A Chinese military officer argues that "Pacific Rim" is nothing more than U.S. propaganda that shows Americans using smarts and technology to battle giant monsters — while the Chinese only seem interested in eating their flesh.
In an op-ed for the PLA Daily, Zhang Jieli, an officer in the country's People's Liberation Army, warns his fellow soldiers to erect a "firewall" to prevent themselves from being influenced by American movies.
"Hollywood has always been the United States' best propaganda machine," he wrote.
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The original op-ed is in Mandarin, but according to China.org, which translated the piece, Jieli wrote, "The decisive battle against the monsters was deliberately set in South China Sea adjacent to Hong Kong …The intention was to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to maintaining stability in the Asia-Pacific area and saving the mankind."
But while the American characters study the monsters and create machines to battle them, the Chinese are depicted as harvesting their bodies for food and trinkets.
Spokespeople for "Pacific Rim"s' producer Legendary Pictures and distributor Warner Bros. declined to comment, but it's worth nothing that ideology aside, "Pacific Rim" is a sizable hit in China. The film did not perform well in the United States, but has made $106 million in three weeks of release in the People's Republic.
China recently surpassed Japan as the second largest market for films in the world. In 2012, it contributed $2.7 billion in box-office revenue which represented a 36 percent jump from the previous year.