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Craig Addison
Craig Addison

Opinion | Why you won’t see a Chinese villain in a Hollywood film any time soon

  • China’s Hollywood influence remains firm despite rejected changes in Top Gun: Maverick and Lightyear
  • Hollywood studios’ exposure to China and desire for access to its box office mean films will keep tiptoeing around Beijing’s sensitivities for years to come

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Tom Cruise’s character (right) wears a bomber jacket with a patch featuring the Taiwanese flag in the original Top Gun film. The flag was initially replaced in the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, before being put back in before the film’s full release. Photo: Twitter
Craig Addison
The Taiwan flag stayed on Tom Cruise’s jacket in Top Gun: Maverick, and Disney refused to make cuts to the animated Toy Story prequel Lightyear. Hooray for Hollywood. Studios have finally stopped kowtowing to Beijing.
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Not so fast. Paramount’s Top Gun, a film glorifying US military strength, was never going to get a China release anyway. Disney’s censoring of a same-sex kiss in Lightyear – more than a dozen mostly Muslim-majority countries made the same request – would have been untenable after it issued a statement supporting LGBTQ rights.
Covid-19 controls and testy US-China relations mean Hollywood films have a difficult time securing a China release. Last year, foreign films under the revenue-share quota system only accounted for 12.5 per cent of China’s box office compared with more than 50 per cent a decade ago. Instead, Beijing is giving priority to locally made propaganda epics like The Battle at Lake Changjin, now the highest-grossing Chinese film ever.

Does this mean film fans might see a return of the Chinese villain on the big screen? After all, Chinese filmmakers often depict Americans as the bad guy. Not likely. If the mainland Chinese film market opens up again, Hollywood won’t want to risk getting shut out by offending Beijing in the meantime.

To be sure, studios might stand firm on small things – thus avoiding a backlash at home – but steering clear of storylines that could anger Beijing is now baked into the DNA of modern-day Hollywood.

02:51

Marvel’s first Asian superhero film Shang-Chi premieres in Hollywood

Marvel’s first Asian superhero film Shang-Chi premieres in Hollywood

Before it was seduced by China’s box office, Hollywood’s depiction of Chinese people on the big screen ranged from admiration to fear and loathing, depending on the political climate of the times. Big stars such as James Stewart and Van Johnson featured in World War II films such as The Mountain Road and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, respectively, where the Chinese were shown as US allies. “You’re our kind of people,” Johnson’s character says to a Chinese doctor who saves his life.

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