Opening on June 10, 2022 in the temporary exhibition hall on the 2nd floor of the Guangzhou Lu Xun Museum, the exhibition runs until October 7, 2022.

As an important venue dedicated to commemorating Lu Xun and promoting his legacy, the museum highlights Lu Xun’s literary, ideological, and revolutionary contributions. Lu Xun was a great writer, thinker, and revolutionary, and his literary works are models of modern literature. There have always been many ways to appreciate classic works. This exhibition focuses on five of Lu Xun’s classic novellas—Medicine, The True Story of Ah Q, Regret for the Past, Blessing, and Forging the Swords—and their film adaptations. Through more than a century of reinterpretation, from literature to cinema and from cinema to contemporary life, these works continue to illuminate enduring themes of individuality, womanhood, and national character.

Organized chronologically according to the dates of the stories’ creation, the exhibition is presented in five sections corresponding to the five works. In addition to documents and archival film materials related to Lu Xun’s writing and the cinematic adaptations, the exhibition incorporates reflections by contemporary young artists, expressed through painting, video, and other media, creating a dialogue between past and present. Visitors are invited to move through text and image, light and shadow, discovering anew the spiritual radiance of Lu Xun in contemporary artistic thought.

This exhibition is also a continuation of the exhibition Lu Xun the Film Enthusiast, curated by the Museum in 2020. Here, film is transformed from a medium through which Lu Xun observed life to a conduit for interpreting and extending his literary legacy, offering a new perspective on the longstanding ties between Lu Xun and the world of cinema.