Why Hollywood’s wholesome American heroes need Chinese help to save the world these days
Arrival is the latest Hollywood production to feature a Chinese story line – an unusually positive one, but of a piece with filmmakers’ narratives about global co-operation. Studio bosses, meanwhile, have eyes on China’s box office
Landing in China this week is Arrival, a science-fiction blockbuster in which earthlings contemplate total annihilation in what seems to be an alien invasion. Given that Chinese audiences have been lapping up imported visual-effects-laden entertainment with unabashed glee in recent years, the film is well placed to gain major box-office traction across the country.
Financial considerations aside, Arrival is significant in that the film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, portrays China in a radically different way to most other Hollywood movies that feature the country. Somehow, it manages to bolster China’s geopolitical clout and humanise its political leaders in one go.
As the film’s protagonists consider ways to ease the human-alien stand-off, China is seen as the aggressive, rogue “Big Domino”: what it does, others – countries from Russia to Sudan – follow.
Just as the extraterrestrials reveal themselves to be much more benevolent than their appearance suggests, however, the Chinese leader – one General Shang, who is the “chairman of the People’s Liberation Army” – is much less stoic than the stony-faced talking head appearing on the US team’s satellite feeds.
