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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 341 5th International Conference on Arts, Design and Contemporary Education (ICADCE 2019) Discussion on the Cultural Confidence of Chinese Films Taking the Movie Wolf Warriors II as an Example Mengyao Hou The College of Literature and Journalism Sichuan University Chengdu, China Abstract—Wolf Warriors II as the only Chinese-language film that has entered the top 100 global box office, has won a II. COMMENT ON THE MOVIE WOLF WARRIORS II lot of reputation in Chinese market in 2017. However, its overseas box office was depressing, and few foreigners paid A. The Type of the Film attentions to it. It did receive a few film reviews, but most of Divided by the type of films, Wolf Warriors II belonged them were criticism. Some Chinese scholars believed that the to the action/military type, and was produced as the box office harvest of Wolf Warriors II in the mainland of China commercial mode of blockbuster films. The whole movie was attributed to its patriotic theme and its cultural confidence, showed dozens of light and heavy firearms, fighting vehicles but they did not mention the reasons why the film was not from off-road vehicles, tanks to warships, fighting, killing welcomed overseas. Based on a Chinese scholar, Mr. Jin Huimin's researches on cultural confidence, the author thinks and shooting between positive and negative characters, as that Wolf Warriors II does not show the cultural confidence, well as powerful explosions. Besides, the commercial style but indicates the nationalism with the features of post-colonial of this film was also reflected on its visual presentation that culturally resistance. A film like it cannot be effectively features of characters were hardly described, and fighting recognized around the world, and may do harm to China's actions were heavily emphasized. In other words, visual responsible image as a great power that is peacefully coexisting stimulation rather than story plots weighed in this movie. with countries of the world. B. The Role Setting Keywords—Wolf Warriors II; Jin Huimin; cultural The character setting in this movie was very typical in confidence; nationalism Hollywood commercial blockbusters. The heroine Leng Feng (played by Wu Jing) was set as a bloody and staunch I. INTRODUCTION superhero with the loyalty and patriotism. The villain was the Among global movies in 2017, the Chinese film Wolf mercenary leader from Europe, "Daddy" (played by Frank Warriors II was the most eye-catching one. On the world's Grillo), who was cruel and vicious. The positive and highest box office movie list, Wolf Warriors II ranked 55th negative characters were set as absolutely opposite, without at the box office of 87.03 million US dollars. However, it considering the complexity of human nature. was a fact that the 99.7% of its box office came from Chinese market, and only 0.3% came from overseas market C. The Story Plots (mainly in North America). Wolf Warriors II was not only In addition to the simple role setting, the story plots of "bleak" in overseas movie market, but also received sharp the movie basically accorded with the routines of Hollywood film criticisms from Western film reviewers. commercial blockbusters: the fighting between the positive From the perspective of Mr. Jin Huimin's cultural and negative protagonists constituted the main conflicts of confidence theory, the author believes that Wolf Warriors II the film, while the main plot of the story was rather rough shows little cultural confidence, and it actually displays a and flat. Concerned with the picture, sound effects and action nationalism with the features of post-colonial culturally design, Wolf Warriors II, a Chinese action/military film resistance. A film like it could not be effectively recognized upgraded to a "Hollywood" commercial movie under the around the world, and might do harm to China's image of a help of the international production team. However, in terms responsible country that is peacefully getting along well with of character building and story creation, the film showed an countries of the world. obvious weakness, which was lack of the reasonable performance of characters and the preciseness and the logic of story plots. Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 346 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 341 D. The Film Review violent, bloody, exaggerated plots, and excessive deification Wolf Warriors II as an action/military commercial of Rambo's characters. Critics believed that it was extremely blockbuster, set and clearly expressed the theme of representative of the supremacy of the United States, the patriotism. The film continued to use dialogues, words and white's superiority and strong national hostility. The New images to manifest China's powerful, prestige, friendliness York Times article pointed out that Rambo is a superhero and justice. Many Chinese audiences' national pride and shaped as a "pure combat machine”, and there was no patriotism were strongly evoked by these factors. In the mission he could not accomplish. scene of the end of the film, where the Chinese power was By comparing First Blood Part II with Wolf Warriors II, heavily rendered, Leng Feng was standing on the top of a the author found that from the role setting to the plot design, truck with the arm as the flagpole, holding proudly the the latter is strikingly similar to the former. As a white savior Chinese flag high. He, just like a winner, was leading the and a lone wolf-like superhero, Rambo appeared with the truck teams fully loaded with rescued Chinese workers and power and the spirit of the Savior. He destroyed the barbaric local residents to pass through the war zone where the rebels and evil enemies with the sacred will, thus saving the world. and government forces were fighting fiercely. Concerned with the role setting, Leng Feng in Wolf Warriors The patriotism was rendered largely in this film, which II was essentially the same as Rambo. might be one reason why the film won nearly 5.7 billion "explosive box office" and received lots of good comments B. Unreasonable Imitation from domestic mainstream media in mainland China. However, when making response to netizens' criticism of However, due to its positioning as a commercial action film, Wolf Warriors II imitating Hollywood action/military it had obvious defects of cultural cognition and artistic blockbuster, and deifying Leng Feng's super combating innovation, and its performance on the patriotic theme was ability, Director Wu Jing complained in an interview: Why not based on the film art, but depended on mechanical use of did an American killing a division of the army alone and patriotic elements. having not been shot, become an awesome hero? He played a When Wolf Warriors II was bleak overseas, some Chinese soldier killing several mercenaries and didn't die, Chinese scholars still immersed in the great success of the which can't be accepted by audiences. Why? Wu Jing wanted movie in China, and attributed its success to the cultural to condemn the unfair treatment, but at the same time he confidence shown in the film, saying that Wolf Warriors II clearly recognized this unfairness by imitating the "super has shaped the image of Chinese heroes and the image of hero" mode of Hollywood blockbusters. He thought Chinese China's great power in the new era, as well as started a movie also could produce a super hero like Hollywood conversation between China and the world. In fact, Wolf movie used to. Nevertheless, he paid too much attention to Warriors II was just a popular blockbuster that could not go shaping a powerful character like Rambo, without reflecting abroad. It did not promote the communication between the rationality of the character like that. The phenomenon Chinese contemporary culture and world culture, but that Wolf Warriors II created in overseas was not welcomed, interrupted this communication by a kind of opinionated indicating that Chinese films' trying to imitate and catching expressions. So, the author believes that Wolf Warriors II did up with the "American hero" of Hollywood's to declare not show cultural confidence, but showed a nationalism of China's cultural strength was an inaccessible and post-colonial culture. contradictory path. IV. EXPRESSING CULTURAL CONFIDENCE PROPERLY III. WOLF WARRIORS II WITH LITTLE CULTURAL CONFIDENCE As for the innovation of Chinese films and overseas communication, the cultural misunderstanding from Wolf A few international commentaries on Wolf Warriors II Warriors II posed a serious question about how to correctly generally pointed out that the film only piled up the express patriotism and cultural confidence in Chinese movies. movements and military images that attracted audiences' The author believes that Mr. Jin Huimin's researches on attentions, and lacked emotional and meaningful story plots; cultural confidence can provide some useful ideas for It was not only old-fashioned, but also contained many answering such question. logical flaws. As Chris Buckley from New York Times said, even with the standard of the action type, it was also logically vulnerable. However, besides the criticism of its A. The Meaning of Cultural Confidence storyline, the international media put a sharper criticism What is the cultural confidence? Mr. Jin pointed out that towards its controversial cultural connotation, saying that the cultural confidence included not only the confidence in Wolf Warriors II was not only full of mediocrity, but also the national contemporary values of traditional cultures, but filled with the fever of nationalism. also the ability to creatively transform and innovatively develop foreign cultures, and then used them properly.