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FS20160

Academic Year 2026/2027

Action Adventure Cinema - Genre:Action/Adventure (FS20160)

Subject:
Film Studies
College:
Arts & Humanities
School:
English, Drama & Film
Level:
2 (Intermediate)
Credits:
5
Module Coordinator:
Dr Harvey O'Brien
Trimester:
Autumn
Mode of Delivery:
On Campus
Internship Module:
No
How will I be graded?
Letter grades

Curricular information is subject to change.

The cinema of action and adventure encompasses films in a range of genres and incorporates the output and influences of several regional and national cultural traditions and globalised and transnational industries. Writings about action and adventure address theoretical frames as varied as the discourse of gender and power, nation and nationality, violence and psychological trauma, philosophies of life and death, and the socio-political and economic positioning of cinema itself. This module will address this range of topics under the general banner of genre theory, from iconographical and ritual functions to ideological debates in the postmodern era.

Content Note: This module includes extensive representations of violence, trauma, and conflict, including material that may be challenging. Films may contain cultural and political attitudes that are problematic or offensive from a contemporary perspective, including representations of gender, race, nationality, sexuality, violence, and power that reflect historical contexts and assumptions. These representations are being studied as objects of academic inquiry not platformed as lifestyle choices. Genre cinema is closely connected to popular entertainment and therefore reflects the cultural values and assumptions of the time, including attitudes that may subsequently become unacceptable or at least contested. The purpose of examining this kind of material is not to endorse these representations, but to understand how they function within particular historical, cultural, and ideological contexts.

This module approaches this material through critical and scholarly analysis, using film studies to examine how popular cinema reflects, reproduces, questions, and sometimes disrupts social and political ideas. Students will be encouraged to engage critically with these representations and to develop the research and analysis skills necessary to place them within broader debates about cinema, culture, and society.

About this Module

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this module students will be able to:
1. Make appropriate use of genre theory frameworks in the analysis of films.
2. Interpret mainstream action adventure films from political and philosophical standpoints.
3. Differentiate between different configurations of the dynamics of genre films.
4. Compose a scholarly essay assessing action-adventure in an academic context using appropriate literature in review.

Indicative Module Content:

Contact content will consist of lectures, tutorials, and a weekly screening. Weekly reading lists will be provided. Tutorial times will be devoted to student contribution, preparation for assessment, and discussion of primary texts (both readings and films). Assessment will be by means of essays and learning journal.

Topics will likely include (subject to adjustment):
Genre and narrative
Economic and social functions of genre.
History and ideology in practice and critical theory.
Postmodernism and neoliberal ideology.
Orientalism, revisionism, neocolonialism.
Decolonisation, appropriation, iconography.
Agency, gender, and power.
Authorship approaches in genre context.
Syntactic approaches to action.
Ethics and aesthetics of violence.
Form and Hybridity.
Culture and nationalism, transnationalism.

The United Nations identified seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as core to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and UCD contributes in general to SDG 4 Quality Education. Further SDGs explored within this module if relevant are listed below. A scale of 1 - 5 indicates the extent to which the SDG is covered.


 

Student Effort Hours:
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

12
Tutorial

12
Laboratories

30
Specified Learning Activities

20
Autonomous Student Learning

35
Total

109

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
Students are expected to attend lectures, which provide a broad introduction to a body of theory. There will be a case study and a focus screening each week that illustrates some of the questions raised, though the selection is by no means conclusively canonical; more an example to facilitate further thinking and viewing. Lectures and screenings are only one portion of student activity, though, and do not in themselves complete the weekly engagement with either live learning or required scholarship. There are weekly tutorials requiring ongoing contribution, and also the weekly screenings to give further context. There are, of course, also weekly required readings that will make up much of the time spent on the subject, as well as an invitation to extend your studies beyond that to the body of writing in the area having built on these core materials. As a level two module, this course will require an intermediate level of knowledge of the relevant vocabulary and theories of film introduced at level one. It will build upon key skills and knowledge typically acquired at level one, developing confidence with the application of that knowledge to intermediate scholarship. As such it is always advisable to approach this module with some background in film studies, as you will be expected to approach these films as critical texts and examine them with reference to academic reading in the subject.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations
Learning Recommendations:

It is recommended that students have taken at least one level one film studies module, preferably more than one. It is also advisable that students familiarise themselves with level one film studies textbooks.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Assignment(Including Essay): Scholarship Review (approx 1000 words) Week 7 Graded No
30
 No
Assignment(Including Essay): Final Essay (2000 words approx) Week 14 Graded No
60
 No
Reflective Assignment: Continuous Assessment: learning journal to be kept weekly based on tutorial contribution - response to a topic given live in class. Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12 Pass/Fail Grade Scale No
10
 No

Carry forward of passed components
No
 

Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Written feedback will be available on all submitted mid-term and final essays. There will also usually be some general feedback notes either in class or on BrightSpace. General consultation is available on a weekly basis for all students throughout the trimester, including during preparation of assessment, but drafts will not be read prior to summative assessment.

Indicative titles (subject to change)
Grant, Barry Keith, Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology, Wallflower Press, 2007.
Grant, Barry Keith (ed.), Film Genre Reader IV, University of Texas Press, 2012.
Kendrick, James (ed.), A Companion to the Action Film, Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.
Lichtenfeld, Eric, Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie, Westport, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2007.
O’Brien, Harvey, Action Movies: The Cinema of Striking Back, Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2012.
Purse, Lisa, Contemporary Action Cinema, Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
Tasker, Yvonne (ed.), Action and Adventure Cinema, Routledge, 2004.
- The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film, Wiley & Sons, 2015.

Focus Films (subject to change)
O Brother, where art thou? (Joel Coen, 2000, US). 107 mins.
Kakushi-koride no san-akunin / The Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa, 1958, Japan). 138 mins.
Black ’47 (Lance Daly, 2018, Ireland/Luxembourg). 100 mins.
Ying xiong / Hero (Yimou Zhang, 2002, China). 96 mins.
Polite Society (Nida Manzoor, 2023, UK). 104 mins.
Tropa de Elite / Elite Squad (José Padhila, 2007, Brazil). 115 mins.
The Marvels (Nia DaCosta, 2023, US) 105 mins.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981, US). 115 mins.
Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, 2015, Colombia/Venezuela/Argentina). 125 mins.
Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2018, US/UK). 115mins.
Busanhaeng / Train to Busan (Yuen Sang-ho, 2016, South Korea). 118 mins.

Name Role
Miss Jodie Thompson Tutor

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
Autumn Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Tues 09:00 - 09:50
Autumn Workshop Offering 2 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Wed 10:00 - 10:50
Autumn Workshop Offering 3 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Wed 13:00 - 13:50
Autumn Workshop Offering 4 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Wed 14:00 - 14:50
Autumn Film Screening Offering 1 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Tues 13:00 - 15:50
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