartoons were excluded, although film or television that included art or anime in brief portions, or in the introduction, were not excluded. Anime film and television, an important genre in Asia, were not included. Children’s movies and television were excluded, although youth-oriented histories, mythological tales, magical realism, and at least semi-realist fairy tales were included. Film falling entirely in the fantasy category was excluded (e.g., dragon movies, gods flying through the Heavens, and the like). It is noteworthy that fantasy film constitutes a large genre in some parts of East Asia, and it includes many elements relating to the primary selection themes. This film genre tends to present moral, and even theological, lessons intended to build and maintain certain cultural and moral-ethical systems of values via the literary genre of the fairy tale (for example, Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kingdoms, Hark 2018; see also Detective Dee: Demon Chonchon, He 2020; and The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven’s Palace, Cheang 2014). Violence was not excluded and appears in many of the film and television works.

It may be noted that a growing genre of U.S. and Western-based film and television relating to Asian-Americans does fall within the primary topical selection themes; they are not included because they are U.S. or Western-based works. Many of them attempt to consider Asian-American identities, values, and/or relationships with Asia as an historical cultural center (a few examples include Moana 2, Derrick et al. 2024; The Brothers Sun, Tancharoen and Nguyen 2024 [TV-MA]; Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Cretton 2021; Raya and the Last Dragon, Hall et al. 2021; Moana, Clements et al. 2016; The Warrior’s Way, S. Lee 2010; The Forbidden Kingdom, Minkoff 2008; for related efforts in the United Kingdom see Giri/Haji, Farino and Chessell 2022 [TV-MA]). Likewise, Western blockbuster and mass market film informed by or imparting Asian values, working with Asian mythological figures, or relating to East–West relations is not included in the current work (for example, Karate Kid: Legends, Entwistle 2025; Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Wingard 2024; Hidden Strike, Waugh 2023 [TV-14]; Godzilla vs. Kong, Wingard 2021 [PG-13]; Silence, Scorsese 2016 [R]; Dragon Blade, D. Lee 2015; The Life of Pi, A. Lee 2012; Die Another Day, Tamahori 2002 [PG-13]; Rush Hour, Ratner 1998; Seven Years in Tibet, Annaud 1997; Kundun, Scorsese 1997; Tomorrow Never Dies, Spottiswoode 1997 [PG-13]; The Karate Kid, Avildsen 1984).

The project addresses popular, mass market film, and a few television works. Some of these appear to have the express intent of teaching youth (and perhaps older) populations certain narrative framing on political, religious, historical, and moral themes. In thinking about audience, some of the film or television series were released concurrently in the West, while others were released some years after release in a home production country. Thus, a dual teaching or messaging effort may be under way, one aimed at domestic audiences, and one aimed at English-speaking audiences (whether diaspora or non-Asian audiences).

4. Perspective, Ritual Politics, and Film

Turim’s (discursive) work on memory and history, and the use of representations of history, in the cinematic form of the “flashback,” suggests that film may be consciously used by filmmakers to frame history and debates regarding historical moments (Turim [1989] 2014, pp. 2, 17). It may offer framings meant to be widely representative; it may, “disguise its representation as ‘reality’” (Turim [1989] 2014, p. 105); it may be used to present “cultural representations” or government propaganda (Turim [1989] 2014, p. 117); it may be intended to trigger memory; or it may be used in a non-strategic manner (Turim [1989] 2014, pp. 2, 17, 103, 124, 168, 220). She highlights the strong role that ritual plays in the work of a famous 20th century Japanese filmmaker, including attention to ritual abuse; death (or murder) rituals; marriage rituals and family rituals, including funerals; and other issues (Turim 2023, pp. 109, 114, 118). Turim suggests that ritual may, at times, be utilized for the reversing of usual power relationships (Turim 2023, p. 121), a use of ritual also highlighted by Turner ([1969] 1995, p. 167, see also p. 191).

In terms of ritual and politics (for further discussion of “ritual politics,” see Sohn 2023), most film and television works selected herein involve symbolic activities occurring in a religious, or semi-religious, context. Some political moments that are highly ritualized may relate activities of highly symbolic value patterned upon religious ritual in some way but occurring in an entirely secular context; these tend to be situated in the modern period. And a few film and television works display formal religious ritual, per se, being employed in secular, mundane, or profane political contexts.9 These three types emerge as distinct.

