FROM "WHITE SAVIOR" TO "WOLF WARRIOR DIPLOMACY": THE Wolf Warrior SERIES AND THE REPRODUCTION OF "CHINA-FOREIGN" STEREOTYPES

This article examines how the Wolf Warrior series reconfigures, yet simultaneously reproduces, “China–foreign” stereotypes across film, media and diplomatic discourse. Combining textual analysis with an attention to industrial and geopolitical context, it places Wolf Warrior within global action cinema and the Hollywood “white saviour” tradition, asking how the films transfer the “right to rescue” to a Chinese subject while continuing to typify “the West” and the African setting. I argue that a visual grammar of the “hyper-masculine rescuer” aligns the protagonist’s body with state capability, translating sovereignty into embodied affect. At the same time, generic shortcuts compress foreign mercenaries, Western institutions and African characters into a limited set of schemata, which are then amplified through media commentary, online nationalism and diplomatic practice. In this process, “wolf warrior” circulates as a symbolic resource that narrows the imaginative horizon of China’s relationship with the world.