Red Dawn

[David Jamieson]

This one from...uh, the other angle..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGk2TojOd-4

[GeneChing]

This is a little ironic when you consider that there are dozens of Chinese-made films with entirely Chinese casts and they have Chinese villains.

China Film Official Insists There’s No Ban on Hollywood Movies With Chinese Villains
It’s been difficult to spot a Chinese bad guy in a recent Hollywood blockbuster
Matt Pressberg | November 1, 2016 @ 3:10 PM



A top Chinese film official said Tuesday that there’s no official policy to bar Hollywood movies featuring Chinese bad guys from playing in the country — which is expected to surpass the U.S. as the world’s biggest box office market in the next few years.

“As for villains or heroes, I don’t think there is any restriction,” Miao Xiaotian, the president of the China Film Co-Production Corporation, a state-run body that oversees co-productions, said at the Asia Society’s U.S.-China Film Summit at the University of California Los Angeles. “I cannot say that the villain cannot be played by Chinese actors. I don’t think there’s any restriction on that.”

The 2012 film “Red Dawn” famously swapped out its Chinese villains for North Koreans during postproduction to ensure it would get a theatrical run in China’s multiplexes. And since then, the number of big-screen bad guys from the Middle Kingdom has dwindled to basically zero, while the Chinese box office has become an increasingly important source of revenue for Hollywood.

Miao also shed light on China’s motives behind its policy of pursuing co-productions between U.S and Chinese firms. Official Chinese co-productions require a minimum 15 percent financial investment from Chinese partners — more with certain countries that have signed official treaties, and also substantial local representation in the cast.

“For casting, we request that there will be Chinese actors for main characters,” he said. “Our requirement is that there should not be less than one-third.”

Miao also reassured Hollywood execs about the content of films they hope to import into his country. “Don’t worry,” he said noting that most significant Hollywood films end up winning approval from China’s state censors.

This year, “Suicide Squad” and “Ghostbusters” failed to win approval — and Miao noted the war movie “300” as another example.

“I think that film didn’t go to China because of violence,” he said.

Currently, China allows 34 imported films per year on a revenue-sharing basis. Miao wouldn’t speculate on whether that quota might be raised, although there have been a flurry of Hollywood films that have recently landed China release dates, including Paramount’s “Allied,” Lionsgate’s “Deepwater Horizon” and Disney-Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” — as China’s box office has had an uncharacteristically sluggish run.

“In the future if the quota will increase or not, I’m not sure about that,” he said. “It’s hard to speculate. But I think co-production is a very good way to make it up.”

[GeneChing]

Vanessa Hudgens, Josh Peck Break Into Top Actors Social Media Ranking Top 10
10:00 AM 9/2/2017 by Kevin Rutherford

Dwayne Johnson, meanwhile, rules the chart, which ranks the most popular actors based on data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Google Plus, for a ninth week.


Getty Images
Dwayne Johnson rules The Hollywood Reporter's Top Actors chart (dated Sept. 6) for a second straight week and ninth week overall, while Vanessa Hudgens jumps into the top 10 for the first time.

The Top Actors chart is a ranking of the most popular actors on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Google Plus, with global data provided by social media analytics company MVPindex. The chart's methodology blends social engagement on the platforms along with weekly additions of followers/subscribers. The latest tracking week ended Aug. 29.

In all, six of the top 10 on the Top Actors chart are new to the region compared to the previous week, led by Hudgensand followed by Kevin Hart, Josh Peck, Priyanka Chopra, Nina Dobrev and Lucy Hale. Hudgens and Peck had never charted within the top 10 before.

See the full top 10 below (and see the full 25-position list in The Hollywood Reporter's issue dated Sept. 6), and for more charts from The Hollywood Reporter, check out the Top Comedians and Top TV Personalities charts.