In one film, Genghis Khan is treated as a moral and spiritual hero in addition to being a hero in war and politics. He rises to assert predictable and reliable rule over a status quo of chaos and violence across tribes, lost respect for ritual traditions, and trespass into marital unions in Bodrov’s (2007) historical epic, Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan. The film is produced by a wide range of Asian and other country contributions with primary production in Russia. This predominantly Asian perspective on Genghis Khan, coming from sources such as Russia and Japan, suggests an approach and narrative on the life and achievements of Genghis Khan that run counter to many conventional accounts of him as a violent and threatening anti-hero, certainly not one of moral, religious, or spiritual character. The burning of villages across Asia—beginning in Mongolia—is presented as a means to achieve an important, laudable, and necessary end: the unity of Mongolian tribes into one nation; and the assertion of a systematic and predictable rule of law that would ensure and enforce peace sufficient that women and children could be out of doors freely without fear for their lives, abduction from their families, enslavement, and other non-rational ends.

The punishments Genghis Khan established are presented in the film as severe; but they are presented as meaning a rational, predictable order of rights and duties, and that loyalties would be enforced in such a way as to avoid the sorts of intrigues, and lack of basic personal security, known in most societies in their lawless times. In a world of chaotic violence, Khan’s temporary violence of warfare is presented in the film to be the necessity of an era, not only in Mongolia, but (during and after his life) westward throughout Central Asia; to the regions that had, close to a thousand years prior, been ruled by Attila and others; southwest-ward as far as Baghdad; and eastward into Manchuria, China, and what is now the Koreas. For different reasons (not elaborated), each of those regions is presumed rife with upheaval and/or unregulated violence and injustice against innocents in various forms. Khan’s childhood, as the film depicts it, provided the experiential cause for his dedication—and motivation to action—to institute Justice (spiritually or religiously conceived) across these worlds so that children, women, elders, and men could know a predictable existence (e.g., in the sense of political order). The film repeats supernaturalist depictions of Khan in direct devotion to Tengri, the Mongolian Sky God. The film includes attention to the hated Tangut kingdom, providing a moral tale as to its ultimate disappearance rooted in a fundamental lack of justice. Addressing Khan’s youth, his development as a person (spiritual, and ultimately charismatic), his love of his wife and family, and other relationships, the film ends on the cusp of the invasions outward.

On the other hand, Padmaavat (Bhansali 2018) relates several epic battles between parts of South Asia in which a heroic queen, one who usually stands dutifully and proudly behind her husband in most ways, leads the women of the fort to their deaths in mass self-immolation rather than being taken as slave wives by an invading (and barbaric) force. She and her husband choose one another; they later gain permission of her Father, who grants it willingly. Padmaavat engages in this act of Jauhar in order to honor her husband, the sanctity of their marriage (even after his death), and the marriages and honor of all of the women in question. The point, as presented in the film, is not to kill one’s self because no life is possible after the death of one’s husband. Rather it is to protect the sanctity of one’s marriage in which the marriage, itself, and the literal conquest of the woman, man, and kingdom through the desecration of their marriage, are the main objects of the war in question. It is to deny an invading enemy force the ability to take one as a wife-slave, thereby denying that indignity to one’s husband over periods of time that presume reincarnation; it is to make all of the enemy’s motive for their endeavors come to naught (see also Fitria 2023). It is to choose death by fire rather than the women allowing themselves to be thrust—by malice of intent and the orchestration of an enemy people—into a life presented as worse than death (e.g., slave marriages). It is an unfortunate act of women’s agency in a mass, united rebellion and martyrdom of women against an enemy power in the context of warfare, not unlike that individual act of Bouazizi which sparked the Arab Spring in Tunisia (see Breuer 2016, pp. 121–23). It is a religious ritual act against the ritual transgression of the enemy force, a transgression against a Holy union of marriage in its motivation to war. And it is an act of Faith, belief that the next life will come. There is some debate in India as to whether the story relates to Hindu-Muslim relations, as the invading force is understood to have been Muslim (Fitria 2023, p. 127); it is possible that it may also be an allusion to international conflict more broadly, given the author of the original story, a famous Sufi poet who wrote in Hindu language.

