The Wolf Warrior Cycle: Chinese Blockbusters in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative

This article concentrates on four Chinese blockbuster movies, Wolf Warrior (2015), Operation Mekong (2016), Wolf Warrior 2 (2017) and Operation Red Sea (2018), referring to them collectively as the wolf warrior cycle on the basis of their shared themes of China's overseas military actions. To understand why films addressing this topic have emerged since the mid-2010s, the article employs a critical political economy approach and situates the wolf warrior cycle in China's transforming foreign policies. It argues that the Belt and Road Initiative, one of the state's prominent foreign policies and global strategies in this period, played a crucial role in shaping the production of the wolf warrior cycle films under a trend of the politicization of commercial blockbusters in the Chinese film industry. In turn, these films contributed to the formation of the wolf warrior diplomacy image by reinforcing the proactiveness of China's diplomacy and nationalistic stereotypes in Chinese society towards international relations.

Automated summary

This article focuses on four Chinese blockbuster movies, known as the "wolf warrior cycle," which explore China's overseas military actions. Through a critical political economy approach, the article analyzes the influence of China's transforming foreign policies, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative, on the production of these films and their contribution to the formation of a proactive and nationalistic image in Chinese society.