10. Sabrina Carpenter

Getty Images
Last week: 10


9. Lucy Hale

Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images
Last week: 20


8. Nina Dobrev

Getty Images
Last week: 13

The star of the upcoming sci-fi flick Flatliners (Sept. 29) looks to be a fan of Taylor Swift's new single; the actress tweeted a screenshot of her listening to "Look What You Made Me Do" on Spotify, writing simply, "Um… YES." The tweet was easily her most retweeted and favorited in a week that saw her boost 65 percent in Twitter likes, according to MVPindex.



7. Priyanka Chopra

Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images
Last week: 11


6. Jennifer Lopez

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Last week: 2

continued next post

[GeneChing]

5. Josh Peck

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Last week: -

Peck reunited with former Drake & Josh co-star Drake Bell at the Aug. 27 MTV Video Music Awards following the pair's public spat, which stemmed from Bell not being invited to Peck's June wedding. Peck leaps by 968 percent in social media engagement, driven mainly by a photo of the duo hugging.


4. Kevin Hart

Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Last week: 12


3. Gal Gadot

Getty Images
Last week: 8


2. Vanessa Hudgens

Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images
Last week: -

After trying out a hairstyle that recalled Cher for the previous week's So You Think You Can Dance, Hudgens made waves with a blonde look that was at least partially inspired by Taylor Swift, per a video posted to her Instagram of Hudgens singing along to the singer's new single. It earned her 11 million Instagram favorites, up 205 percent.



1. Dwayne Johnson

Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images
Last week: 1

And to think...I knew him when...

[GeneChing]

‘Wolverines’ graffiti straight out of ‘Red Dawn’ showing up all over battlefields in Ukraine
Avenge me!

BY MAX HAUPTMAN | PUBLISHED APR 16, 2022 8:29 AM

CULTURE


Photos and screenshots showing various Russian military vehicles that were tagged with "Wolverines" in Ukraine, in an apparent reference to the 1980s Cold War action movie "Red Dawn." (Screenshots via Twitter).


The message seems to be spreading.

A photo posted to Twitter on Friday morning by journalist Nolan Peterson showed a burned-out Russian T-72 tank on a roadside supposedly near western Kyiv. Along the barrel, scrawled in white spray paint, was the word “Wolverines,” another seeming homage to the 1984 Cold War-era movie “Red Dawn.

Other videos showed civilians walking around the same tank, along with other charred wreckage.

Last week, a photo surfaced on Twitter showing a disabled Russian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle marked with the “Wolverines” tag. And now, much like the insurgency carried out by Patrick Swayze, Thomas Howell, and a collection of high school students from the town of Calumet, Colorado against a fictional Soviet invasion of the United States, the Wolverines tag is showing up more and more.

There is what looks like a burned-out BTR-80 armored personnel carrier, supposedly destroyed near Brovary, a suburb of Kyiv.

And then there is this photo of another destroyed T-72 with “Wolverines” painted in white on the side of the turret which, in this case, had not blown off.

And from Thursday, the wreckage of another BTR-82 seen by a French journalist in Nova Basan, again with “Wolverines” spray-painted across the front of the armored personnel carrier.

As we saw in the original movie — and we won’t be talking about the critically panned 2012 remake — the occupation of Colorado ends in disaster for the Soviet and Cuban occupiers. Taking their name from their old high school football team, the teenaged insurgents, among them Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey, are soon waging a guerilla campaign, leaving behind the “Wolverines” tag whenever they strike.

The invasion of Ukraine has seen an impressive proliferation of information warfare. There have been the memes. There have been tales of bravery that have ranged from muddled to almost certainly apocryphal, such as the “Ghost of Kyiv.”

How a 1980s movie reference made its way to the battlefields of Ukraine is unclear. But it certainly seems as if there will be plenty of more tanks and armored vehicles bearing the tag: “Wolverines.”


Max Hauptman
Max Hauptman has been covering breaking news at Task & Purpose since December 2021. He previously worked at The Washington Post as a Military Veterans in Journalism Fellow, as well as covering local news in New England. Contact the author here.

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