The loss of a community—most of the men die in battle, and many women die in self-immolation—is presented as part of a longer-term narrative-building process over time and history. That time and history is presented, mythologically, as providing lessons for the local communities, hence forward, from which we should all learn and by which we should likely all be advised. That is, it offers a wide, programmatic view of women’s and men’s rights to choose one another and to their marriage—over time. Padmaavat wins in the volumes of history in this presentation. The film is built upon a fictional account in the 16th century Hindu language epic poem of the same name, written by a Muslim man as an act of Sufi poetry, a man considered by some to be the greatest Muslim poet in Hindu language (Millis 1984, pp. 1, 40); it corresponds in some limited ways to the Hindu mythological cycle of the goddess Sati.

Padmaavat’s act of group self-immolation (Jauhar) is, in this sense, a performative ritual act intentionally conducted in the most dramatic terms. As a queen, she is a politician if we apply modern terms anachronistically. She is absolutely intentional about her own act, and her act of leadership of other women—again, in a religion and world that assumes reincarnation. Her act, leading the women into the fire as though into a battlefield, is intended to remain in the minds of men and women—friend and foe—as a lesson for all of time. The film displays the stately young queen’s skin begin to redden and fleck from the burning fire. She continues, holding her husband’s shroud made in another ritual context—the joyful moment of Holi—and walks directly into the fire. It is a lesson of will, justice, and a woman’s rights to her singular (loving and willing) husband over time. No outside force has the right to come into her marital domicile and to demand her presence, as wife, for another man; that is, particularly while her husband awaits her, whether he be in this life or (having been killed, now presumed to be in) the next. Power plays around marriage, and the free marital choice of individuals, provide the central quandary of the film. While the world stands in horror, Padmaavat has her victory through self-immolation, as time (in a world of reincarnation) is on her side and that of her husband. The women who follow her, too, are presumed to move forward to their next lives with the respective husband of each not having been forced to wed another and thereby desecrate their long-term (in the sense of reincarnation) marriage, nor to sacrifice their (eternal) marriage.

The film, Asura: The City of Madness (S. S. Kim 2016, hereafter Asura), and the epic TV series human origins tale, Arthdal Chronicles (Dong-gun et al. 2019–2023, hereafter Arthdal), both South Korean in origin, relate to ritual politics and political theater in varied ways. In Asura, named metaphorically for Asia’s “demons” (see, for example, Zan 2010; Schmid 2008; Premasiri 2006; Salomon 1993; Russell 1987) the distinctly modern and human powers of chaos have taken over a modern development town in which development monies (local, national, or international is unknown) are up for grabs. The worst-of-the-worst come running for the empowerment accruing to those funds rather than the best-of-the-best. A corrupt mayor uses political and religious ritual, as well as pre-arranged secular violences, for photo opportunities in order to gain power and prestige. Each of these provides the mayor with space to develop well-orchestrated moments of political theater for public consumption. The film is macabre, violent—and also comedic—parallel to the U.S. Gotham parables-in-film regarding political power (Burton 1989; Nolan 2008). A hapless cop, a detective, and his mentee, see their relationship change over access to power in this mafia, or gangster, context. The film fits Gillespie’s (2016) account of critiques of neoliberalism to be found in South Korean gangster film.

By contrast to Hobbes ([1651] 2002), and perhaps Golding (1955), for whom the state of nature is sometimes presumed to be violent and instrumental (although sometimes it is non-warring because humans are rational, Hobbes [1651] 2002, p. 542; see also Chung 2014 on rationality and irrationality, pp. 687, 690; and Darwall 1976, pp. 167–68, on tensions between definitions of rationalist interests and ethics)10—and which may be most prescient for Asura—the state of nature in Arthdal is something else. In Arthdal, the state of nature is a spiritual and material Ideal centered upon flowers, sunlight, spirit rituals, spirit dance, natural foliage gathering, and community solidarity. This early community Paradise steers away from new technologies that would change any of these. Van Mill addresses notions of rationality in Hobbes as non-instrumental; or, at the least, rationality is not inherently self-maximizing to the exclusion of coexistence and rules/laws/political order as means to mutual (personal) security and economic benefit (Van Mill 1994).

Arthdal provides one Asian mythological account of human origins in which warring first human—hominid—tribes or communities grapple with options: to eradicate the Other; to unite politically and join forces against the elements; or something else (the discussion of the Other, here, is influenced by several Jewish and MENA thinkers outlined in Sohn 2021). One people is called Neanthal (not quite, “Neanderthal”), and the other calls itself the Asa People (descendants of a Grandmother). The series begins with an explanation of the time when hominids came down from caves or trees, and Homo sapiens sapiens had not yet learned agriculture or settled living. One of the peoples is treated as Homo sapiens sapiens, that is, humans as we know them; and the other is possibly another hominid tribe, or possibly something closer to hominid and the Supernatural. Women and men both play important roles of religious or political leadership.

