The Silent
Thunder: Cultural Semiotics and Spatial Poetics in Jingzhe Wusheng
Zhu Yage
Minzu University of China
Beijing, China
Abstract: In the evolving landscape of
global cinema, the transition of Chinese New
Mainstream Cinema from historical spectacle to urban-centric narratives
marks a significant cultural shift. This paper examines Jingzhe Wusheng as a seminal cultural text that integrates
traditional cultural semiotics with contemporary spatial politics. Utilizing
Roland Barthes’ mythologies and Henri Lefebvre’s production of space, the study
conducts a deep textual analysis of how the film reconstructs national
identity. Findings indicate that the film successfully transforms the
“Awakening of Insects” (Jingzhe) solar term from a meteorological signifier
into a political myth of national vigilance. Furthermore, by mapping the
narrative onto Shenzhen’s urban landscape, the film constructs a “third space”
where technological rationality and traditional wisdom converge. The analysis
reveals that Jingzhe Wusheng substitutes Hollywood’s
kinetic violence with an aesthetics of restraint. The paper concludes that the
film offers a distinct oriental solution to the spy thriller genre,
prioritizing collective resilience and strategic invisibility. Ultimately, Jingzhe Wusheng exemplifies a new cultural
poetics to articulate a vision of modernity that is both globally competitive
and rooted in indigenous traditions.
Keywords: Jingzhe Wusheng; Cultural Semiotics; Spatial
Poetics; Solar Terms
I.
Introduction: Cinema as Cultural Text
In the
evolving landscape of global cinema, the function of film has transcended mere
entertainment or overt political propaganda to become a primary site for the
negotiation of cultural identity. This paradigm shift is particularly evident
in contemporary China, where the film industry has witnessed a transition from
the didactic “Main-Melody” films of the late twentieth century toward what
scholars now term “New Mainstream Cinema”.[1]
This new phase is characterized by its integration with commercial genres and,
crucially, its embedding within rich cultural narratives. No longer content
with simple political sloganeering, these films increasingly rely on the
symbolic power of tradition and the cultural poetics of urban space to
construct a sense of national identity. It is within this context that Jingzhe
Wusheng (lit. The
Silent Thunder, International distribution title Scare Out) emerges
as a pivotal text.
While
marketed internationally as a generic thriller, the film operates on a deeply
cultural level, utilizing the indigenous framework of the “Solar Terms” and the
hyper-modern landscape of Shenzhen to re-imagine the relationship between the
state, the individual, and tradition. Consequently, this paper moves beyond
conventional film criticism to treat Jingzhe Wushengas a complex
cultural artifact—a text through which we can decipher the mechanisms of
contemporary cultural production in China.
Historically,
Chinese state-sponsored cinema prioritized ideological indoctrination, often at
the expense of aesthetic complexity or commercial viability. However, since the
early twenty-first century, and particularly following the massive success of
films like The Founding of a Republic (2009) and Wolf
Warrior 2 (2017), a new model has solidified. This “New Mainstream Cinema”
represents a strategic convergence of “mainstream values” and “mainstream
markets”.[2]
Yet, beyond the industrial and economic implications, this shift marks a
profound change in cultural governance. The state apparatus now recognizes that
effective persuasion requires packaging ideology within compelling cultural
forms. Films are no longer just vehicles for political messages; they are
active participants in the project of “cultural construction.” They draw upon
China’s vast reservoir of intangible cultural heritage—from martial arts
philosophies to traditional festivals—to foster a sense of historical
continuity and cultural pride. In this environment, the spy thriller genre,
once confined to the tropes of Cold War espionage, has been revitalized. It now
serves as a flexible framework for exploring themes of national rejuvenation
and cultural confidence, transforming the act of safeguarding the nation into a
cultural performance imbued with native significance.
2.
Theoretical Framework: Semiotics and the Poetics of Space
To unpack
the cultural logic embedded within Jingzhe Wusheng, this study employs a
dual theoretical lens focusing on signification and spatiality.
First,
drawing upon Cultural Semiotics, specifically the mythologies of Roland Barthes,
this paper analyzes the film as a system of signs. Barthes posits that myth
operates by transforming “history into nature”, taking a culturally constructed
meaning and making it appear self-evident.[3] In
the context of this film, we examine how images, sounds, and narrative
structures function as signifiers that point toward deeper cultural ideologies.
