Midway (2019): Bye Bye Japan, Welcome China

Ever since China opened up, Hollywood was one of the first to carry its food tray lining up at the door. Strings of films were made to impress them, either featuring err…Asian actors

or just shameless try to portray China in a positive light.

This site has this to say:

With China accounting for nearly a third of the total US$576 million box office taking of this year’s smash hit Avengers: Endgame, it’s easy to understand why Hollywood is eager to tap into the country’s massive and lucrative film market. At the same time, Chinese companies are also increasingly sinking fortunes behind the scenes into American blockbusters.

Hollywood flicks are just too eager to welcome Chinese production houses to sink in their fortune to take a big cut from the worldwide profit, provided they have onscreen participation too.

That explains China’s presence as investors in this film, as well as being shown in a positive light on the screen. Does it affect the film?

I don’t know, the political history of the World War 2 is too huge for me to comprehend except we are told and believe that Germans and the Japanese are the bad guys and they must be killed. Sure, their atrocities are not to be trifled with, questioned, with ample of evidence too strong to be buried. I have no issue in seeing them as bad guys in films…Nazis especially are easy target for the politically correct Hollywood especially in these days of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Now, about this film.

When I was a kid, watching war films has always been about rooting for America…even if the film in Battle of Britain. Even when watching western (we call it cowboy movies) we would root for the white guys.

But Hollywood did some serious revision on those genres. Oliver Stone did few films and showed us in Platoon that War is hell, stupid and pointed out that mostly when a soldier is hit, his body parts get blown off, instead of him just getting shot, saying few last words and slump forward...

Meanwhile, the cowboy genre gets a revision of its own through its champion, Clint Eastwood, who having had glorified gun-totting cowboys in the past, decided to tear down the myth and pointed out that they are just another bunch of disgusting killers in Unforgiven.

One of my favourite war films is Mister Roberts, starring James Cagney, Henry Fonda and Jack Lemmon which is a war film about a ship that is NOT in the middle of the war. The war was boredom. I loved it, especially Cagney’s hilarious no-nonsense character and Lemmon’s goofy antics, and the middle of it all, Fonda constantly holding all together.  Their boredom. Our fun.

Here, boredom was the film. I even slept through some shooting and explosions, for crying out loud. I can vaguely figure out what was happening, and all I know was this, the film hates Japan but loves China.

You see, times are a-changing. China is now poised to be US’ strongest ally, or so thinks US. The Yanks are trying too hard to court the Chinese and the girl is playing hard to get. It’s all too visible for us to see especially when you see how hard Hollywood is trying to please China.

You can clearly see it here, where American films adjust themselves or do last-minute fittings to please the Chinese crowd. Artistic integrity had always gone down the drain in Hollywood, now its going to the sewage.

No wonder great filmmakers are incensed with the comic book movies, which are, and its no secret, directed straight to non-American market (read: China and its population). This film is doing just that, get China’s attention because, hey, the bad guys are Japanese and there are some Chinese cast members in it.

All these years of mollycoddling Japan, the world’s love for their electronic products seem to be running out of steam. It’s China’s turn now and they are proving to be fierce competitors among others.

All these seem to be reflecting in Hollywood’s close co-operation with China and a Chinese company agreed to finance one-fifth of the US$ 100 million budget for the film. Thus, the light shining on the Chinese military during the conflict.

Unfortunately, from the entertainment point of view. the film fails big time in at least getting my attention. I read that venerable film critic, Peter Travers of Rolling Stones labelled this film “a hollow shell stuffed with marshmallow”.

That’s exactly how I felt, hollow bamboo filled with scraps of cooked meat. Nothing more, nothing less. The film will not go down, at least in my book, as notable as far as the genre is concerned. But time would tell.

Only thing I liked about the experience of watching this film is the short naps I had amidst all that shooting and explosion…after a bout with dengue and sleepless nights, I needed that.