“Arthdal” may be a joining of the two words, Asa and Neanthal. Asa is sometimes pronounced in the series, “Astja.” The story is a parable about the resilience of human spirit, knowledge, ability, technology, and the like, in part through inter-hominid marriage and family lines. The series also presents severe push-back against persons of mixed lineage between these two sets of beings. A few among the primary characters are mixed-race between the Neanthal and the Asa People; they look human except that, like the Neanthal, they have bright purple blood, bright purple lips, and special (perhaps Supernatural) abilities.

Spirit religions are presented as idyllic, “first moments,” or Paradise unhindered and unarmed in Arthdal. They are replaced, instead, historically within the television series, by the (religiously) lawless overturning of the mythological Ideal: an invading, violent political order (a first polity and city-state); and new technologies, practices, and institutions such as steel swords, mountain ascents via ladder pullies, large plot monocropping, horseback riding for martial purposes, and institutionalized slavery. Here, rather than the state of nature as violent and oppressive, it is the new city-state that carries that role. In Arthdal, ritual politics and political theater are employed by politicians and priests—at times in their battles with one another for power and leverage—again, in contrast to the Ideal (and idyllic) state of nature that was found in the pre-city spirit-oriented Paradise. In this juxtaposition, the series grafts most likely disparate time periods into close proximity; that is, it elides vast stretches of time to make points for the contemporary out of a fictional and mythological tale regarding human origins, conflict, and coexistence. That mythological origin in Paradise looks similar to an Asian version of the Amazon rain forest. In this sense, the television series might fall into the category of post-colonial narrative suggested by An (2018), albeit in context of mythological earliest human settlement and (inter-Asian) inter-cultural exchange. It also provides a narrative that is pro-traditionalism, rural life, and (clean) spirit religions. The interaction between Homo sapiens sapiens and the creatures who are imbued with some sort of Supernatural ability provides a fascinating account of human–Divine exchange amongst earliest peoples—or some mythological or narrative (remnant) suggestion of the same. That is, the series seems to ask, did humans used to live with the gods? What did that look like? How did we go right? And how did we go wrong?

Situated in ancient Kazakhstan, The Legend of Tomiris (Satayev 2019; Tomiris, pronounced, ToH-Miris in the film, reflecting a high-ranking heritage or status), is an historical–fictional account of a queen who avenged several family members—her Father, husband, and son—by taking the life of Cyrus the Great (by proxy) in an epic battle of wits. Her early childhood is displayed, again, in a context in which the state of nature is presented as an Ideal world. In this case, it is one of love, family, and community. The family lives in an enclosed, walled, rudimentary stone settlement. The family engages in small, home-based agriculture and animal husbandry. Religious ritual plays an important part in their lives and in the political and social order of the tribe. Tomiris’ Father is Chief, or Khan, of the settlement, and the Shaman is a secondary figure of power. In later years, the Shamans challenge the power of the Chiefs, particularly that of Tomiris. Tomiris has bigger fish to fry as she vows vengeance against Cyrus, who kills her husband and son while they are visiting him on a peace mission. While Cyrus was seen as a uniter of peoples by many in the West, as the film presents the story, Cyrus is seen as an invader who threatens to overturn the Ideal Paradise, which centers upon an idyllic state of nature and freedom from city-states or empires (albeit one marked by periodic inter-tribal wars).

Film works coming to the late-modern period are equally fascinating as they consider tradition, modernity, and the benefits and drawbacks of each. Still in Kazakhstan, The Road to Mother (Satayev 2016) tells the fictional tale of an historically situated Kazakh family who are separated by the Soviet Republic in the 1930s. Forced to sedentarize into a tiny new village with good housing but terrible, arbitrary leadership, the protagonists are ultimately separated. One of them is killed. The film follows the mother and young son as they experience the new age, that is, the breakdown of empire and the consolidation of the Soviet Republic. They each experience these real historical processes from different sides of the Kazakh border. He is subjected to Odysseus-like turns of fate and then schooled in the Soviet Union, and she is forced to work as a factory laborer in Kazakhstan.

