Changes in literature and art in the last five years

Xin Ju (Residence of Heart) by Shanghai writer Teng Xiaolan focuses on the residence and marriage of common people in Shanghai. "She observes and writes about people's life meticulously," says Sun Ganlu, novelist and deputy director of Shanghai Writers Association.

"It's not a simple description, but represents the complexity of common people's lives," he says.

In April, it won a China Central Television best book award for 2020.

One of the highest-grossing movies in Chinese film history is Dying to Survive. It is adapted from the real-life experience of a leukemia patient Lu Yong who purchased affordable cancer medication from India for himself and others. The film screened in 2018 and touched many people.

With box office takings of more than 3 billion yuan ($471 million), it was rated 9 points out of 10 by over 1.82 million users on Douban. The movie won many awards, including the Best Cross-Straits Chinese Film at the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards and Excellent Feature Film at the 35th Hundred Flowers Film Festival.

Commenting on the film, Xie Fei, director and professor with Beijing Film Academy, said on Douban, "Congratulations to the director Wen Muye. It's such an extraordinary debut work, so solid, touching and insightful."

Another popular movie that did well at the box office in 2019, passing 2.8 billion yuan, is The Captain. It, too, is adapted from a real incident. On a Sichuan Airlines flight on May 14, 2018, the aircraft's windscreen suddenly broke 9,000 meters above sea level en route from Lhasa to Chongqing.

Withstanding extreme cold, a shortage of oxygen, strong winds and ear-splitting noise, the pilot Liu Chuanjian operated the airplane manually, managing to bring 119 passengers and nine crew members to the ground safely.

In 2018, Wu Weishan, sculptor and curator of National Art Museum of China, spent a period of time on the prairie of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Watching the local people wrestle and perform, the artist became inspired and drew many sketches. During his interactions with local people, he said in an interview with The Paper that he felt the wrestlers' sense of vitality, and the confidence they felt when in nature. It is an open-hearted, bold and unconstrained disposition, nurtured by the prairie. After returning to Beijing, Wu created The Prairie, sculpting a strong wrestler to represent nature's personality.

"Without the time spent there observing people's lives, I wouldn't have been inspired. If I hadn't drunk milk and eaten lamb, or sang and danced with them, I would not have yearned for their personality, nurtured by the grassland, and would not have created such a work," he says, adding that "it's so important for artists to plunge into life to draw inspiration".

Wandering Earth set a milestone for Chinese sci-fi movies in terms of industrial standards, and more artists are trying to create innovative works that reflect the nation's soft power and creativity.

In a concept theater show 2047 Apologue, which was first performed in June 2017, director Zhang Yimou managed to combine Chinese traditional and folk art forms, such as Peking Opera and Wanwanqiang Opera from Shaanxi province, with advanced multimedia technology like iPads, lasers and holograms. By looking back at the past and to the future, the show aims to explore the relationship between people and technology.

In making the mainland's first Cantonese Opera film The White Snake, director Zhang Xianfeng employed surround sound and high definition to create an art film that was based on a legend dating back to the Tang Dynasty.

Created to help the local opera reach a younger and wider audience, the film grossed a box office of nearly 14 million yuan, and was seen by more than 350,000 people. On Douban, more than 32,000 users rated it 8.1 points out of 10.

Over the last five years, artists, while drawing inspiration from tradition, reality, and people, have tried to deliver in their works a representation of the true, good and beautiful positive energy that can inspire people in diverse ways.