{"id":1150773,"date":"2021-12-24T15:04:26","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T20:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1150773"},"modified":"2021-12-24T15:04:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T20:04:31","slug":"hollywoods-sinking-ship-sends-f-list-actors-flocking-to-anti-american-chinese-propaganda-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hollywoods-sinking-ship-sends-f-list-actors-flocking-to-anti-american-chinese-propaganda-films\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood&#039;s Sinking Ship Sends F-List Actors Flocking to Anti-American Chinese Propaganda Films"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhollywoods-sinking-ship-sends-f-list-actors-flocking-to-anti-american-chinese-propaganda-films%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1150773&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">The rapid decline of Hollywood\u2019s share of the Chinese film market \u2013 the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/entertainment\/2021\/01\/02\/china-rules-the-post-pandemic-box-office\/\">largest<\/a> in the world as of 2020, when the Chinese coronavirus pandemic shut American cinemas and productions down \u2013 has created a small but growing market of Western actors landing big roles as the villains in communist propaganda movies.<\/p>\n<p>Hollywood studios have spent much of the past decade attempting to court Chinese audiences, which necessitates groveling to the Chinese Communist Party lest their productions get censored or simply outlawed in the country. The American entertainment establishment has tried everything \u2013 from spending heavily on low-intellect and inoffensive comic book movies to erasing even a suspected mention of ethnic groups the Communist Party hates, like the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/entertainment\/2019\/07\/20\/hayward-top-gun-sequel-drops-japanese-taiwanese-flags-from-mavericks-jacket-to-appease-china\/\">Taiwanese<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/news\/movie-doctor-strange-turns-tibetan-man-into-european-woman\/\">Tibetans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Disney filmed <em>Mulan<\/em>&nbsp;in a region dotted with concentration camps and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/entertainment\/2020\/09\/07\/disneys-mulan-under-fire-for-filming-in-chinese-city-running-uyghur-concentration-camps\/\">thanked<\/a> the police officers committing the genocide almost within sight of its cameras.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mulancredits1-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-19252354\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/mulancredits1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/sports\/2019\/10\/14\/lebron-caves-to-china-blasts-uneducated-rockets-gm-free-speech\/\">defended<\/a>&nbsp;police brutality in Hong Kong in anticipation of the release of&nbsp;<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em>, a film first and foremost marketed to China.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong><em>Watch below:&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">LeBron says he believes Rockets GM Daryl Morey wasn\u2019t educated when he spoke about Hong Kong and that his tweet could have hurt a lot of people, including financially <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UMj71DPQH7\">pic.twitter.com\/UMj71DPQH7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/darrenrovell\/status\/1183927797728894976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 15, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Hollywood has also attempted to loan China its biggest names for projects appearing superficially Chinese, most notably the 2016 Chinese period piece&nbsp;<em>The Great Wall<\/em>, directed by legendary Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou but incoherently <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2016\/film\/festivals\/more-western-actors-courted-for-asian-films-1201880670\/\">starring<\/a> Matt Damon and filmed in English. When the film came out, top American stars flocking to Chinese movies appeared to be the trend of the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChina wants to export its films to the world \u2014 especially the U.S. \u2014 as an achievement of its soft power, but no one wants to watch its films,\u201d producer and director Peter Tsi told&nbsp;<em>Variety<\/em> at the time.&nbsp;\u201cOn the other hand, Hollywood is excited about getting into the China market, but the only way to achieve that is through co-production, and they must find subject matter that can resonate with the Chinese audience.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19252514\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-great-wall1-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19252514\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-great-wall1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Matt Damon stars in the medieval epic The Great Wall. (Universal Pictures)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe only way to make it work is to arbitrarily cast a Hollywood actor or two so that U.S. distributors and exhibitors might consider screening them,\u201d Tsi insisted.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>For Hollywood as an industry, the shameless pandering has failed. The&nbsp;<em>Space Jam&nbsp;<\/em>sequel, as&nbsp;<em>Hollywood Reporter&nbsp;<\/em>noted this week, was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/business\/business-news\/hollywoods-china-relationship-finally-unraveled-1235062742\/\">flop<\/a>.