The young man’s childhood intended moves to live with his mother in Kazakhstan when her mother passes under tough conditions, including insufficient food for them both. The two women have no knowledge of his being alive. He is separated from them for many years. He meets her, his childhood playmate and presumed marital alliance, when, after completing his schooling, he travels to Kazakhstan trying to find his mother. Their meeting is so brief—at a train station with moving trains—that she does not have time to give him any information regarding his mother, nor that they live together and support one another.

Arbitrary rule joined with a bit of intentional despotism places him in a Soviet worker’s prison. He is separated from both of the women of his life (mother and intended spouse) for an additional fifteen years, during which time he has little knowledge of them, and vice versa. They meet again only when they are much older. His intended is an established municipal professional and his mother is retired, both living together, now in the original home village in Kazakhstan. What counts as tradition changes over the course of the film. The village comes to represent tradition by the end of the epic story even though tradition, at the beginning of the film, was nomadism. That nomadism was pressured out by the new state as well as by a movement of criminality, banditry,11 and irredentist groups fighting the new state. Together, the new state and the criminal groups ruined the otherwise idyllic and peaceful pastoralism of the Asian Steppe peoples.

Moving back to India, in sweeping self-reflections and self-presentations, Kalank (Varman 2019) is an epic tale regarding tradition, modernity, spirit, religion, coexistence, and marital choice set in colonial context of 1945 in which colonial authorities are largely not present. Rather, a daughter must sell herself into marriage to a wealthy man to aid her father, an act of traditionalism that moves against her independent spirit. While she values the man she marries, she cannot tolerate her position, particularly as a second wife. She has an exceptional singing voice and is allowed to take voice lessons with a woman who maintains a home for young women—almost certainly a brothel. The choices before her are presented in silent, yet poignant, form. Another man—a main protagonist—is drawn to the lark-like (siren?) sounds of the women. Religious ritual is displayed in song and dance in best Bollywood form, wherein religion and ritual are presented as uplifting Ideals rather than with the suspicions by which modernism usually approaches them.

The film asks, is the love of one’s father sufficient to remain in such a gilded cage? The answer appears to be, no. However, the Ideal (and idyllic) world of traditionalism—with its song, dance, and spirit—is cast into almost-certain disarray in a world moving in an uncertain direction as she considers leaving tradition. On the other hand, U Turn (Khan and Tulsigiri 2023), is an ultra-modernist view of the question of unintended consequences presented, nonetheless, in a traditional landscape. What happens to the lives of people—across economic and other dividing lines—when they choose to make a U-turn in an illegal space created by an individual on an overpass? The space is created for no reason other than the instrumental: to get home faster by moving a dividing barrier on a busy city street. Each person who uses the illegal U-turn space experiences strange occurrences, some extremely violent, and others unusual and uncomfortable. A woman journalist seeks to find out why. She discovers a disrupted spirit at the center of it all, someone who was deeply harmed by the space created for this liberty. The spirit disruption invokes an interjoining of ritual and politics in ways unsettling, paranormal, and macabre.

Heroism takes interesting forms in the Asian perspectives offered through these film and television works. First, it includes men and women in notably co-equal framing. In addition, it includes heroes from high royal and aristocratic contexts—including a high placement of queens and empresses—and everyday man and woman contexts. Heroism is presented in the powerfully quiet, heroic wife and queen who stands behind her emperor; and if he falls, she immediately takes the reins of power and avenges him with force (Padmaavat, Bhansali 2018). It appears in the agile warrior queen and gritty young empress who asserts force by her own hand and on her own steed (The Legend of Tomiris, Satayev 2019). It is seen in the woman journalist who intrepidly uncovers the material–spiritual displacement that is causing harm to a range of people in her large city (U Turn, Khan and Tulsigiri 2023). It appears in the husband who loves his wife and his people to the point of dying for them (Panipat, Gowariker 2019; Padmaavat, Bhansali 2018); and the Sheriff who asserts the law on a maniacal lord (Call of Heroes, B. Chan 2016). It is seen in the medieval Shogun who loses but all the while proves the rightness of The Way (Sakra, Yen and Kam 2023). Some women heroes are also presented as losing (The Last Princess, Hur 2016). The boy who watches his Father lose his Khan status, and who nearly dies in a frozen Mongolian wilderness only to rise to assert moral, ethical, and legal order on a continent that has descended into chaos is presented as an ultimate hero (Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan, Bodrov 2007). Interestingly, loving spouses are presented as heroic figures in and of themselves simply for maintaining a loving marriage (Panipat, Gowariker 2019; Padmaavat, Bhansali 2018).

