Dragon Day, What the actual fuck? Options

[MARS]

Trailer

Lo and behold, folks, another entry in the inexplicably still popular genre of modern invasion fiction: A fearmongering 'China attacks the US' flick that's even dumber than the remake of Red Dawn!

[Svea Rike]

^Red Dawn of 2012 is one. There are most likely many more.

[AK47sForEveryone]

^Red Dawn of 2012 is one. There are most likely many more.

Well, if we're being strictly accurate here, Red Dawn 2012 had the (absurd) premise of a North Korean invasion. And fared very poorly at the box office for its budget. It WAS originally intended to be a Chinese invasion though, so we'll count that. Then there's this, Dragon Day, which amusingly had to go to freaking Indiegogo for an attempt at funding. Fell real short though, but apparently they soldiered on. And then there was a "Citizens Against Government Waste" ad that was total yellow peril bullshit.

Beyond that though, I'm coming up empty on films. Moving to television, "House of Cards" does portray Chinese politicians in a poor light, but all politics in that show is portrayed as a few steps below the like of the Sopranos. And aside from that, hardly as invaders. The TV series 24 had some shenanigans going on with China. I haven't watched it myself but apparently it had terrorist Chinese spies or something? So I'll concede that one.

In other media, Wargame Red Dragon has China drawn in to conflict with the United States as part of the greater COMINTERN vs NATO plot- though, Wargame is made by some French developers if the wikipedia entry on Eugen systems is accurate. Homefront had the same failings as Red Dawn, finance and plotwise. And now that I look, same script writer. To a certain extent, one can put Command and Conquer Generals in this stack: despite the plot making sure to emphasize the United States and China working together, China gets depicted in some ways which could be considered negative. Red Guard being built in twos with bolt action rifles, relying on flame throwers, landmines, and nuclear weapons which violate the common rules of war, blowing up the freaking Three Gorges Dam. More obvious examples I can't find at the moment, despite my googling of "yellow peril video games" "sinophobic films" "China invasion films" and other terms.

This isn't proof that it's not out there. There is certainly a great deal of fear of China in the American wings, as a quick perusal of the usual suspect websites can prove. And it's good to be vigilant and call that shit out. But on the other hand, let's be honest here. It's a shitty indie movie made on a shoestring budget that's trying to tap in to the current survival prepper zeitgeist. It has all the same weight as Death of a President with a less interesting concept. It doesn't have the backing of major studios, it'll see as much screen time as "Postal the Movie", and aside from that, the primary antagonist in the story with a human face is a backwoods sheriff in mirror shades.

Apparently, the Chinese military doesn't even invade. They just hack the US with evil Chinese computer chips, and then wave a magical debt wand that evokes eternal loyalty in aforementioned backwoods sheriff. Admittedly, I haven't seen this, just based off of reviews that I skimmed for this post.

Also, if we're talking invasion movies, aliens are way more common. Barring the occasional ape attack.

I'm curious about what Chinese invasion films are out there these days, considering that Hollywood (By which I mean the big studios, not schmucks that have to go to Indiegogo) were the ones that filmed special scenes for Iron Man 3's release in China and changed 2012's Red Dawn to being about North Koreans rather than the original concept of Chinese invasion. If we're going to complain about overdone things, we should be complaining about space aliens.

Unless...

[Kalga]

Also, if we're talking invasion movies, aliens are way more common. Barring the occasional ape attack.

That reminds me, war of the Worlds was in that wave of "invasion" literary that was popular in Britain back in the (18)90s...

What's with the trend of most powerful countries of their era (British Empire, America, etc.) having such fantasies about being invaded?

This post has been edited by Kalga: 30 Apr 2014, 1:06

[AK47sForEveryone]

That reminds me, war of the Worlds was in that wave of "invasion" literary that was popular in Britain back in the (18)90s...

What's with the trend of most powerful countries of their era (British Empire, America, etc.) having such fantasies about being invaded?

Well, the way I see it, there's two strong strains of the invasion genre: those that want to use it as a political vehicle (The Battle of Dorking, Dragon Day, etcetera), and those that just want to tell a cool story. I wouldn't ascribe the RotR mod as having any political agenda with having Russia invade Europe, I think we all just want to have a chance to to see all those whiz bang pieces of military materiel be put to use. And if you think it's just powerful countries having fantasies about being invaded, I got a whole lot of recommendations for you.

For Hollywood, alien invasions are an easy vehicle for explosions. Explosions sell. Action films reliably do well abroad, and a good alien invasion film doesn't offend anybody so long as you're not cribbing notes from George Lucas.

For a less crass and more gut instinct reason though, I think it's because nobody likes to be Goliath in a David and Goliath scenario. Nine times out of ten, Goliath wins, but who wants to be Goliath? He's a dick. If a bigger Goliath comes along though, well, we feel relief at for once being able to have an undoubtedly moral fight. And there is that political stuff. In Britain, it was fear that radical softies were missing that Germany was a new and frightening threat. In America, after the made for TV (And excellent) film The Day After was released, the television series Amerika was made to convince Americans that nuclear war was preferable to Soviet domination. If it's not about an alien invasion, and is instead about an identifiable country, there's usually some marriage of policy criticism to the usual scaremongering about a foreign power. After all, the true spirit of a country could never fall to foreign invaders without a stab in the back from those damn fascists/commies/hippies/rednecks/whatever.

Again, broad broad speculation here. Your speculation probably is better than mine.