This article first published Caixin World (WeChat globusnews)
When I was watching "Wolf Warrior 2", I always wondered which African country the story took place in. Pirates appear, probably in East African countries such as Somalia, but there is no epidemic in East Africa; Lamanla virus (prototype Ebola) makes people feel that it may be in West Africa, but there is no war in West Africa; the only country currently experiencing a hot war is South Africa Sudan, but there are only occasional fighting and sporadic clashes. The evacuation bridge is reminiscent of Yemen in 2015 or Libya in 2011, but this one is a Gulf country and the other is a North African country, which is too different from the vast grasslands in the movie and the scene of sub-Saharan black Africa where lions chase cars. .
It was not until the Chinese ambassador stood in front of the guns of the anti-government armed forces that he justly emphasized that "China and Africa are friends", but still did not specify which specific independent sovereign country, I regretfully realized that the film originally wanted to Presenting a generalized Africa, a platter of war, plague, famine, pirates, poverty and other elements is presented to the audience.
Friends who live in Africa will laugh at this, while Chinese people who have never been there may not want to set foot on that hellish continent for the rest of their lives after watching the movie. Our imagination of Africa is very rich, and we will paint hungry Africans as walking dead zombies, but to a certain extent, this imagination is still barren and narrow, it is difficult to break through the rut of chaos and poverty, and forever waiting Alien "savior" gesture.
In this regard, I chatted with Professor He Wenping, "Old Africa". She is the chief researcher of the Institute of West Asian and African Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She has been engaged in African research for nearly 30 years and has visited 25 countries in the African continent. She told me that Wolf Warrior 2 is a typical example of the conceptualization of Africa.
The villain in the film, the "Red Turban Army", will suddenly descend on a pleasant beach and kill innocent people indiscriminately. This kind of brutal killing is more like the behavior of a terrorist organization. The rebels will at least have clearer targets, such as besieging the seat of the government. After the Cold War, the most appalling massacre that took place on the African continent was the 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which nearly a million people died, but it was also a racially differentiated act of genocide by the Hutu against the Tutsi, using cold weapons such as machetes. Hollywood filmed "Hotel Rwanda" from this, and in "Wolf Warriors 2", the plot of who to withdraw first and whether to take the black people with them was presented as early as in this blockbuster.
The "Red Turbans" employed white European mercenaries to fight on the front lines and were also out of touch with African reality. It is difficult for Africa to hire mercenaries from Europe. In fact, after the Cold War, the form of mercenaries rarely appeared on the African continent. The most famous in recent years are Gaddafi's mercenaries, used to suppress non-government forces, but the Tuareg recruits are also black from sub-Saharan. There have been reports that some African rebellions are behind the shadows of white planning, originating in places such as Paris or London, and they are limited to behind-the-scenes manipulation, far from front-line operations. But it cannot be ruled out that the creators of "Wolf Warrior 2" want to elevate national pride to a higher level by defeating white people. European and American companies, such as Blackwater, which aim to protect corporate security, can only be called private security forces, not "mercenaries".
The male protagonist met Rachel, an American doctor, in a Chinese-funded hospital in a slum. He Wenping told me that, firstly, Chinese-funded hospitals are generally opened in capitals or big cities, and secondly, there are basically no American doctors, and at most local doctors are employed for assistance. The details of the construction of shelters in the epidemic area, the assistance of American doctors, and the refugees seeking medical help are more like what happened in international medical organizations such as Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross. In addition, even during the Ebola outbreak, medical staff would quickly bury the bodies on the spot, and piling them into hills would only make the epidemic spread faster. Not to mention the bizarre self-healing of the heroine who was suffering from the Lamanla virus overnight, the karst cave where the heroine and heroine are hiding will not appear on the African grasslands. The imagination of stronger martial arts after recuperation in the cave exists in Chinese martial arts films, and it is very abrupt when grafted on the topography of Africa.
Another important scene in the film is an independent Chinese-owned factory. The rich second generation who likes to dance with guns and sticks revealed "my factory" in the words, and judged that this is a private enterprise. According to the report "Dancing with Lions and Dragons" released by McKinsey not long ago, 90% of Chinese companies on the African continent are private companies. Such a large-scale private factory stands on the African plains, breaking people's impression of the dominance of state-owned enterprises. But He Wenping, who has visited many Chinese companies, told me that factories like the isolated island in the movie are rare in reality. With so many Central African workers, there should be villages or residential areas near the factories. Local workers are usually employed in nearby factories. In the remote Chinese factories that pop up out of nowhere, locals don’t know how long they have to drive to and from get off work.
In terms of security, first of all, Chinese-funded enterprises rarely invest and set up factories in war-torn areas, and secondly, most of the enterprises will hand them over to local security companies to prevent petty theft and robbery. Black security guards guarding the factory compound at the gate, raising a few dogs, may be the more daily scene of the company.
A more misleading fake information may be that Chinese passports are "easy to use" in Africa and can pass through customs smoothly. Chinese entrepreneurs and migrant workers have more or less encountered difficulties in customs in many African countries, requiring unpacking for inspection, or Delay extortionate tips. In South Sudan, Nigeria, and Cameroon, there have been many kidnapping incidents against Chinese people, demanding huge ransoms from the victims' units, and they will tear up the votes at every turn. In the early morning of April 24, 2007, the camp of Sinopec Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau in eastern Ethiopia was suddenly attacked by non-government armed forces. Nine Chinese workers were killed, seven Chinese workers were kidnapped, and 65 Ethiopian employees were killed. Responsible for camp security The defending Ethiopian soldiers suffered many casualties. The briefly occupied camp was looted.
At the end of the film, the captain of the Chinese warship saw his compatriots suffer and pressed the button to fire missiles to the ground. This detail will never play out in reality, but it is valuable that it starts to trigger the audience to think about how China's military might be used in Africa. China will train local African military personnel in peacetime, supply military bases in Djibouti or conduct friendly visits, but it is extremely cautious in providing military assistance in times of war and conflict. One needs to mention the Chinese arms boat incident in 2008, when Zimbabwe's civil war was on the verge of breaking out and the Mugabe government was accused of rigging elections. At this sensitive period, a Chinese arms cargo ship "Anyuejiang-Guangzhou" was about to arrive in South Africa according to the contract agreement signed earlier, which aroused the high vigilance of neighboring countries and the international community. No country agreed to unload the ship, and finally had to return. . Although the civil war in Zimbabwe did not start, it is worth referring to this "embarrassing" case.
Despite the flaws, "Wolf Warrior 2" still imitates the essence of Hollywood's personal heroism. After all, the male protagonist's original intention was to avenge his lover before he set foot on Africa, not for national justice.
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