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Posted by: MARS 28 Apr 2014, 8:56

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdR6La5T0n0

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!

Posted by: Svea Rike Soldier 28 Apr 2014, 9:49

*sigh* If they should make movies like this all year long we might as well just make movies that don't have a plot. I was thinking of a prequel to Pacific Rim showing just ten minute clips of Jaegers punching Kaiju. That would be astoundingly successful.

Posted by: MARS 28 Apr 2014, 10:25

Hell, I wouldn't even mind these invasion flicks so much if they could just mix it up for a change. It's always China (if the producers want to flat-out ignore their market such as with this low-rent piece of shit that's apparently so bad that they couldn't get a single Asian actor) or North Korea (if the producers do want to market it in China as well). Why can't they turn the whole thing on its head for once and have the invaders be American? Or simply go for a premise that's deliberately insane, like having America invaded by Europe, some preposterous future version of Germany, evil timetravelling Americans from the future or, fuck, simply EVERYONE.

Posted by: SorataZ 28 Apr 2014, 11:03

Because we are talking about 'muhrican entertainment, where the most basic rule is "US = cool; THEM = evil AND not cool".

Posted by: Kalga 28 Apr 2014, 11:44

Is it me or is this film also insulting the intelligence of Americans as well? Because having the country being taken down by what effectively is a cheap party trick because... they don't want to pay back their debts? So the Americans are cheap, ungrateful bastards who don't wanna pay their debts as well as being dumber than a sack of potatoes?

Oh wait, it's pandering to the rabid, reactionary, possibly racist, high school dropout/homeschooled, anti foreigner crowd of Mericans'

Posted by: Alias 28 Apr 2014, 12:46

Well, the unfortunate thing is there is evidently enough of an audience for people to get these being made.

The ironic thing is that while China has had it's own share of problems in the past (and in the present) they have far less of a history of pillaging and conquering than just about any other major power in the world.

Posted by: __CrUsHeR 28 Apr 2014, 13:19

Really the North American producers like dramatic films where patriotism means "survive the invasion" or destroy an "enemy".

The real tragedy of all this is that China does not need any super-virus to destroy the United States, just that the current policy continue following its natural course and within a few decades the Americans will no longer of being a hegemonic power - being surpassed by Japaneses, Chineses or Russians - because the political system itself had collapsed before an indignant, disbelieving and apolitical generation that no longer accept reality as it is - as it was in the Soviet Union - and the "American way of life" will be considered by future generations as the extreme of capitalism, racism and selfishness, being abolished worldwide as a social model - I bet it. Finally I hope that my grandchildren can go to the movie and not have to watch a pathetic movie like this.

Posted by: Thelord444 28 Apr 2014, 14:13

In fact it looks pretty good, i hope just that they make it good, i have been looking for a good war movie for a long time now.

Posted by: 8igDaddy8lake 28 Apr 2014, 15:29

You mean like Iron Skies? Personally, I think someone should make a movie based on a section in the book Old Man's War. Basically, an alien race pissed Earth off, so we obliterated their colonies on all of their conquered planets, until we got to their homeworld. Then, we bombed them back to the stone age - as in, nothing higher than 1 story was left on the planet. The most interesting part was where one guy tried to negotiate with the aliens in a community area, got killed (in a fairly spectacular way), and then every marine in his squad just opened up on every creature in the place - including the women, children, and pets. The massacre lasted for one minute, and nothing was left standing besides the marines. Yeah...'murica...

Posted by: Svea Rike Soldier 28 Apr 2014, 15:42

Doesn't look like a war movie to me. All I saw was a couple of Chinese jets in the trailer.

Posted by: DarkyPwnz 29 Apr 2014, 20:58

Try Iron Sky. Moon Nazis vs Sarah Palin.

Maybe I don't watch many movies, but what other Chinese invasion movie is there?

Posted by: Svea Rike Soldier 29 Apr 2014, 21:15

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

Posted by: AK47sForEveryone 30 Apr 2014, 0:03

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 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dragon-day-a-feature-film#home for an attempt at funding. Fell real short though, but apparently they soldiered on. And then there was a "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlkLhVo3PbY 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 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/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, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Battle_Los_Angeles_Poster.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/83/War_of_the_Worlds_2005_poster.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/TheAvengers2012Poster.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/The_Signs_movie.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5b/Skyline_Poster.jpg. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/Rise_of_the_Planet_of_the_Apes_Poster.jpg

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 http://www.movieweb.com/news/iron-man-3-chinese-version-deleted-scene 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...

Posted by: Kalga 30 Apr 2014, 1:05

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?

Posted by: AK47sForEveryone 30 Apr 2014, 5:29

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.

