Abstract

Background: the recovery of the adventure genre has been relatively slow. This subtle change in the market promotes the artistic innovation of traditional genre films. Robert Stamm's film genre theory provides an important reference. As a typical adventure film, “Where Nothing Grows” provides a case to explore artistic innovation. Purpose: This paper will sort the development status of Chinese adventure films based on Robert's genre film theory. “Where Nothing Grows” as the research object, this paper discusses promoting artistic innovation of domestic adventure films from three aspects: narrative expression, character construction, and visual image. Methods: In the first stage, through literature research, this paper analyzes and summarizes the development status of adventure films. The second stage discusses Chinese adventure films' problems and innovative means through cases based on Robert Stamm's genre theory. In the third stage, through comparative research, the film“Where Nothing Grows” is used as a yardstick/control/base film for comparison against other adventure films since 2015. Then, the differences in artistic innovation of their genre characteristics are discussed. Results: The research found that developing Chinese adventure films in the post-epidemic era faces some difficulties and challenges. However, these films' narrative expression, character construction, and visual impact can be improved/needs improvement. Conclusion: Domestic adventure films can complete the innovation of plot structure through 1. Narrative expression; 2. Construct characters that challenge established concepts of traditional roles; 3. Visual images to break the aesthetic fatigue of "visual wonders". These three aspects open up a diversified path for the artistic innovation of domestic adventure films and achieve the result of expanding the artistic innovation space of domestic genre films.