This book navigates the reader through a debate on postmodernism as a cross-cultural study that explores representations of the past and the present in Chinese films from the late 1980s to 2010. This book explores both the human psyche and the society to reveal local susceptibility to cultural globalization, and the compromise required to pursue life under these conditions. The analysis of individuality and society furthermore expands the importance of critical theory in the re-evaluation of Chinese cinema. It is based on the conviction that the underlying chain of thought linking all of these analysis is ‘postmodernism’.