The heroes in the movie Iron Man and Red Cliff interpret the different styles of Chinese and Western heroes well. Through the contrast of American personal heroism and Chinese collective heroism from the cultural backgrounds, the definitions of heroism, and the concrete depictions in the movies, this paper analyzes the differences between Chinese and Western heroism in the specific movies and discusses the reasons leading to the differences.

2. Literature Review

Heroism, as a special form of culture, enriches people’s mental world, standardizes people’s behavior, and stimulates the society’s improvement. The differences between Chinese and Western culture are not an empty concept, but penetrate all aspects of the daily life. The hero is a typical manifestation of the differences. The differences of heroism between China and the West are the vivid manifestation of the historical and social humanities.

The Author Chi Mingyun thinks that movie is not only the signal of the culture, but also a production of the culture. Movie and culture affect each other and stimulate each other. Different countries have different traditions, and this also makes the movies take the distinguished characteristics of the regions. Because of this, it is meaningful and attractive to analyze the heroism through movies. Yue Zhengguo also certainly agrees that outstanding films and television dramas play a major role of propaganda and education of Chinese traditional culture. He talks a lot about many kinds of art forms of traditional Chinese culture in the movie Red Cliff, including tauhu, cuju, sword dance, penmanship, painting, tea art, music and so on, which gave the audience a taste of traditional Chinese culture while appreciating the film. And it plays a positive role in inheriting and promoting Chinese culture. But this paper pays more attention to describe the heroes’ images in the movie Red Cliff which embody Chinese national spirits and noble qualities.

Wu Congming and Sun Chanjuan’s writing focuses on that the concept of value is the core of culture; it can distinguish the different cultures according to the different values. The concept of value is one of the representatives of a culture, so the author points out that if you want to have a clear understanding of Western heroism, it is necessary to analyze the heroism between China and the West in the perspective of cross-culture. Therefore, through the comparisons of the following four aspects, Greek myths and Chinese legends, knight literature and martial arts literature, influence of religion and effect of doctrine, and the Western films and Chinese movies, the author shows the different ideologies between Western and Chinese culture that the Western heroism emphasizes more on inpidualism, and the heroes pay more attention to the embodiment of self-value and the emphasis of Christ consciousness; the Chinese heroes emphasize the loyalty, maintained the authority, and advocated the collectivism, especially focused on self-improvement.

Reviewing the current research situation of heroism between China and the West, it can be seen that authors researched the heroism from different aspects using the movies as the carrier of culture, but the most of them just enumerate the heroes in Chinese and Western movies as the examples instead of deeply analyzing the heroes from the specific movies.

The Chinese heroism culture is collectivistic and it means the hope of the whole nation. This is also a kind of symbolic spiritual symbol. While the heroism culture in the West more reflects the personal volitive freedom, it often expresses the concept that establishes inpidual merit and achieves personal status in the history. The Western heroes usually are “superman” who can save mankind and nations, they reflects a kind of visual concrete. The heroes in the movie Iron Man and Red Cliff interpret the different styles of Western and Chinese heroes. In this study, American cinema, especially Hollywood movie, is chosen as the representative of the Western cinema. Through the contrast of American personal heroism and Chinese collective heroism from the cultural backgrounds, the definitions of heroism, and the conctete depictions in the movies, this paper analyzes the differences between Chinese and Western heroism in the specific movies and discuss the reasons leading to the differences.