Posted by: MARS 30 Apr 2014, 7:19

I think you're fairly spot on with this analysis. It's quite clear that the invasion genre (and its most popular examples) hinge on the premise that you take the modern day superpower (nowadays the United States) and put them in a position of weakness against an overwhelming enemy, whether it's an enemy nation, which instantly makes the whole thing more superficially topical (and possibly dated in the future) or aliens which may or may not be a surface for the projection of real world fears and paranoia. It has already been pointed out that this isn't a new thing: Invasion novels used to be crazy-popular in the late 19th century and many of their plots revolved around Britain (then the ultimate superpower) being threatened by a foreign power, often Germany. H.G. Wells' The War of The Worlds was actually written as a deconstruction of this premise, i.e. the ever so valiant Britons can be as brave and determined as they want, but they'll never stand a chance to an enemy that's so technologically advanced that he could wipe them out effortlessly. In the end, Britain did not persevere through its own cunning, it's courage or even it's iron will to simply sacrifice whatever needs to be sacrificed in order to survive; the Martians weren't vanquished by the indomitable tenacity of the British people (which would usually be glamourised in this type of narrative) but by lowly bacteria.

When I look at the modern 'resurgence' of this genre, I'm not just looking at movies. You also have plenty of games that fall into the sub-category of invasion stories: Homefront had a North Korean invasion of America, again as a stand-in for what was originally meant to be China. World in Conflict depicted an alternate history soviet invasion of America while the - thankfully forgotten - Turning Point: Fall of Liberty - depicted a nazi invasion. The CoD series alone has already provided a ridiculous amount of examples: We've had Russians in DC and NYC (MW2/3), we've had an army of implausibly competent anti-capitalist terrorists attacking LA (BO2) and we had an all-out invasion and partial occupation by a future evil South America in Ghosts. One could say that the invasion genre is very much alive these days and I wonder if we'll ever see a proper deconstruction of it as we've seen with the original WOTW or whether this particular fad will merely continue ravelling in the 'they invaded us which automatically makes us the good guys who can get away with anything and we'll win by sheer virtue of the fact that our culture is so much more valiant than theirs' simplification. Bottom line: At best, these stories can be shocking and, in a way, cathartic because the usual Goliath gets to witness the technological/military horrors that his country inflicts upon weaker nations, for whatever reason. At worst, they boil down to xenophobic fearmongering and masturbatory fantasies to re-inforce the image that your nation will always, ALWAYS triumph against the most impossible odds and that your paranoia about being in the crosshairs of the inscrutable yellow peril, landgrabbing latinos or evil commie bastards from Russia is entirely justified because they're all out there to destroy 'murica.

Posted by: DarkyPwnz 2 May 2014, 9:14

If you mean War Front: Turning Point (features a nazi invasion), I liked that game, was fun but impractical to be able to control our turrets.

Posted by: MARS 2 May 2014, 9:48

War Front: Turning Point =/= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_Point:_Fall_of_Liberty

Posted by: 8igDaddy8lake 2 May 2014, 15:20

Except that one was an obviously better game than the other...

Posted by: MARS 2 May 2014, 17:04

I didn't claim the opposite, I was merely clearing up the title confusion. Warfront was a neat little RTS with a nice spin on this whole 'what if secret WW2 superweapons were real?' thing whereas FoL wasted an interesting premise though botched game design.

Posted by: 8igDaddy8lake 3 May 2014, 6:50

Oh no, I didn't think you were, I was just pointing it out. It saddens me when an initially great premise turns into...frankly, garbage.

Posted by: ComradeCrimson 27 Aug 2014, 13:03

The only movies I can really think that works from the perspective of the invader always makes the invader go turncoat. Such as with Pocahontas, Avatar, etc.

Personally I'd like to see a film based on an invasion where the character WAS the invader, he/she DID do terrible things and maybe the movie is them looking back on it all, having regrets maybe to keep the moral integrity of the story, but the facts of what they did don't change. Like that suggestion where humanity committed genocide on an alien race.

It'd be an interesting take and I think it'd captivate audiences, and wouldn't make them outright hate the invader either. Because not every invasion in history was one of greed or ambition- (and there is plenty of movies showing conqueror's in positive lights, I've seen enough movies with Genghis Khan shown well or Alexander the Great, Atilla the Hun, Ceasar, etc.) sometimes it was for survival, do or die between two groups.

The closest thing I've ever seen to this was this one anime that was about a Nazi occupied Japan, about a police officer who has to be re-educated or some such after a terrorist/partisan attack. I don't remember its name but it was fairly good, same guy who made Ghost in a Shell if I believe.