Models of heroism are visible in genius political thinkers and martial artists effectively able to formulate new ways to navigate contemporary technologies and powers (Kingdom III: The Flame of Destiny, Satô 2023; Sakra, Yen and Kam 2023; Samurai Marathon Rose 2019; The Fortress, Hwang 2017); or spirit intrusions into the material world (Mulan Legend, He 2020). It is seen in the young woman who destroys the enemy to avenge her Father, perhaps helps to set the stage for an independent Korean peninsula, and maintains her now undead-zombie family even in current ritual state (possibly through cannibalism, Kingdom: Ashin of the North, S.-h. Kim 2021). In these film and television works, too, ritual trespasses against life, property, and otherwise are treated as measures of despotism (Call of Heroes, B. Chan 2016); and the heroes who thwart those efforts are held in high esteem.

Two television series from Russia (The Golden Horde, Alpatov 2018; Sofia, Adrianov 2016, noting that a large portion of Russia is in Asia) offer extensive presentations of the relationship between Russia and Mongolian tribes in historical context. These series are made by joint international production teams. Russians at the time called the Mongolians, Tartars, actually a smaller tribe within the Mongolian setting. Divisions and wars are presented as the rule for many years. However, at some point in time, a resolution was achieved by which a cold peace emerged or was attempted. That cold peace is presented in both series as involving the mutual exchange of slaves, female slavery in marriage, and intermarriage among royals. That is, the television series offer a view of peace-making in non-democratic historical context that used quite different means than those acceptable today. It is suggested that (often forced) intermarriage played an important role in developing a lasting (cold or full) peace between Russia, Mongolia, and other parts of East Asia on the Asian continent.

5. Conclusions

The current research has outlined an approach to the identification of patterns in symbolic representations, narrative framing, and allocations of meaning (Geertz 1973; see also Mitchell [1988] 1991, 1989), offering attention to dimensions of locality and regional cultures (Geertz [1983] 2000), the sum of which this work defines as perspective. The Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C and Appendix D, below, addresses Asian foreign language film that is available in the U.S. with English subtitles, released in English-language contexts between 1999 and 2023. Film and some television series are selected for the presence of (A) ritual politics; (B) political theater; and/or (C) important Asian cultural, religious, and/or political perspectives. Primary film languages include Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Mandarin, Mongolian, Nepali, Rajasthani, Russian, Tamil, Thai, and Tibetan. Film and television works are analyzed in preliminary coding for imagery, narrative, and messaging as comprehended through English-language subtitles; that is, they are not analyzed for language, per se, since the subtitles are in translation.

Genres emerging from this selection emphasize historical, martial arts, paranormal, mythological, and gangster film. Cartoons, cartoon fairy tales, anime, and entirely fantasy film reflect a wide body of work that often does fit the selection themes but are excluded from the current selection, although several with limited fantasy elements are included. Moral–ethical messaging is often significant; that is, some include moral, or even theological, lessons that appear to be aimed to build or support a given cultural worldview and system of values (defining cultural worldview and systems of values, see Geertz 1957). Some fantasy film and some Western productions—excluded from the primary discussion—which center upon Asian themes, Asian-American themes, Asian-American identities, values, Asian mythological figures, and some additional film and television works were mentioned briefly and are included in the reference list.

Process tracing and attention to practices in comparative historical–institutional research on the culturalist and/or qualitative side of comparative politics are outlined in an effort to trace the development of these concepts in comparative politics. Thick description (inductive) is defended as a first step to having something to de-code, analyze, and turn into systematized or thematized information. That information, or qualitative data, can contribute to concept formation and development in social theory (deductive). It is suggested that culturalists, internationalists, qualitative comparative political scientists, and others should consider including foreign language film and television works for analysis. Under certain conditions, that is, following normal methodological constraints (e.g., treating normative materials as normative rather than fact, and the like), these may be good and feasibly available material–historical–cultural sources (Hodder 1989; Schneider 1987; see also Sohn 2021; for a limited discussion of film in political science, see Sohn 2023) regarding popular and/or political culture with large amounts of unmined content. The particular skills of qualitative and cultural comparative politics—but also causal or material political science more broadly—may find important new information regarding perspective, ideology, localized or regionalized concerns, developments in political culture in situ, values and related orientations, and the like. Film is treated to some degree in political theory and in theoretical international relations. Identification, knowledge, and theorizing of these cultural dynamics may have important implications or utility for cross-cultural relations, cross-national dynamics, and international relations at both the micro- and macro-levels.