&nbsp;<em>The Great Wall&nbsp;<\/em>was such a commercial disaster in both America and China that Matt Damon is still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/2021\/07\/matt-damon-great-wall-disaster-1234653868\/\">defending<\/a> his participation in it five years later. As of 2021, Hollywood <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/entertainment\/2021\/08\/29\/study-hollywoods-share-of-china-box-office-collapses-now-less-than-10\/\">makes up<\/a> less than ten percent of China\u2019s box office share. Chinese government media outlets regularly mock American establishment movie studios as ham-fisted in their attempts to attract Chinese audiences; Hollywood has become a punchline.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Hollywood still cannot really respect and understand Chinese culture and just randomly mixes some Chinese elements into their films, it will lose a large amount of its fans in China,\u201d the Chinese propaganda outlet&nbsp;<em>Global Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/national-security\/2021\/04\/09\/china-hollywood-stop-randomly-mixing-chinese-elements-movies\/\">warned<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>While the cream of the Hollywood crop fails to find its footing in China, a growing number of actors who struggled with only bit roles at home have found a loophole to China\u2019s seemingly impenetrable barrier for Western actors: playing American villains in propaganda films.<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese communist propaganda movie industry is booming. The Communist Party has clearly, and explicitly, prioritized spending on making high-budget action films featuring despicable American enemies, and it has paid off: the most expensive Chinese film of all time is also the highest-grossing film in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/culture\/2021\/12\/21\/what-were-2021-s-highest-grossing-films-worldwide\">world<\/a> for 2021 and the highest-grossing film in Chinese cinema <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2021\/11\/china-the-battle-at-lake-changjin-highest-grossing-film-all-time-1234880119\/\">history<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Battle at Lake Changjin<\/em> tells the story of China\u2019s involvement in the Korean War. In reality, China helped, through a bloody intervention, create one of the world\u2019s most repressive regimes through support for Kim Il-sung in North Korea. Thanks to China, it is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nknews.org\/2018\/12\/how-the-kim-cult-of-personality-came-to-dominate-north-korean-life\/\">illegal<\/a> now in North Korea not to worship Kim and his progeny as gods. In&nbsp;<em>The Battle at Lake Changjin<\/em>, however, China\u2019s \u201cpeople\u2019s volunteers\u201d courageously organized a resistance to the true repressors: the American forces in Korea to help the South fight off the communists.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong><em>Watch below:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n[embedded content]\n<p>To depict China\u2019s alleged triumphant defeat of the evil Americans, Chinese film studios need people to play evil Americans. Among the top Western talent in&nbsp;<em>Lake Changjin<\/em> are such unknowns in Hollywood as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt13462900\/fullcredits\/?ref_=tt_ql_cl\">James Filbird<\/a> \u2013 whose only film credits are playing General Douglas MacArthur in&nbsp;<em>Lake Changjin<\/em> and its currently-in-production sequel,&nbsp;<em>Water Gate Bridge<\/em> \u2013 and Nathaniel Boyd, whose credits also include a Chinese movie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm6051128\/?ref_=tt_cl_t_15\">glorifying<\/a> the fight against Imperial Japan during World War II.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CUULxl5rLdA\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\">\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm6039425\/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t5\">Kevin Lee<\/a>, a British actor who abandoned Los Angeles for Beijing and never looked back, also stars in the film as&nbsp;Colonel Allan MacLean, the head of the U.S. Army division the communists <a href=\"https:\/\/armyhistory.org\/nightmare-at-the-chosin-reservoir\/\">defeat<\/a> in the movie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font20px\">\u201cChina has a fantastic platform to gain valuable acting experience, build a solid acting reel, and move on where acting is taken more seriously,\u201d Lee <a href=\"https:\/\/kahlidelijahtapia.com\/interview-with-expat-thespian-kevin-lee\/\">said<\/a> in a 2018 interview. \u201cPlenty of opportunity here, but to make a name for yourself in China as a westerner is no easy feat and no foreigner has yet to break this space.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CXNmJv6vszq\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\">\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Prior to&nbsp;<em>Lake Changjin<\/em>, Lee starred in&nbsp;<em>Wolf Warrior<\/em>, which has become a classic Chinese propaganda movie because its <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2021\/11\/china-the-battle-at-lake-changjin-highest-grossing-film-all-time-1234880119\/\">sequel<\/a> was the highest-grossing Chinese movie of all time prior to&nbsp;<em>Lake Changjin<\/em>. Lee has also starred in several other Chinese action movies, notably&nbsp;<em>Te Jing Dui<\/em> (S.W.A.T.), a movie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt9243442\/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4\">glorifying<\/a> Chinese police officers at the height of the Hong Kong police repression wave against pro-democracy protesters.