Wednesday, March 16, 2011

狼獾!  Bowing to market pressure from distributors, the filmmakers behind the (otherwise finished) Red Dawn remake are digitally changing the enemies from Chinese to North Korean:
People close to the picture said the changes will cost less than $1 million and involve changing an opening sequence summarizing the story's fictional backdrop, re-editing two scenes and using digital technology to transform many Chinese symbols to Korean. It's impossible to eliminate all references to China, the people said, though the changes will give North Korea a much larger role in the coalition that invades the U.S.

13 comments:

  1. Joseph J. Finn11:01 PM

    How long did it take you to find the pictographs for that?

    (Letting others have teh fun of sussing it out.)

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  2. Less than a minute. Google Translate, then confirmed via other sites that it meant what I thought.

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  3. Dan Suitor4:27 AM

    Just to Beloit myself: the first time I ever came into contact with Red Dawn was as a joke on the first season of Scrubs.

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  4. Joseph J. Finn9:07 AM

    You know, I've been thinking about this more.  The article mentions films that apparently showed a slowdown for Hollywood studios, but looking at that list, the best is Kundun and much as I'm a Scorcese lover that movie's....not his best.  Perhaps the problem was more that the movies just werent very good.  And really, how many good movies are there that are either set in China or deal with Chinese themes?  Joy Luck Club is good, but not great; Mulan comes to mind but that's older history; The Last Emperor is probably the best of the lot.  Any other obvious ones that I'm missing?

    (Side note: an unexpectedly good movie about the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in WWII is Fist of Legend, the Jet Li movie, that actually digs into the Chinese-Japanese racial prejudices, social strife in China at the time and the like, as well as having several seriously excellent butt-kicking scenes.)

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  5. Jenn C.10:31 AM

    I can read Chinese and I can't figure out the 2nd character.  Wolf...power?

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  6. Rovinsky11:27 AM

    Avenge me!

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  7. I believe it's wolf-badger; combined, they are allegedly (and based on the Chinese X-Men sites I visited) Wolverines!

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  8. The Pathetic Earthling1:01 PM

    Nobody on our side but the British and six hundred million screaming Chinamen. // I thought there were a billion Chinese // There were.  [Gasoline fireball].

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  9. Joseph J. Finn1:15 PM

    Heh, my guess was right as to where you were geting that from.

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  10. bristlesage2:10 PM

    Me, too, though I get the feeling from comments you're some years younger than me.

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  11. @Joseph J.:  Am I completely missing the drift of the query if I suggest Iron Monkey and Kung Fu Hustle?

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  12. North Korea?  I suppose it's as plausible as Cuba.

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  13. Joseph J. Finn7:37 PM

    Well, I was thinking in terms of American-made movies but Kung Fu Hustle is grade-a awesome, as is Shaloin Soccer.

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