Sometimes the background of a movie is more interesting than the movie itself. This action blockbuster about a Chinese UN peacekeeping force sent to a wartorn African country had its shooting schedule extended about half a year after its star, Zhang Zhehan, caused a scandal when photos emerged on the internet of him visiting Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan’s military dead, including Class A war criminals accused of atrocities in China during World War II, are enshrined. Moreover, another photo had him shaking hands with Dewi Sukarno, the Japanese widow of the Indonesian tyrant of the same name and a noted rightwing firebrand in Japan. Though there was some speculation that the photos were fabricated, Zhang didn’t do himself any favors by coming up with pretty lame excuses for their existence and has since been blackballed, and that meant all his scenes in FPU, as the movie is titled in Japan, had to be reshot. 

In any case, the film was picked up by a Japanese distributor, presumably because of its action pedigree, and on that front it has some crowd-pleasing elements, especially near the end when the gunplay, explosions, and mano-a-mano fist fights are ramped up to 10. Other elements are less enjoyable, in particular the script and the expository staging. The soldiers are policemen who’ve been selected to “form” the peacekeeping unit and then trained in warfare. This elite aspect translates as a jingoistic attitude that not only permeates the squad but imbues the plot with an unsubtle patronizing air toward anyone in the movie who isn’t Chinese. Supposedly based on a real PK mission in Sierra Leone that China participated in, the movie takes place in the fictional country of Santa Leonne, where a rebel leader, backed by evil white foreign mercenaries, is trying to overthrow the government, wiping out whole villages in the process. When the Chinese arrive they’re initially met with suspicion by the natives, but eventually they win their trust with excellent public service, a situation that’s conveyed through manipulative montages of FPU members putting up streetlamps and assisting in classroom lessons for children. When their activities run up against the stiff bureaucratic rules of the UN, they’re invariably scolded but in the end always end up on the right side of the argument, whether the situation is martial or not. The UN honchos are shitty negotiators and tactically inept, while the Chinese are disciplined and always act on moral principles.

There’s not a lot of nuance to the presentation. Subplots involving two young police recruits whose desire for real action gets them in trouble with their superiors and another recruit’s determination to live up to the example set by his policeman father, who was killed in action, are hackneyed and underdeveloped. But lack of nuance doesn’t hurt the violent set pieces, one of which takes place in a wild tropical storm that adds considerably to the visceral excitement. Suffice to say it could have been a lot better had the nationalistic prerogatives that had a hand in the film’s delay not been incorporated so forcefully into the screenplay, but what else would you expect from a Chinese blockbuster that touches on foreign policy? 

In Mandarin, English and French. Opens Jan. 10 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063).

Formed Police Unit home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Zhongzhong (Huoerguosi) Films Co., Ltd. & Wanda Pictures (Huoerguosi) Co., Ltd.