North Korea Is The New China (At Least In Terms of Bad Guys)

Back when I started in this blog game, one of my first posts was how much I loved John Milius's epic film "Red Dawn." The 1984 film told the extremely paranoid cold war story of the communist invasion of the United States and the young rebel fighters (including Charlie Sheen) who kick ass to defend America! When the remake was announced back in 2008, the new invaders were the then popular (in a we are scared of them way) Chinese. The film was shot, MGM's money situation got "complicated" and all we heard from the film was this casting photo. Now the film is back in the news in a big way. Why you ask? Because China isn't the villain anymore, North Korea is.

The LA TIMES broke the news that due to "financial pressures" the villains in the story would be changing, keep in mind the film has already been shot. Set photos like the one featured on the right feature Chinese logos so those will be digitally replaced. Some scenes will have to be re-shot and other's will be just be re-edited. Sounds like a lot of work just to not offend our Chinese buddies.

But it's more than diplomacy here, it's about that scrilla aka that yuan and dollas. According to the article, having the villains be Chinese would cut out a major market for the film and international distributors want no part in that. China is the fifth biggest market outside of the US for movies so having them not want any part of your film is bad for business. Regardless of what you think about the film, you cannot deny that this is fascinating peak into the world of global movie politics! The article also points out the video game "Homefront" (also written by Milius) recently changed it's villains as well. And while the world awaits word how North Korea feels about becoming the villain one must think, Damn, China really has some reach!