Reportedly a seven-year passion project, this sophomore feature from Beijing national martial-arts champion Wu is a feature-length spinoff of a TV series. Abundantly supported by the Nanjing military, it’s a modernized, gussied-up version of the sort of hawkish propaganda pics churned out by the state-owned August First Studio, epitomized here by a scene in which soldiers stick “Fight for China” patches onto their sleeves before an attack, perhaps in parody of “Delta Force.” The saber-rattling patriotism of the tagline — “You offend China, you have nowhere to hide” — has roused a provincial fanbase. But the film’s inner contradictions — self-inflated pride on one hand, a “white peril” complex on the other — are projected onto the soldiers’ Caucasian enemies, whose rabid contempt for the Chinese alternate awkwardly with praise.
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