Vol. 2 No. 6 (2025)

Case Studies

The Flux and Reflections of Female Consciousness in the Taiwanese Film Little Big Women

Published 2025-06-30

  • Tsun Wong

Tsun Wong
Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China

Abstract

Film, as a unique art form, profoundly conveys the essence of thought, story line, perceptual experience, emotional resonance and aesthetic pursuit through the presentation of moving images. In today's society, film-watching activities not only carry the function of leisure and entertainment, but also become an important communication channel for the director's ideological views and emotional tendencies. At the same time, the feedback mechanism of the film box office also provides us with a valuable window to understand the hot issues in society and the tendency of people's interest, which in turn helps us to grasp the pulse of social change. Taking the 2020 Taiwan box office champion Little Big Women as an example, this paper focuses on the portrayal and evolution of its female image, revealing the remarkable transformation trajectory from the ‘unawakened traditional woman’ to the ‘compatible woman struggling in the traditional framework’ to the ‘new woman seeking independence and freedom’. to ‘new women seeking independence and freedom’. This process of transformation clearly presents the transmutation of identity and the awakening of subjective consciousness of three generations of Taiwanese women in the current of the times, which not only provides a localised and vivid case study for the study of contemporary feminist cinema, but also profoundly reflects the complex interactions between the loosening of patriarchal structures and the awakening of local gender consciousness in Taiwanese society.

Keywords

Taiwanese cinema, Little Big Women, female consciousness, female-themed films

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