Need for Counterculture Art to Hold a Mirror to Society

If there is a list ranking the most influential cultural celebrities of China's in 2015, I would nominate film director Jiang Wen and science fiction writer Liu Cixin to be included in it.

Both Jiang and Liu have been in the limelight this year for different reasons. Jiang released his highly expected movie Gone With The Bullets, a sequel to his wildly successful Let the Bullets Fly in 2010, but received a quite negative response from critics this time. In contrast, Liu was awarded the 2015 Hugo Award for best science fiction or fantasy novel for his work The Three-Body Problem, becoming the first Asian to win the most prestigious science fiction award, which is organized by the World Science Fiction Society.