We investigate how the film constructs a Chinese-style spy narrative that
differs fundamentally from Western individualist heroism, instead emphasizing
collective wisdom and philosophical restraint.
Second, the
study utilizes the Cultural Poetics of Space, informed by Henri Lefebvre’s The
Production of Spac. Lefebvre’s triad of spatial practice, representations
of space, and representational spaces allows us to decode Shenzhen not merely
as a geographical backdrop, but as a “social product” charged with political
and cultural meanings.[4]Complementing
this, the concept of “walking in the city” helps illuminate how characters
navigate and manipulate the urban environment, turning the city itself into a
text of tactical maneuvers.[5]
Together, these frameworks enable an analysis of how the film uses the physical
and metaphorical spaces of the modern metropolis to articulate a contemporary
cultural identity rooted in both technological advancement and traditional
cosmology.
Despite the
growing body of scholarship on New Mainstream Cinema, significant gaps remain.
Current academic discourse tends to bifurcate into two dominant streams: one
focused on narrative analysis, dissecting plot structures, character
archetypes, and generic conventions; and the other centered on industrial
analysis, examining box office performance, production modes, and market
strategies.[6]
While valuable, these approaches often overlook the film’s role as a carrier of
cultural symbols. Specifically, there is a paucity of research addressing how
indigenous cultural markers—such as the “Twenty-Four Solar Terms”—are mobilized
within modern genre films. Furthermore, while Shenzhen frequently appears as a
setting, it is rarely analyzed as a cultural symbol in its own right,
particularly in relation to the theme of national security. Existing studies
fail to adequately explore the dialectical relationship between the micro-level
of cultural symbols (like Jingzhe) and the macro-level of urban cultural
identity. This paper aims to fill this void by offering a close reading of Jingzhe
Wusheng that prioritizes its cultural-semiotic dimensions. While this study
focuses on a specific Chinese movie, it engages with the universal tension
between tradition and modernity.
3. The
Naturalization of Myth: The Solar Term as Cultural Signifier
Directed by
Zhang Yimou, Jingzhe Wusheng (The Silent Thunder, intl. dist.
title Scare Out) revolves around Senior State Security officer Huang Kai
and his covert team in Shenzhen. As a high-stakes leak threatens national tech
secrets housed within DJI Sky City, Huang must navigate the blurred line
between loyalty and betrayal, confronting a double-agent whose identity is tied
to the very “Awakening of Insects” solar term. Eschewing kinetic violence, the
film unfolds through psychological duels, urban surveillance tactics, and the
silent sacrifices of familial life, culminating in a strategic “non-action”
that exposes the mole.
Beyond its
narrative function as a spy thriller, Jingzhe Wusheng operates as a
sophisticated system of signs that transforms indigenous cultural markers into
instruments of modern state ideology. This section employs Barthes’ concept of
mythology to analyze how the film naturalizes political concepts by rooting
them in the seemingly neutral grounds of meteorology, aesthetics, and ancient
philosophy. By doing so, the film achieves a form of naturalization where
ideological constructs are perceived as timeless truths rather than historical
contingencies.
3.1 From Meteorology to
Ideology: The Semiotics of “Awakening”
The titular
“Jingzhe” (Awakening of Insects) serves as the primary signifier through which
the film anchors its political message in the natural world. Traditionally,
this solar term marks the moment when spring thunder awakens hibernating
creatures—a meteorological event signifying renewal and vitality in the
agricultural cycle. In the film, however, this natural phenomenon undergoes a
process of semiotic transmutation. Through visual metaphors—such as the sudden
flash of lightning illuminating a hidden surveillance drone or the rumble of
thunder syncing with the activation of a cybersecurity protocol—the film
decouples “Jingzhe” from its agrarian roots and recouples it to the awakening
of “national security consciousness”.[7]
Drawing on
Barthes’ Mythologies, we see this as a classic operation of myth-making.
