Symbolic Metaphors of Film Epidemic Narratives: A Comparative Study of Chinese and Foreign Epidemic Disaster Films

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2025.764

Keywords:

epidemic disaster film, epidemic narrative, semiotics, metaphor, medical symbol, socio-cultural symbol, comparative study

Abstract

Epidemic disaster films take epidemics as the core of their narratives and involve a symbolic system with multiple metaphorical meanings. This study focuses on analysing 45 epidemic disaster films from China, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and the US. It is found that the medical symbols in Chinese and foreign epidemic disaster films that best characterise the epidemic narrative have referential meanings related to three main aspects, namely the occurrence of epidemics, the treatment of epidemics, and the public health system. Their direct and derived meanings provide cognitive information about mass infectious epidemics and methods of treatment and prevention. By integrating medical and non-medical symbols in the films, social and cultural symbols rich in metaphorical meanings are formed. “Tracing the origin of disease” involves a cultural metaphor that goes beyond medicine; “Responding to the crisis” involves a political metaphor of quarantine, rescue, and destruction; and “Rescue from the disaster” involves the human nature related metaphor of dilemma. Comparatively, the medical symbols and metaphors of epidemics in Chinese and foreign epidemic disaster films have more similarities than differences, while the socio-cultural symbols and their metaphors have more differences than similarities.

Author Biography

Ming Cheung, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology

* Corresponding author: Ming Cheung,  Distinguished Chair Professor in Digital Media and Creative Industries, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China. 

E-mail address: drmingcheung@gmail.com 

Research funding: This work was supported by the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent and the Interdisciplinary Innovation Fund for Digital Media of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.

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Published

2025-12-03

How to Cite

Zhu, Y., & Cheung, M. (2025). Symbolic Metaphors of Film Epidemic Narratives: A Comparative Study of Chinese and Foreign Epidemic Disaster Films. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 13(2), 661–703. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2025.764

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 2 (2025): Fall

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2025 Yankun Zhu, Ming Cheung

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