ABSTRACT
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, the system of ethics and values in Chinese society that had been destroyed by the chaos had not been recovered, and a healthy business ethics was not established in the new period. With a fragile ethical foundation, people were confronted with fierce competitions and a strong material temptation. A desirable business ethic—making money while also shaping a noble personality, which was put forward in Yamaha Fish Stall—was soon marginalized in reality. The creations of film reflected the social problems, and a commercial battlefield in which people seek their goals by risking everything was shown in several films. The imbalance of values became a major dramatic point of Chinese films in the late 1980s. In these films, values are the guide for characters’ behavior and the drive of filmic narration. Chinese films in the 1980s reflected the perplexity of people’s mentality in a special historical period and condensed complicated social problems into succinct dramatic conflicts.
