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Comment by 8eye | Hacker News Reader

what an evil government, instead of the officials “manning up” and admitting that they aren’t perfect, they sweep their dirty laundry under the bed in fear of being found out. not an example of the machoism they are now trying to push in chinese box offices. hearing about this corruption turns my stomach

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> now trying to push in chinese box offices

It's not just Chinese box offices. There is a lot of investment money coming from China to produce Hollywood films. As part of that investment, the scripts are definitely under a lot of scrutiny for how things are portrayed. Keep that in consideration the next time you see the distribution logos at the beginning of the film you're watching.

I just watched Shang-Chi the new Marvel superhero movie and couldn’t shake the feeling that there’s a distinct current in the film of “come back to China all those who were part of the diaspora, we will accept you, you belong with us. You are part of our family”.

Don't need a movie for that, the economics and the dynamic Chinese market is what will slowly but surely suck up Asia's talent. Just like the US could do in the 20th century with European/Anglo talent.

China has become distinctly less business friendly in the last few years. We'll, at least privately owned business.

I'm sure Asia's talent want to go the way of Jack Ma.

The Chinese character who makes that offer then immediately threatens to kill the heroes if they don't comply in the same scene (screenwriting note: hilarious that they didn't let that ruse play out for even one more scene).

I was actually kind of surprised to see a such a direct analogy in a big Disney production; I'm going to hazard a bet that it was not at all intentional, but I'm not sure that China's foreign film approval body are going to see it the same way. If it gets released at all in China it's almost certainly going to bomb for that and other reasons.

Haven’t watched it yet but that wouldn’t be surprising for a number of reasons:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/02/chinese-dissiden...

https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI-R--4933--SE

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/04/why-some-chinese-immigra...

https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression

https://www.propublica.org/article/operation-fox-hunt-how-ch...

In the Marvel Dr Strange movie, the Master was converted from the Tibetan of the source text specifically to accommodate China.

Who knows what to believe in this case, but the woman under detention was supposedly involved in multibillion dollar corruption with the previous regime of Wen Jiabao and was swept up when the new regime wanted to clean house. Obviously they're doing it without even a semblance of due process, but there's a good chance she's actually guilty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of...

Guilty in the same sense that the oligarchs that Putin slaps down are guilty- stopping paying fealty to the monarch, not in doing anything else differently than the other cadre members.

Quite possibly but she was juggling chainsaws and got cut.

As I understand it, Chinese officials can be punished quite harshly by higher-ups to "set an example", which fosters a culture of fear, mistrust, and dishonesty. A child who gets a beating every time they do something wrong will quickly learn to lie.

I read a good article on this some time ago, but I can't seem to find it right now.

This is how hard line communist (or any totalitarian) government works. There must be no criticism, no sign of weakness, no compromise. The leader is all wise, all powerful and untouchable (unless he´s about to be replaced). They are not presenting themselves as men with flaws and conscience. They are the personification of unlimited power and behave accordingly. This is the case in Russia (you do not criticize Putin), in China with Xi, in North Korea with Kim.

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