| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| The Top Ten Hollywood Movies That Suck Up To China |
| 2009-11-28 |
| Ever since the reforms began in China, the country's international prowess has been growing. After the Beijing Olympics, more foreigners recognize the excellence of traditional culture of China, while the modern buildings raise the influence of China even higher. After the financial tsunami, the exceptional economic performance of China impressed foreigners. Suddenly, China has turned from a "demonized country" into a "responsible grand nation." Projection, pure projection. Hollywood doesn't know a thing about the PRC. Education is an antidote to this ignorance, but they like having a fantasy world, it's what they do after all. Meanwhile, in the movie industry, the economic downturn caused many big foreign movie companies to go into debt, even bankruptcy. But the film market in China continued to grow at an annual rate of 60% plus. The Chinese movie market is the biggest in the world and also the one with the greatest potential. So the profit-driven Hollywood movie companies are all heading to this "virgin territory" to grab market share. In order to win the hearts of the Chinese people, many Hollywood movies deliberately inject Chinese elements into their movies. So let us review which Hollywood movies have been intentionally trying to please the Chinese people! In Chinese culture, unrequested gifts from a superior are a sign of deadly weakness. The sort that you'd say "I'm a dumbass if I don't give this guy a dagger while he's sleeping and take his position." Movies at link. |
| Posted by:gromky |
| #10 Microsoft believed that it was better to have pirated copies floating around so that when the nation became wealthy enough they'd be locked in to Microsoft. Still, you can't really get locked in to stolen movies. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2009-11-28 19:41 |
| #9 Sucking up to the country that counterfeits most of your product helps you how? |
| Posted by: Skunky Glins**** 2009-11-28 19:23 |
| #8 I guess a list of 2 movies is lame but come on, there had to be other real suck up movies they could have included. There are but the Chinese make them. |
| Posted by: badanov 2009-11-28 18:16 |
| #7 The Manchurian Candidate remake for example, which used the Manchurian corporation instead of PRC for the brainwashing to avoid annoying the Middle Kingdom. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2009-11-28 18:04 |
| #6 The list is pretty stupid actually. Claiming that a Jackie Chan vehicle (Forbidden Kingdom and Rumble in the Bronx) were made to suck up to China is just stupid. Claiming that this is actually a Hollywood movie is a bit of a mistake as well. If you want to talk pandering Jackie Chan movies try Supercop. Fun movie but Michelle Yoeh plays pretty much the same superhero PRC Army spy/cop that she does in Tomorrow Never Dies. Yeah that one made no pretense of being for US audiences but it pandered and it pandered a lot. Saying that Dragonball was pandering because they hired Chow Yun Fat instead of a big name Japanese star is also stupid. how many can name a big name Japanese star? I suspect Star Trek was pandering to Korea because they hired a Korean to play the Japanese character Sulu. Yet they left off Memoirs of a Geisha which used a Chinese actress to play a Japanese Geisha. Fact is the folks in Hollywood probably can't tell a Chinese actor from a Japanese one. This is not pandering. And using Pearl Harbor as the example is also stupid. Fact is the Flying Tigers had flight Jackets that said "I am an American" or something along those lines. I suspect a lot of Chinese were aware that the Americans were there friends. Mulan and Kung Fu Panda are not really pandering to Chinese audiences so much as trying to come up with something western audiences haven't seen yet. Was Lion King pandering to African audiences? Again, these two examples are pretty stupid to include. The Mummy series ran out of reasonable mummy's to fight. The terra cotta warriors aren't exactly mummy's but its close. Not so much pandering as a last desperate gasp to keep the franchise going. Maybe this one is pandering a bit, but I don't see it that way. Showing a clean modern city instead of the grim usually displayed for a Chinese city is pandering? Jeez, Hollywood does something different and still gets bashed? This is a bit sad to include Transforms 2. I mean anything that gives this movie any more attention is a mistake. Tomorrow Never DIes and 2012 clearly pander. I appreciate hearing the details of 2012 so I can avoid it now. I guess a list of 2 movies is lame but come on, there had to be other real suck up movies they could have included. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2009-11-28 18:03 |
| #5 After the Beijing Olympics, more foreigners recognize the excellence of traditional culture of China, I recognized the goose-stepping. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2009-11-28 16:51 |
| #4 Ahhhh, Hollywood finally enlists the assistance of Kissinger & Associates and its undisclosed list of international clients. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-11-28 12:24 |
| #3 Same thing that happened to Philip Morris and the other cancer-stick mongers. Hollywood's business model in the US is dead. The studios have no choice but to seek new, and paying, customers in growing markets abroad. |
| Posted by: lex 2009-11-28 11:48 |
| #2 If they understood Marketing 101, they wouldn't have produced all the anti-war drivel that have been box office flops. If they understood marketing like the chaps in console and PC gaming, there would have been a movie along the lines of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare which sold over 12 million copies at over $50 a pop. Anyone doing the math could figure there was real money to be made. No, it's just that for a significant portion of Hollyweird is basically anti-American, the neo-Euros of North America. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-11-28 08:19 |
| #1 trying to please the Chinese people! Marketing 101. |
| Posted by: badanov 2009-11-28 07:38 |