National identity and global imaginary in China’s ‘citizen evacuation’ films: from <i>Wolf Warrior 2</i> (2017) to <i>Home Coming</i> (2022)

With the expansion of China’s global economic involvement since the 2000s, ensuring the safety of Chinese nationals and assets abroad has become a diplomatic imperative for Beijing. In recent years, the evacuation of overseas Chinese from conflict-stricken countries such as Libya and Yemen have inspired a number of film adaptations, exemplified by Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), Operation Red Sea (2018), and Home Coming (2022). These ‘citizen evacuation’ films adopt Hollywoodized narrative and generic conventions, portraying China’s evacuation efforts as thrilling rescue missions led by a powerful nation-state. Given their subject matter and market positioning, these films are uniquely located at the intersection of Chinese cinematic traditions, Hollywood narrative and generic conventions, and China’s foreign policy. As such, they act as a focal point for the negotiation between local and global (Hollywood) narrative patterns as well as for Chinese cinema’s search for a cultural vision of ‘the global’ that is aligned with Chinese political discourse. This article examines how these forces have shaped the national and global imaginary in ‘citizen evacuation’ films and traces changes across the three films. The article further argues that Home Coming embodies a significant shift in the representation of China’s global activities and national identity, characterized by a return to indigenous narrative tropes and an emphasis on the non-interference principle, the central pillar of China’s foreign policy that has been called into question as China becomes increasingly engaged in the political dynamics of other regions.