The Red Menace

I was too young to remember Red Dawn's premiere in 1984 but have seen it several times since. It's a stirring and patriotic film about a group of high schoolers turn guerrillas who resist a Soviet invasion of the US. I was excited to notice that remake has been in the works for a couple years; this time with the Chinese as the villains. China is sort of the obvious choice given the tenor of the moment. Despite the improbability of a Soviet invasion we still watched the original Red Dawn. A Chinese invasion would be similarly impossible but it could still make for good, mindless fun.

I was surprised when I realized that all of the actors portraying Chinese characters were actually Korean- I wasn't sure if this was a result of Chinese actors not wanting to portray China as the bad guy or if it is more of a commentary on the average non-Asians inability to tell the difference between Koreans and Chinese. Either way it was also prescient.

The film has now been retooled (via digital editing) so that the North Koreans have somehow invaded the American homeland. (If I thought China couldn't do it, guess my opinion on the likelihood of a country with a GDP of $19 crossing the Pacific.) This obviously bodes terribly for the film... was it really so unintelligently made that through a few digital edits the villains can be changed from one of our largest trading partners to a country we have all but no contact with?

Either way the reasoning behind this seems to be a desire to get the movie into the (theoretically) lucrative Chinese market. This is unlikely regardless of the geopolitics of the film because the Chinese government only allows in a select few foreign films per year. American films can be bought on pirated DVD (with no money going to the production company) but they are rarely shown in theaters. This trend is unlikely to change as the Chinese government has been increasing its enforcement of anti-free speech laws as of late.

This also highlights another pressing issue for business in China: if the Chinese can build it themselves they won't buy it from us. Many companies have learned the hard way that the Chinese government only gives them preferential treatment in exchange for technology transfers. Once those transfers are made the foreign companies find themselves being treated with much less deference and much less favorable business terms. Hollywood has not picked up on this yet and is keeping its fingers crossed that the Chinese government will spontaneously stop acting the way it has for decades (and declares that it will continue to act). Of course, this means we are unlikely to see a Falun Gong or Tiannanmen Square movie, despite how interesting they would be.