<\/p>\n<p>Like&nbsp;<em>Lake Changjin<\/em>, the&nbsp;<em>Wolf Warrior<\/em> series relies on American villains to energize a Chinese communist audience and has thus attracted significant Western, for lack of a better word, talent. Perhaps no Hollywood actor has taken advantage of the opportunity to make Americans look bad in Chinese propaganda films more than Frank Grillo, who enjoyed a long career of bit roles in police procedurals or background jobs in war movies like&nbsp;<em>Zero Dark Thirty<\/em> before playing the lead villain, the callous American mercenary \u201cBig Daddy,\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Wolf Warrior 2.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Watch below:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n[embedded content]\n<p><em>Wolf Warrior 2<\/em> is not a subtle film. Its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/general-news\/wolf-warrior-2-star-frank-grillo-how-chinas-780m-blockbuster-was-made-1031929\/\">tagline<\/a> is \u201cWhoever offends China will be hunted down no matter how far away they are.\u201d Grillo\u2019s \u201cBig Daddy\u201d is depicted as the leader of a group of Americans thirsty for the blood of civilians for no clear reason other than their nature \u2013 Chinese state media regularly claims European people have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/06\/29\/chinese-media-anglo-saxons-dna-makes-them-genocidal\/\">genetic<\/a> disposition towards violence.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, when the movie came out, Grillo explained in an interview that the film was interesting to him because, at the time, \u201ceveryone in Hollywood [was] trying to get into the Chinese market, or has tried and failed, or is already in co-productions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a consciousness that has been developing in China. Maybe it started in 2008 when the country started opening to the world and consumerism became a bigger part of the culture,\u201d Grillo said, echoing Chinese state propaganda. \u201cPeople say this movie is nationalistic and it\u2019s propaganda \u2014 and in a sense, it is. But this pride in China is real, and the audience wants to believe that being Chinese means something special.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19255066\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1333638353.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19255066\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1333638353.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Frank Grillo is seen on stage during the Awards Winner Ceremony of the 74th Locarno Film Festival on August 11, 2021 in Locarno, Switzerland. (Rosdiana Ciaravolo\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the same interview, Grillo denounced America as \u201ca mess\u201d and \u201ca circus\u201d for having recently voted for President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Grillo and actors like Kevin Lee appear to have gotten on at the ground floor of a growing trend, especially as Hollywood finds it can no longer compete in China and has compromised its storytelling ability to such a degree that American audiences aren\u2019t interested, either. In 2018,&nbsp;<em>Hollywood Reporter<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/general-news\/why-hollywood-film-talent-is-flocking-china-1124383\/\">identified<\/a> Grillo, among others, as signs that \u201cthe trade winds of the global film industry have begun to blow the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, nearly every upcoming big-budget Chinese film boasts some Hollywood-pedigreed professional or technical expertise. In some cases, the international involvement is considerable,\u201d the magazine noted at the time. Three years later, with Chinese films soundly defeating Hollywood\u2019s anemic content with consumers, the move east to enable an industry in which citizens may see their \u201csocial credit\u201d scores fall if they do not rush to watch a \u201cpatriotic\u201d movie is even apparent.<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Frances Martel on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/francesimartel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/francesimartel\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640258282768000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2BocF6jlu66vor_4dGf53r\">Facebook<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/francesmartel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/twitter.com\/francesmartel&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1640258282768000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1k8qO0FAp_rcaacPJ9S8e0\">Twitter.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rapid decline of Hollywood\u2019s share of the Chinese film market \u2013 the largest in the world as of 2020, when the Chinese coronavirus pandemic shut American cinemas and productions &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1150773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1150773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1150773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1150773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1150773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}