Red Dawn Trailer Has Arrived

By Moye | Friday, August 10, 2012 | 11 Comments

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The new trailer for the Red Dawn remake is here–and just in time for the weekend! Boy, am I excited. I thought I was going to have to spend the next couple of days feeling like a normal, boring American but thanks to this reminder, I’ll be wasting my hours pretending to be the enemy. Again. Okay, so maybe I sound a little bitter but we’ve covered this reboot several times on 8Asians, especially with the news that this time, the bad guys were going to be North Korean. Doesn’t this sounds just like that Homefront video game that was released last year? Yay.

We can finally see stars like Chris Hemsworth (“Get to the cabin! No, not that cabin in the woods. The other cabin!”), Josh Hutcherson, Isabel Lucas–and oh shit, is that Tom Cruises’ own offspring, Connor? Someone’s finally bringing home a paycheck instead of mooching off of their father’s billions (yes, I’m looking at you, Suri). The trailer gives us the basic premise of the plot, and how their characters develop from typical American teenagers to rebellious heroes out to save the country. Oh, and some Asian guy, who I’m assuming is Will Yun Lee and looks very, very serious. Wouldn’t you be serious if you invaded the United States of America through crazy blackout technology? (Isn’t that the premise of that upcoming J.J. Abrams series, Revolution?)

It’s interesting how North Korea isn’t even named as the enemy. Perhaps the studio is trying to stay away from politicizing or branding the film. Then again, is it more dangerous or offensive to feature a montage of wholesome American teens taking on militaristic Asians to hype up your film? What do you think of the trailer?

Red Dawn is set to be released in theaters this November. I probably won’t be watching.

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Facebook Comments (Beta)

happyappa

“It’s interesting how North Korea isn’t even named as the enemy.” Nope, just a bunch of nameless, East Asian faces!

After watching the trailer (which was hysterical), I feel like the enemy already. Guess I don’t look American enough.

“Isn’t that the premise of that upcoming J.J. Abrams series, Revolution?”
That show looks like Hunger Games with the same kind of casting. 50 bucks says the pocs die off first.
m_wei

the American accent is horrible. I heard it better from India call centers.

and I want O’Reily to go on rants about Australians stealing American jobs.
http://twitter.com/tazo157 tazo157

Hollywood demonizing Asians? Shocking! Not really… Hollywood is racist. That’s why I don’t watch movies. Internet is king.
kaej

Red Dawn would be a lot more fun if the enemy were Canadian. There is already an army of Canadians in the US. All hiding in plain sight.

With William Shatner as Canada’s leader, Keanu Reeves, Nicholas Tse, Ryan Gosling, Michael J. Fox, James Cameron, Neil Young, Kristen Kreuk, Shania Twain, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dan Aykroyd, Seth Rogen, Justin Bieber, Jim Carrey, Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Rachel McAdams, Mike Meyers, Hayden Christensen, Elisha Cuthbert, Brendan Fraser, Tom Green, Joshua Jackson, Evangeline Lilley, Anna Paquin, Sandra Oh, Matthew Perry, Christopher Plummer, Donald Sutherland, Jennifer & Meg Tilly, Leonard Cohen, Bryan Adams, Avril Lavigne, Leslie Nielsen, Corey Haim, Carrie-Anne Moss, Nathan Fillion and Pamela Anderson could turn against the US and terrorise people across the country.
You know it makes sense.
http://twitter.com/scrivener scrivener

Wolveriiiiiines!
http://twitter.com/Herostratus356 Herostratus356

Heh. Look at the Uncle Toms at the top. You can just hear them begging their white Facebook friends for pats on the head. I wouldn’t mind seeing so many Asian villains on the screen if Hollywood balanced that out with a few more Asian and Asian-American heroes. These guys fail to realize that America’s perception of Asian Americans is tied to their perception of Americans. If George Yixian Li or Paul Lim end up getting the Vincent Chin treatment, I won’t shed any tears.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tracy-Domenica/100003638644394 Tracy Domenica

Well said, Herostratus356.

People like Li and Lim are just working out their inferiority issues by abetting the xenophobia and racial paranoia already so prevalent among the American populace. (“I’m not one of those Asians” is the mantra of these people.) That might actually work out all right, besides offering an emotional exercise for these two gentlemen, if most (white) Americans would bother to reflect upon race and identity once in a while, instead of shrieking “shoot ‘em all” at a legion of cinematic Asian faces.

What’s really telling about film projects like these is that Caucasian actors, be they Aussies or Brits or what have you, are readily cast as genuine American heroes, while Asian-American actors would have to play the foreign baddies and therefore have to be consigned to a not-so-new position of “otherness.” How many times have you seen Asian-American actors being instructed to speak with a fobby accent, or to pretend to only speak their supposed “mother tongue”? It reveals something about how Asian-Americans are viewed by their legalistic countrymen when a Swede can sail across the Pond and become a Hollywood darling, while his/her Asian-American counterpart would have to pick between roles of Chinatown thugs and foreign invaders.

When the musclebound, blond-as-all-get-out Hemsworth towers over his Asian enemies and delivers his on-screen battle cry, I wonder if folks like Messrs Li & Lim would feel the same chills down their spine as the bona fide white guy sitting next to them in the theater.
http://twitter.com/Herostratus356 Herostratus356

Oops, I meant to say “These guys fail to realize that America’s perception of Asian Americans is tied to their perception of Asians.”
happyappa

But your argument is invalid, because Li says he is Asian, which means he speaks for all of us. This means that it is 100% okay for Chinese people to be enemies in the movies.
http://twitter.com/BlackieChanXXX Blackie Chan

So instead of fighting Evil Aliens from outer space, or cold emotionless Robots …. the enemy is now Asian people … who are seen as being Alien and Robotic, so it’s OK to kill us too.
Wen Ho Lee

The thing is, Hollywood is run by Jews and they will always cast Asians as the villains. When have you ever seen Jews cast as villains? They wouldn’t do that to each other.

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