Lu Chuan’s movie City of Life and Death, and in Chinese, Nanjing, Nanjing has given rise to much controversy since its release. What is ironical is that even before the release of this movie, Lu Chuan had already dedicated himself to explaining the theme, the implied meaning as well as his real intention in shooting this movie. However, the unexpected controversy fully proves Stuart Hall’s theory concerning television. This thesis is devoted to showing the fact that the audiences are not passive receivers of televisual message; instead, they are rather active and have their own positions. The theory employed here is Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding. Lu Chuan’s movie City of Life and Death, and in Chinese, Nanjing, Nanjing has given rise to controversy since its release. What is ironical is that even before the release of this movie, Lu Chuan had already dedicated himself to explaining the theme, the implied meaning as well as his real intention in shooting this movie. However, the unexpected controversy fully proves Stuart Hall’s theory concerning television. This thesis is devoted to showing the fact that the audiences are not passive receivers of televisual message; instead, they are rather active and have their own positions. The theory employed here is Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding.