Former investment banker and political strategist, Steve Bannon, has also been producing films for years. One of his latest productions, “Claws of the Red Dragon,” is a fictional take on the real-world arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada—here renamed Feng Xiaozhou (played by actress Jennifer Hsiung).
After the sensational arrest of Feng, a top executive of an equally fictional company, Chinese tech megacorp Huaxing, angers the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since Huaxing is in bed with the CCP (as many Chinese institutions are), they consider the arrest to be a loss of face and an arrogant slight against them.
Enter Jane Li, a Chinese-Canadian journalist (Dorren Lee), an intrepid reporter who learns of the arrest through a colleague. It looks to be a big story since it exposes a major link between the tech giant and the CCP, as well as the CCP’s designs of technological dominance (and surveillance) over the entire world.
However, her initial enthusiasm is short-lived—although Jane’s boss encourages her to be the lead on the story, she declines the offer because her parents are currently visiting China. She reveals that upsetting the CCP could be dangerous for her parents’ well-being.
Jane shares a beautiful apartment in Toronto, Canada with her boyfriend, Ryan Lowe (Taras Lavren), who is climbing the corporate ladder at a local Huaxing subsidiary. At first, the two hedge around the obvious topic of debate—the ethically compromised company, Huaxing, and Jane’s uncompromising journalistic ethics of reporting the truth (she eventually accepts the offer to cover the story).
But soon, Ryan’s boss, David Liu (Russell Yuen), who is also a member of the CCP, taps Ryan to fill the recently vacated position of vice president. Simultaneously, Liu tells the young prospect that he should strongly encourage Jane to write a pro-Huaxing article for her newspaper. If she doesn’t write the obvious propaganda piece, Liu hints to Ryan that her parents in China could face grave consequences.
Meanwhile, the United States seeks to extradite Feng for a sanctions case. The CCP responds by arresting two Canadian citizens on espionage charges and also condemns another to death for murky drug smuggling charges.
Bannon’s film (directed by Rob W. King and Kevin Yang) plays like a taut thriller and seems as though it was ripped from today’s headlines. Its 54-minute runtime punches above its weight and my only regret about watching it is that it wasn’t longer.
As the film ends in a rather open-ended manner, I could easily see it getting a sequel since it has top-notch production values, excellent acting, and a very intriguing plotline that begs to be explored further.
While researching this film (and Bannon’s reasons for producing it), I kept seeing the alarmist phrase “anti-Chinese” repeatedly. That’s a little odd since Bannon has stressed all along that this film is designed to help average citizens understand how the CCP manipulates Chinese companies and the Belt and Road Initiative, in order to expand its power and influence through infiltrating the infrastructure of other countries.
As stated by Bannon, “Look at what they’re doing … they have a geopolitical strategy to unite the Eurasian landmass into one single market then to force the United States out of the Western Pacific then out of the Pacific overall. The radical cadre—this is not the Chinese people—this is about a radical cadre that is taking charge of the Communist Party led by President Xi … they’ve been running an economic war against the industrial democracies for 20 years.”
“Claws of the Red Dragon” is a very important and prescient film to see—visit the link here.
‘Claws of the Red Dragon’
Director: Rob W. King, Kevin Yang
Starring: Dorren Lee, Taras Lavren, Eric Peterson
Running Time: 54 minutes
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Release Date: 2019
Rated: 5 stars out of 5
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