Barthes argues that myth “transforms history into nature” (Barthes 129). By
linking the urgency of national security to the immutable rhythms of the
cosmos, the film strips the former of its political contingency and presents it
as a natural law. The “silent thunder” becomes a metaphor for the latent power
of the state: just as spring thunder is a necessary force of nature, the
vigilance of the state security apparatus is framed as an organic, inevitable, and
vital response to external threats. Consequently, the ideological imperative to
“safeguard national secrets” is no longer presented as a political slogan but
as a naturalized extension of the seasonal cycle, making compliance seem as
instinctive as a farmer responding to the spring thaw.
3.2 The Aesthetics of
Restraint: “The Loudest Sound Seems Silent”
The film’s
stylistic choice to minimize gunfire, explosions, and physical altercations in
favor of psychological tension and intellectual duels constitutes a distinct
aesthetic strategy. This “aesthetics of restraint” is deeply rooted in
classical Chinese philosophy, specifically the Daoist concept of “the loudest
sound seems silent” (da yin xi sheng) and the Confucian ideal of Zhongyong (the
“Doctrine of the Mean”). Rather than adopting the kinetic, visceral violence
typical of Hollywood espionage films like the Jason Bourneseries, Jingzhe
Wusheng emphasizes stillness, silence, and internalized conflict.
This
artistic choice functions as a marker of cultural distinction. The “silence”
represents the profound composure of the Chinese secret agent—a mental
fortitude that remains unperturbed amidst chaos. It suggests that true power
lies not in spectacular displays of force but in the invisible control of information
and the quiet resilience of the human spirit. By suppressing the violence
spectacle, the film critiques the Western obsession with action while promoting
an Eastern epistemology of power that values subtlety and restraint. This
approach aligns with what scholars describe as “Oriental aesthetic modernity”—a
rejection of Western industrial-era noise in favor of a contemplative,
high-context mode of expression that defines a unique cultural identity for the
New Mainstream Cinema.[8]
3.3 Reinventing Tradition: The
Strategic Depth of Classical Wisdom
In addition
to meteorological and aesthetic signs, the film engages in a process of
“reinventing tradition” by seamlessly weaving classical Chinese strategic
culture into the fabric of modern urban espionage. Jingzhe Wusheng suggests
that behind the modern security issue is a race between technology and timeless
wisdom. The film frequently invokes principles from The Art of War,
particularly the concepts of “using spies” and “winning without fighting”.[9]
This integration
represents a creative transformation of traditional resources. For instance,
the protagonist’s use of psychological manipulation to turn enemies against
each other mirrors Sun Tzu’s “internal disunion” tactic. By depicting
cyber-warfare and data encryption through the lens of ancient stratagems, the
film bridges the gap between the digital age and the Warring States period.
This narrative strategy serves a dual purpose: it provides a unique cultural
texture to the spy genre, differentiating it from Western counterparts, and it
validates contemporary governance by tracing its lineage back to a golden age
of Chinese philosophy. Tradition is thus not portrayed as a relic of the past
but as a living, functional toolkit for navigating the complexities of
21st-century global politics.
4. Shenzhen
as Cultural Palimpsest: The Production of Social Space
If the
previous section addressed the film’s engagement with temporal traditions, this
section turns to the spatial manifestation of cultural identity. Shenzhen, the
primary setting of Jingzhe Wusheng, is far more than a geographical
backdrop; it functions as a cultural palimpsest—a surface upon which layers of
history, ideology, and technology are inscribed and overwritten. Drawing on
Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space, this section argues that the
film constructs Shenzhen as a social space where the abstract logic of the
state and the concrete tactics of individuals collide. Through the iconography
of its skyscrapers, the paradoxes of its surveillance systems, and the
micro-movements of its inhabitants, the city itself emerges as the primary text
through which the film negotiates the tensions between technological modernity
and humanistic tradition.
In the
film, Shenzhen’s skyline represents a deliberate deployment of architectural
semiotics. Landmarks such as the DJI Sky City[10]and
the Gangxia North Metro Station (the so called “Eye of Shenzhen”) are presented
as visual totems of technological ascendancy. As Lefebvre suggests, space is a
social product, and in this context, these buildings serve as “representational
spaces”—spaces that are both lived and conceptualized (Lefebvre 39).The camera
lingers on the geometric precision of these structures, framing them as symbols
of a rational, ordered society. DJI Sky City, in particular, embodies the
fusion of cutting-edge hardware and software, mirroring the film’s focus on the
intersection of physical reality and digital surveillance. By anchoring the
narrative in these sites of high-tech capitalism, the film visually articulates
a specific cultural narrative: that national future is synonymous with
technological progress. They signify a departure from the rural imagery often
associated with traditional China, repositioning the nation’s cultural center
within the sleek, futuristic confines of the smart city.
