So I decided to watch these movies mostly purely out of curiosity. If you follow politics or any sort of Chinese news then you’ve probably heard of “wolf warrior diplomacy”. Which I’m not quite sure whether that originated in Chinese media or American media, but my guess would be the latter. I went into it kind of expecting and kind of wanting a jingoistic sort of movie. But what I got wasn’t really that. I mean sure, there’s definitely a bit. But I expected more just based on how much this movie has been mocked. I think I liked the first one better.
They’re both action movies. Neither of the plots are deep. Neither of them particularly make much sense. First one is about a border clash. Second one is a romp through some generic African country. Both are fine movies. I’d take them over the woke crap that Hollywood is putting out. About the only worth I can see for watching these movies is just educational in the sense to see what they’re doing “across the pond”. It’s also a pretty violent movie. The villains in both movies are some generic band of Western mercenaries.
What I didn’t quite understand though was that for a state approved propaganda movie it kind of made the PLA look bad. I mean the Chinese guys in the first one must’ve been killed at a rate of 3:1 or something like that. Then a small mercenary force being able to prance unharmed past the Chinese border is also kind of an embarrassment. It was almost like the PLA was incompetent except for our protagonist. The second one didn’t make much sense either. There they were just kinda impotent. They really didn’t do much. Mostly weren’t involved in much of anything.
The most famous line I had heard before watching the movie was the bit about Chinese passports. To my disappointment this wasn’t actually a line muttered during the movie. It was just a screen that was displayed right before the credits that had that text on it. Most the movie does with passports is just shame that shop owner in the beginning for giving up his. Bit of a noting burger. Probably most of the people who talk about “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” have never actually seen this movie. People also made fun of the Africans and rebels giving special treatment to the Chinese, but I think it actually kind of made sense. Why antagonize a larger power when you don’t have to. Germans did this in WW1 with America. New Syrian government is kind of doing it with Israel. I don’t know if it was really that absurd.
All in all, pretty mindless action movie. I personally found both of them mildly entertaining. No American leftist horseshit.
7/10
