Respond to these rapid questions in our Wolf Warrior 2 quiz and we will tell you which Wolf Warrior 2 character you are. Play it now.
It is not a harmless piece of pro-military propaganda that the jingoistic Chinese action film “Wolf Warrior 2” is marketed as. While this film is the second most successful in Chinese history, it is also the most controversial, because its characters’ sense of patriotism is built on racist assumptions that would be rightly criticized if they were presented in a European or American narrative as part of a divisive “white savior” power fantasy. In the long run, “Wolf Warrior 2” may come across as harmlessly kitschy, but its core ideas about how only the Chinese military can save a nameless African country from bloodthirsty native rebels and amoral European mercenaries will always be offensive to Western sensibilities. After all, nothing outlives good intentions tainted by widespread ignorance more quickly than good intentions. However, watching “Wolf Warrior 2” with a sold-out audience on Sunday gave me a taste of what it was like to sit through a snoozer like “Rambo II” back in the 1980s. “Wolf Warrior 2” is similar to Sylvester Stallone’s earlier star vehicle in that it lectures you, pummels you, and then expects you to cheer.
The film begins as a harmlessly goofy but technically impressive meathead spectacle with a strong sense of humor. After serving two years in military prison for beating up a heartless landowner, director Wu Jing reprises his role as Leng Feng, a “Wolf Warrior” special operations officer who travels to an African country after being released. It’s important to note that the location of Leng’s shoot-’em-up safari is never specified, lest Leng’s action-adventure become bogged down by real-world details or exploitation implications that the film’s four screenwriters flirt with but never fully address.
As the film’s rousing, and technically accomplished, opening sequence demonstrates, Leng is a tough dude with a lot of heart. During a spectacular opening sequence that is designed to appear as if it was shot in one continuous long take, Leng prevents a group of pirates from boarding his ship bound for Africa. Immediately following that, Leng further establishes his manliness by out-drinking the local Africans (you can tell he’s a real man because after pounding down beers, he whips out a bottle of high-proof Chinese baiju liquor and continues to chug it). In the following scene, by shooting and kicking the bad guys to pieces, he saves the lives of a group of Chinese expatriates from a group of murderous rebels. Moreover, this scene contains a sequence in which Leng deflects a flying grenade with a box-spring mattress before tossing the grenade into a nearby (and conveniently vacant) car, thereby saving the lives of everyone inside.
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“Wolf Warrior 2,” on the other hand, becomes extremely bad once it becomes relatively sober. With the assistance of top-level Chinese military officials, Leng sets out to rescue noted human rights activists Chen and Rachel (Celina Jade) from the clutches of evil soldier of fortune Big Daddy (Frank Grillo) and his band of Caucasian mobsters. There is nothing immediately offensive about Big Daddy and his band of brothers. To be more precise, they are initially defined by generically stilted characterizations. However, over time, Big Daddy’s group introduces an element of good exploitation versus bad exploitation that is inherent in any foreign military intervention in a developing country that has not been thoroughly examined. While Big Daddy appears harmless when he assures Leng that he will “always be inferior” to “people like Big Daddy,” or even when Big Daddy speaks for the film’s producers when he claims that he was wrong about the Chinese army’s prowess, the truth is that Big Daddy is anything but harmless. Big Daddy is a bad guy because he is an outsider who doesn’t care about the people he is casually slaughtering. That is the reality of the situation. Take note of the fact that Jing and his co-writers aren’t interested in delving into the motivations of the rebel groups that Big Daddy is a representative of (more on this shortly). Big Daddy is the real bad guy because he is not a benevolent exploiter, as many people believe.
Wolf Warrior 2 Quiz
For his part, Leng represents a less concerning but still potentially exploitative outside group that is only fundamentally different from Big Daddy’s group in that they consider themselves to be missionaries armed with guns, as opposed to missionaries without guns. Two of Leng’s colleagues have even stated that they enjoy Africa because of its “delicious food, beautiful scenery, and hot women,” as well as the fact that it provides them with the opportunity to practice shooting their firearms. Leng stands out because, despite the fact that he has been expelled from the military, he continues to believe that “once a Wolf Warrior, always a Wolf Warrior.” Therefore, by simply spending enough time with Leng and becoming inspired by him, Leng’s colleagues are given the opportunity to recognize the error of their ways and correct them.
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Without the stench of He-man chauvinism in his sense of duty, Leng could be a stirring or even harmlessly proud figurehead. But he isn’t. Look no further than the characters he is rescuing and/or fighting to see what I mean. Take a look at how the Africans are celebrating their newfound savior by behaving in ways that are reminiscent of racist fantasies about uncivilized mindless savages: they dance around an open bonfire while pounding on handdrums. Take, for example, Tundu, Leng’s lanky African “godson” sidekick who sells bootleg porn and consumes a lot of food. Take, for example, Tundu’s mother, an obese woman who breaks bottles and body-slams African insurgents in order to protect her son. Tundu’s mother’s heroism may be a sign that she is a secret badass, but her violent outbursts are merely for comic effect. She is not a supporting character; she is a punchline. She possesses no more depth than the African insurgents who murder Tundu’s fellow victims in cold blood. These individuals scream, shoot, and curse. Because the filmmakers are not interested in developing them as characters, there is nothing more to say about them. How can you take seriously the claims of self-serious heroism made by action films in the face of all this latent uncritical political exceptionalism, you might wonder.
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“Wolf Warrior 2” isn’t just intellectually repugnant; it’s also a stale piece of entertainment on the whole. Jing and his co-creators are relentless in their insistence that you accept their characters’ political rhetoric and humanitarian actions at face value. For example, Leng contracts and recovers quickly from the Lamanla virus, a supposedly incurable disease that has claimed the lives of numerous unremarkable African characters. Doctor Rachel’s use of Dr. Chen’s research results in the healing of Leng, a foreigner who was suffering from Lamanla at the time of the healing. But why should these characters be praised when so much of their story is characterized by implausible declarations of intent? The action scenes are over-edited, with blurry, amateurish, “Sports Mode”-style hand-held photography obscuring the action. What is the purpose of all this? Just how am I supposed to be able to turn off my mind and simply enjoy this as entertainment? If you want more modern action movies to be like bad Rambo ripoffs, “Wolf Warrior 2” is the movie for you. However, it is devoid of Sylvester Stallone’s charisma and amplified by Michael Bay-levels of soul-dead military/gun fetishism, “Wolf Warrior 2” is not the movie for you. Jing will get your blood pumping, but not in a good way, as you might expect.Also, you must try to play this Wolf Warrior 2 quiz.
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