Wolf Warrior 2 (2017)

Wolf Warrior 2 is a 2017 Chinese action film co-written, co-produced, and directed by Wu Jing, who also starred in the lead role. The film co-stars Celina Jade, Frank Grillo, Hans Zhang, and Wu Gang. The film is a sequel to 2015’s Wolf Warrior. It was released in China on 27 July 2017. The film tells a story of a loose cannon Chinese soldier named Leng Feng who takes on special missions around the world. In this sequel, he finds himself in an African country protecting medical aid workers from local rebels and vicious arms dealers. In China, Wolf Warrior 2 received general praise for its patriotic plot, special effects, action sequences and the cast’s performances. It was a massive commercial success and has become the highest-grossing Chinese film ever released. The film broke numerous box office records, including the biggest single-day gross for a Chinese film as well as the fastest film to cross RMB 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion and 5 billion box office marks.

It also became the fastest film to surpass US$500 million and the first film to gross more than US$600 million at the Chinese box office. At a total domestic gross of CN¥5.68 billion (US$874 million), it is the second highest-grossing film of all-time in a single market behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936.7 million in North America), and has exceeded North America’s totals from Avengers: Endgame (858.4 million), Avatar ($760 million), Black Panther ($700 million), and Titanic ($659 million). The film was the seventh highest-grossing film of 2017 at US$874 million, making it the 54th highest-grossing film worldwide. It is the first non-English film ever to be included in the list of 100 all-time highest-grossing films worldwide, making it the highest-grossing non-English film of all time, a position it retained until 2021. It was selected as the Chinese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards.

Plot.

After the events of Wolf Warrior, Leng Feng and members of his special-ops team bring his comrade’s remains back to his hometown and his comrade’s family for his funeral, only to see it on the verge of being torn down completely. A real estate company is pulling down his house and that of his comrade’s family during the funeral. The boss of the real estate company confronts them with a gun and sneers at them for presenting the remains to the family, only for the boss to be kicked to the ground. The boss calls on his henchmen to attack them but they are all swiftly disabled by Feng and the other soldiers. Police arrive shortly after and ask Feng to put down the gun he confiscated from the boss. The boss gets back up and boasts that he will “make the family wish they were dead”, enraging Feng to a point that he kicks the boss in the stomach, sending him crashing onto the windshield of a police car and killing him. Feng is sent to a military prison for two years and discharged from the Chinese army.

After release from prison, Feng leaves for Africa, planning to wander for the rest of his life. While serving as a mercenary providing security on a freighter delivering relief supplies to Africa, he foils an attempted hijacking by Somalian pirates by defeating them in hand-to-hand combat underwater. The freighter arrives safely at its destination. For three years, Feng has been carrying a bullet which he found, a clue to the kidnapping of his fiancée, Lieutenant Colonel Long Xiaoyun, that happened while she was on a mission. Feng and some locals are partying on a beach one day when they are attacked by rebel forces aiming to overthrow the government of the African nation. Shortly after the arrival of the Rebels and mercenaries who overrun the government troops, the Chinese fleet arrives to evacuate Chinese nationals caught up in the civil war. While on board, a Chinese shop owner that he helped rescue tells him that the bullet he is carrying belongs to European mercenaries who are helping the rebels.

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After overhearing guards talking about needing someone to rescue workers at a factory and a VIP, Dr. Chen, who is developing the vaccine for Lamanla, a deadly endemic disease, Feng volunteers. However, he is on his own as no other personnel can follow him while they are on foreign soil without permission from the Chinese military’s higher authorities. He travels to the hospital, 60 kilometres away from the dock and enters its building just as Dr Chen is accidentally killed by the mercenaries led by Big Daddy, a ruthless American leader of mercenaries called the Dyon Corps. With his dying breaths, Dr Chen tells him to take his daughter, an African girl named Pasha. Feng and Pasha, along with a female volunteer doctor Rachel Smith, escape the grip of the mercenaries. While escaping, he cuts his hand in a pile of Lamanla infected bodies but shakes it off and moves on. They continue their mission of saving the Chinese as Feng also goes to save his godson’s mother, who’s working in the Hanbound factory.

Background.

The Wolf Warrior 2 continues the storyline of Wolf Warrior. However, the action takes place overseas, rather than in China, which helps develop an international perspectives. The film was shot on locations in Africa and China between June 2016 and November 2016. The film’s African scenes were mostly shot on location in Soweto and Alexandria. The tank battle was filmed in Zhaochuan Ironworks (坤源集团赵川铁厂), Zhaochuan Town of Xuanhua District, Zhangjiakou city, in Hebei province. A promotional poster contained the slogan “Anyone who offends China, no matter how remote, must be exterminated.”

Pre-production, Filming.

Wu Jing started work on the script in 2009 and on 16 April 2013, the first draft of Wolf Warrior 2 was completed. On 19 June 2016, the filming of Wolf Warrior 2 was launched started up in Beijing. Wu Jing spent six months preparing for the launch. In one scene on 23 August 2016, Wu Jing drove a tank alone, rushed through six tanks and crushed a car in the end. In just ten seconds, the car turned into a pile of scrap iron. This is the first time that a domestic actor personally drove a tank into and crushed a car. A car weighs approximately one ton while a tank weighs around thirty-five tons. On 2 November 2016, Wolf Warrior 2 was completed after five months of filming.

Release.

The film was released in China on 27 July 2017 in MX4D, 4DX, 3D and China Film Giant Screen. An IMAX version was released on 18 August 2017 and has gone out in IMAX 2D. The film was released in Sri Lanka through Madhu Entertainment with English subtitles. It was also released in South Africa with English Subtitles through Ster-Kinekor on 10 November 2017.

Box office.

Wolf Warrior 2 became a huge commercial success at the Chinese box office, and also in countries such as Australia and Malaysia where there were reports of sold out tickets in Chinese language cinemas. The film was noted for showing incredible staying power at the box office despite being a tent pole movie, earning seven times its prequel and five times distributors’ initial estimates. It topped the international box office for all major films on three separate occasions – in its first three weekends. Its unprecedented success has been attributed to various reasons such as its patriotic subject, nationalistic themes, and its bona-fide action sequences and stunts that have been said to be a breakthrough for Chinese films. The film was also released during the annual summer “blackout period” in which foreign movies are not released,

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and it only had to compete with other domestic movies. It became the highest-grossing film in China after just twelve days of release, overtaking The Mermaid which held the record for eighteen months. However, the records that the film broke were not just limited to its domestic market. It also became the biggest film released in a single territory in 2017, breaking Beauty and the Beast’s record of US$504 million and the biggest summer release of the year in a single territory, ahead of Wonder Woman (US$400 million). As a result, it became the tenth film to earn over US$500 million in a single territory and the sixth film to make over US$600 million, and the third film to pass the US$700 million threshold following Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It is also the fastest film to reach the CN¥2 billion, CN¥3 billion, CN¥4 billion

and CN¥5 billion marks in China, doing so on its eighth, eleventh, seventeenth and twenty-third day respectively and became the first film to earn more than CN¥200 million (est. US$30 million) for twelve consecutive days globally (tied with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It has so far grossed a total of CN¥5 billion (US$716.5 million), which includes online ticketing fees, or around US$768.5 million with online surcharges and is among the top 100 highest-grossing films of all time, unadjusted for inflation. Due to the film’s rising popularity and strong holds, analysts believe the film could end up making CN¥5 billion (US$747 million) to CN¥6 billion (US$895 million) at the Chinese box office alone.