A widespread narrative framing present across many of the film and television works in which the state of nature is presented as Ideal (and idyllic) is to be found in natural environments and constitutes Paradise. Even the surrealist works, while they may not mention Nature specifically, imply that the city is neither the Ideal, nor Paradise. This aspect of perspective, as it emerges from these film and television works, may provide insights on urban–rural differences in narrative approach to political questions as found in Western contexts as well. Concern with ritual trespass is presented in a range of permutations, including vampirism, cannibalism, and war; it also includes spirit displacement caused by the vagaries of modernization, concerns with spirit displacement in premature death in historical or modern context, and the like. Both the paranormal and the material are presented as potential security concerns in civil, cross-cultural, and cross-border warfare contexts.

The theme of Paradise comes into contrast with ritual trespass. The theme of Paradise as associated with Nature and spirit—and Nature as Ideal and idyllic—together provide a view of Nature as, precisely, not brutal and violent. Nature and things rural are presented, here, as related to Paradise. It is the modernist city that is most often presented as the source of intrigues, non-rational intrusions, irrationalities more broadly, and a lack of security or properly enforced social contract. Notable are ritual issues ranging from spirit and Nature religion practices, presented as upholding the peaceful existence of small rural communities, to paranormal disturbances from trespasses against the same in traditional contexts and in modernist (developed or developing) cities. That is, the “modern” is not inherently associated with highly developed contexts; and, while not always treated as hostile, the “modern,” in disturbing the peace of traditional or established social norms and practices (including religion), provides opportunities for disruptions both paranormal and normal. In film and television highlighting tradition-valuing narratives, modernism is treated as, in some cases, surreal, while tradition and Nature may be related to comfort and being one with spirit (or godliness). In that way, these works offer a narrative that is roughly opposite of a conventional modernist narrative in which the city is the source of strength, security, social contract, and, indeed, (high) culture. These tradition-oriented perspectives matter as they appear in film and television works from across vast territories of Asia, reflecting popular traditional wisdom and at least a significantly present set of concerns and preferences.

An emphasis on the value of tradition in these Asian films is useful to read through the lens of Geertz (1957, 1973) regarding the de-coding of cultures, patterns, and practices, as well as explaining ethos and world view, and Benedict ([1934] 2005) regarding the de-coding of cultural patterns. This culturalist “read” of film and television reflects such an effort at the de-coding of factors significant to comparative and international politics relating to matters such as, what cultural values mobilize and unite peoples in the region? Abu-Lughod (1998a) addresses similar issues with regard to women and television in Egypt, where soap operas take a form of feminist longing.

War stories regarding both separation and uniting in the encounter between Asian locales or peoples, the U.S., Europe, or the end of empire are highlighted in a few of the film and television works. Paranormal and semi-magical elements appear in both traditional and modernist contexts. Concerns with local gods and traditional practices are highlighted in several works. Historical figures such as Genghis Khan, as well as mythological goddess figures through allegory or metaphor, are re-framed and vaunted in heroic—and spiritualist—light. Ritual practices such as Sati and Jauhar are highlighted as assertions of women’s agency, activism, martyrdom, and soldier-like heroism in warfare. Moreover, religion as a uniting force—something that is uplifting, tied to nature, and which offers (positive) magic to the lives of people—appears in many of the works. The sets of Asian perspectives highlighted herein, as presented in popular and mass market film, may shed light on a continent so vast as Asia.

Bourdieu reminds us that perspectives come with power (Bourdieu 1986, p. 233; 1987, p. 829). Perhaps we may allow for many perspectives today in a sort of democratization of (as expressed herein, clean, or lawful and legitimate) perspectives. Given that perspectives differ sometimes so much, must they always lead to conflict? What can we gain from them? A concluding suggestion is that knowledge of perspectives may provide us with potential avenues of coexistence, as well as more specified verstehen,12 to undergird and inform those areas or moments wherein conflict is, or is not, necessary.