Against the
backdrop of this imposing urban structure, the protagonists and antagonists
engage in what Michel de Certeau describes as “walking in the city”. De Certeau
distinguishes between “strategies”—the top-down views of institutions—and
“tactics”—the art of the weak manipulating the terrain to their advantage (de
Certeau 37). In Jingzhe Wusheng, the act of moving through Shenzhen
could be seen as a cultural performance of tactical ingenuity.
Characters
do not merely inhabit the city; they “write” the city through their
trajectories. A hurried walk through a crowded market, a calculated pause in a
transit hub, or the use of reflective surfaces to avoid detection—these are all
examples of “tactics” that disrupt the “strategies” of the surveillance
network. Unlike the passive consumer in a shopping mall, the spy or the
counter-spy acts as a modern-day flâneur, albeit one whose observations are
weaponized. This micro-practice of space highlights the fluidity and complexity
of contemporary urban culture. It demonstrates that despite the state’s attempt
to codify and control urban space through technology, the human element retains
a degree of agency. The city, therefore, is not a static monument but a dynamic
field of cultural negotiation, where the rhythm of everyday life serves as both
a camouflage and a weapon in the silent war for information.
5. The
Politics of Culture: Identity and Collective Memory
While the
preceding sections examined the film’s engagement with temporal symbols and
spatial production, this section turns to the subjective dimension of cultural
politics. Jingzhe Wusheng does not merely depict state security as a
top-down institutional mandate; rather, it reconstructs cultural identity
through the microscopic fissures of daily life—the family dinner table, the
office briefing room, and the silent burden of professional secrecy. By weaving
macro-national narratives into micro-cultural fields, the film cultivates a
subjectivity rooted in cultural identification rather than coerced political
obedience, offering a distinctively Chinese resolution to the global tension
between individual agency and collective security.
The film’s
most incisive cultural work occurs in its portrayal of the protagonist Huang
Kai (played by Zhu Yilong), a senior officer in the State Security bureau whose
crisis of identity is precipitated by the collision between his professional
opacity and his intimate domestic life. The “family” in the film represents a
micro-cultural field where the weight of the state is silently borne. A
concrete and harrowing example of this dynamic is the recurring motif of Huang
Kai applying iodine to a shoulder wound while his wife, Xiao Yu, sits in stony
silence.
In a
pivotal scene, Huang returns home late from a compromised operation, his
shoulder bandaged from a skirmish he cannot disclose. When Xiao Yu reaches out
to dab the iodine, he flinches—not from pain, but from the ingrained habit of
concealing any traceable injury or emotional leakage that might compromise his
cover or implicate his family. The camera lingers on Xiao Yu’s face: she is
weeping silently. Here, the film avoids melodramatic confrontation. Instead, it
uses the cultural trope of “implicit endurance”—a Confucian-inflected virtue of
silent sacrifice—to link personal anguish to national duty. Huang simply lowers
his head, the frame narrowing to the small circle of light over the dining
table. This moment constructs identity through the shared, unspoken memory of
those who safeguard the “silent” ordinary. The audience is invited to identify with
the cultural logic of familial guardianship—the idea that security is a
collective inheritance maintained through quiet, daily acts of self-effacement.
Thus, subjectivity is reconstituted: the protagonist is a cultural subject
whose loyalty is anchored in the Confucian ethic of responsibility.
Similarly,
the workplace is depicted not as a bureaucratic assembly line but as a
community bound by a tacit “code of silence” that is less about oppression and
more about mutual preservation. In scenes where the team debriefs after a
failed intercept, the dialogue is clipped, formal, and devoid of the
individualist bravado typical of Western espionage films. When a junior officer
stammers an apology for a drone signal loss that led to a casualty, Huang
intercepts: “The fault is mine; the command was mine.”This echoes the
traditional collectivist accountability embedded in Chinese organizational culture,
where the leader’s self-incrimination is a ritual of cohesion rather than
admission of failure. Through these micro-interactions, the film naturalizes
the idea that identity is relational—one belongs to the unit as one belongs to
the lineage—thereby grounding national security in the familiar cultural
grammar of reciprocal duty.
