Remember that Red Dawn remake? After collecting dust on the shelf for what now feels like a couple of years, it's been picked up by independent studio FilmDistrict and will supposedly hit theaters sometime next year: 'Red Dawn' remake to come out next year from FilmDistrict.The original Cold War-era Red Dawn told the story of a scrappy group of small-town teens who pick up arms as resistant fighters when Soviet forces invade the United States. In this new version, the evil invaders are Chinese. At least, they were Chinese in the script, and during production...
But at some point -- far too late in this process -- someone had the epiphany that maybe it wasn't such a bright idea to make China the villains and potentially piss off a billion people representing a significant chunk of the international box office. And now we're suddenly worried about offending sensibilities. Gotta make that China money.
But hey, easy fix. With a little digital scrubbing, new dialogue dubs and some editing trickery -- presto! -- the producers changed the movie's invaders to North Koreans. It's the old Evil Asian Villain switcheroo. Change some signage, keep all the Asian faces, and nobody will know the difference!
It's not like North Korean movie audiences are going to care!
Anyway, this movie has been a disaster from the beginning, and this ridiculous eleventh hour villain swap plainly illustrates they're really just interested in putting a scary foreign face on the bad guys (as long as whatever they're calling that scary foreign face doesn't cut into box office cash).
In the wake of MGM's financial troubles, I would've been content if this movie had just sat buried in a drawer somewhere. But it looks like Evil Asian Invaders will be coming soon to a theater near you. Yay. At least it will make for good discussions about how Asians are coming to get you. Tell a friend.
