Imaginary Constructs as Instruments of Critical Engagement: Titanic Reference in Zhang Yimou’s The Road Home

Focusing on the imaginary constructs, especially the Titanic posters in The Road Home, this paper studies their relevance, function, and significance in the film. By showing how, as necessary references, these imaginary constructs help viewers experience the absences, contradictions, and anxieties of contemporary Chinese life, this paper contends that they constitute the director’s critical insights into the complexity and the dynamics of Chinese culture and society in the process of globalization. With these imaginary constructs, Zhang Yimou turns Bao Shi’s simple story about the death of a dedicated school master into a serious contemplation of China’s contemporary reality.