6.
Conclusion: Towards a Cultural Poetics of New Chinese Cinema
This study
set out to investigate how Jingzhe Wusheng utilizes cultural semiotics
and spatial poetics to redefine the parameters of New Mainstream Cinema. By
treating the film as a dense cultural text, we have traced how it transforms
the ancient solar term of Jingzhe from a marker of agricultural time into a
potent political myth; how it reconstructs Shenzhen not merely as a backdrop,
but as a Lefebvrian social space fraught with the tensions of surveillance and
tactical resistance. Ultimately, the film demonstrates that the “silence” in
the title is not an absence, but a sophisticated cultural strategy—one that
privileges the wisdom of stillness over the violence of spectacle. It suggests
that true power in the digital age lies not in dominating the visible spectrum,
but in mastering the invisible realms of information and intent. This aligns
with broader trends in Global South cultural production, which seek to
articulate alternative modernities rooted in indigenous epistemologies. Future
research could employ audience studies to explore how the film’s subtle
cultural references are decoded across different cultural contexts.
Works Cited
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Translated by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers, Hill and Wang, 2012: 129.
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life.
Translated by Steven Rendall, University of California Press, 1984.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space.
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Blackwell, 1991.
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[Construction and Communication Strategies of National Image in China’s New
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王志刚, and 王爱元.
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Techniques of Espionage" upon Sun Tzu's "Five Types of Spies"
Theory]. 孙子研究, no. 6, 2025.
[1] 郑昱晨, and 赵婧. “中国新主流电影的国家形象建构与传播策略” [Construction and Communication Strategies of National Image in China’s New Mainstream Cinema]. 传媒论坛, no. 12, 2026, pp. 71–73.
[2] 王志刚, and 王爱元. “从影像叙事到意义建构：中国新主流电影的价值传递与媒介实践” [From Visual Narrative to Meaning Construction: Value Transmission and Media Practice in China's New Mainstream Cinema]. 现代传播(中国传媒大学学报), vol. 48, no. 3, 2026, pp. 98–105.
[3] Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Translated by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers, Hill and Wang, 2012: 129.
[4] Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Blackwell, 1991: 33.
[5] de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall, U of California P, 1984: 42.
[6] Chen, Xuguang. “The ‘Industrial Aesthetics’ of New Mainstream Films.”Contemporary Cinema, no. 1, 2017, pp. 87-91.
[7] 马腾飞. “《惊蛰无声》：IMAX制式下谍战电影的视觉语言与声画协同” [Jingzhe Wusheng: Visual Language and Sound-Image Synergy of Spy Films under the IMAX Format]. 电影文学, no. 11, 2026, pp. 152–156.
[8] 唐卫, and 陈思睿. “《惊蛰无声》：克制叙事与冷调纪实美学下的沉浸式悬疑” [Jingzhe Wusheng: Immersive Suspense through Restrained Narration and Cool-Tone Documentary Aesthetics]. 电影评介, 2026, pp. 1–5；赵海蓝. “《孙子兵法》‘全胜’思想探析” [An Analysis of the "Total Victory" (Quan Sheng) Thought in The Art of War]. 今古文创, no. 1, 2026, pp. 61–63.
[9] 任晓宁. “‘用间八术’对‘五间’理论的拓展与创新” [The Expansion and Innovation of the "Eight Techniques of Espionage" upon Sun Tzu's "Five Types of Spies" Theory]. 孙子研究, no. 6, 2025, pp. 28–38.
[10] DJI Sky City (大疆天空之城), designed by Foster + Partners in collaboration with DJI, was completed in 2022 in Shenzhen’s Liuxiandong Headquarters Base. It consists of two towers (44F / 40F) featuring the world’s first asymmetrical cantilevered steel structure over 200 meters tall, with six suspended glass volumes extending up to 21.5 meters. The design—pairing Zen-inspired dry landscape gardens at the base with high-tech suspended steel volumes above—visually echoes the hovering motion of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), making it a paradigmatic icon of China’s "tech-city" cultural imaginary. See Foster + Partners, “DJI Sky City”, https://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/dji-sky-city(accessed 11 July 2026).