‘Wolf Warrior’ across Southeast Asia and Africa

Ramboism with a Chinese twist arrives with ham-fisted, propagandistic overtones of the history of the PLA and of the patriarchal tradition

Leng Feng whispers into the dying Frank Grillo’s ear in ‘Wolf Warrior 2'

Jing Wu’s Wolf Warrior (2015) and Wolf Warrior 2 (2017) feature a Chinese Rocky-Rambo Combo in a global battle theater that concludes in kung fu-boxing finales, showcasing not only heroism “with Chinese characteristics” but also military hardware and technological prowess. In Wolf Warrior, the daredevil Leng Feng wages war against the drug lord Min Deng along China’s southwestern borders, traditionally called the Golden Triangle adjoining Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar’s mountain ranges with soil and climate perfect for the growing of opium poppies. The emplotment of narcotics is historically loaded since the Qing dynasty collapsed both under the weight of thousands of years of dynastic-tyrannical corruption and under British colonialism spearheaded by the two Opium Wars in the mid-nineteenth century, heralding what communist China dubbed “a century of national shame” until, of course, the rise of the Red Sun.

Ramboism with a Chinese twist arrives with ham-fisted, propagandistic overtones of the history of the PLA and of the patriarchal tradition. The overture consists of a dramatic action sequence of Leng Feng…