There’s a scene in Alex Garland’s Civil War, in which a man is shot in the heart and killed. The man is from Hong Kong, that wonderful city where East meets West. In what little we see of this man in the film, this is what we learn about him: his name is Tony, he is a journalist traveling across the United States with colleague Bohai to cover the film’s titular, hypothetical civil war. This journey leads both men to join forces with the film’s protagonists — four American journalists hoping to make it to the White House to interview the president before he is ousted by rebel forces. Some thrill-seeking hijinks result in Bohai and aspiring photojournalist Jessie being separated from the rest of the group, and they are eventually found kneeling at the barrel of a gun, wielded by a uniformed militia member sporting bright red shades, who seems to pledge no allegiance to any of the film’s military factions.
Which brings us to the scene of Tony’s death. As his fellow journalists attempt to negotiate a hostage release, the militia member responds to their reassurance that they are Americans with the film’s defining question: “What kind of American are you?” The other journalists, stammering as they face the man’s bleach blonde hair and toothy grin, offer answers of Colorado, Missouri, and Florida. When it comes to Tony’s turn, he offers, trembling as tears travel down his face, “I’m from Hong Kong.” Without hesitation, the man responds, “Oh, China!” and shoots him on the spot. “China,” he mutters, as the body hits the ground. Any further possibilities of understanding Tony, of unearthing the qualities and traits of this man beyond his place of origin, dies with him.
Tony, as it stands, is a facsimile of a character. There are enough broad strokes of personality to form an outline, that of a wisecracking, thrill-seeking reporter who is having way too much fun existing at the end of American society. What’s missing are any personal touches that would either challenge or substantiate such a persona: he loves the idea of speeding down a highway with speakers blaring, yet can’t quite get used to driving in America; every Sunday he hits up his favorite dim sum place to get some siu mai; he sports a pair of black shades that he originally picked up at a night market because it makes him look like Wong Kar-wai; when he misses his mother, he puts on “I Really Love You” by his favorite band Beyond, and quietly sobs in a hotel room.
One could argue that these attempts to give Tony an inner world would be superfluous to the film’s message. In moments of heightened international tensions, the sinister undercurrents of American xenophobia find their way to the surface, and foreigners who may have managed to
carve out a life in American society relatively unchallenged find themselves on the metaphorical — or, in this case, literal — chopping block. To this point, Civil War does not bother the audience with an explanation of the precise political beliefs held by Tony’s murderer, which is quite apt. In times of crisis, tribalism does not need a party platform. In Tony’s grimacing visage, his murderer sees the face of all Chinese; likewise, we are meant to look beyond those obnoxious sunglasses and glimpse the vile portrait of hatred underneath.
But across the Pacific, there is an altogether different portrait that is being painted. When Civil War managed a release in mainland China, its local marketing team transformed the chilling final exchange between the militia member and Tony into a brief, algorithm-friendly promotional shot. In the video, Tony’s last words are subtitled in Chinese: “I’m from Hong Kong.” “Oh, China!” This is followed by a freeze-frame of the militia member standing tall, gun facing the sky, as the words “Next time, say Chinese Hong Kong” shine on the screen in a large, glittering font. The comments underneath wryly express their approval: “Now this is how you get me to go to the cinema!” “They sure know how to make Chinese audiences happy!” And even, “Now imagine if they had made him from Taiwan…”
Such praise is, of course, largely facetious — brief jolts of delight at such an explicit reference to a demographic that Chinese audiences undoubtedly didn’t expect to prominently feature in a film about America tearing itself apart. But these jokes of violence, as all effective jokes do, point at certain emotional truths, the chief of which is this: in 2024, there existed a certain image of a Hongkonger which many mainland Chinese people quietly despise, and may even actively wish harm upon as an act of catharsis.
This contempt for Hongkongers, specifically the ones that will insist on “Hong Kong” as the marker of their identity instead of the broader and more all-encompassing “Chinese,” is one that largely stems from the events of 2019. That summer, a confluence of rising concerns — over standards of living, the validity of Hong Kong’s democratic institutions, and the notion of being a Hongkonger decades after its return to China in 1997 — resulted in massive protests that began with the rejection of a proposed bill that would allow the Hong Kong government to extradite fugitives to the mainland. This rapidly escalated into a rallying cry against everything the city had become after the handover. Streets were trashed, slurs were shouted, tear gas was thrown, and blood was spilt. Local Hongkongers and the city’s mainland residents both felt a sense of fear, unease, and often anger. By the year’s end, the government had quelled the protests, but the disillusionment persisted. If the vehemently pro-government residents of the city and their opposition had agreed on one thing, it would be that the notion of a singular Hong Kong identity, one which locals and mainlanders could both proudly claim, still lay beyond the horizon. And so, many Hongkongers left, in search of a different way of life.
Though Civil War’s timeline is unclear, Tony may very well have been one of those Hongkongers, perhaps coming to work as a journalist in the U.S. after quitting his reporting job in Hong Kong. To the mainland Chinese cheering for his demise, Tony’s death served as a timely reminder to those watching, especially to Hongkongers and perhaps Taiwanese, that seeking refuge in the arms of the West is a fool’s errand, one which eventually leads to the bottom of a ditch, alongside a number of unmarked bodies.
Of course, the filmmakers of Civil War likely never intended for this to be anyone’s takeaway, and if pressed would presumably view Tony as a straightforward victim of racism. But it’s the same principle of abstraction, one that reduces Tony to a featureless avatar, that allows audiences on both sides of the Pacific to fill in the blank. And so this story ends the only way it can, with Tony’s body left by the roadside, the protagonists escaping the militant mostly unscathed, and the film raking in record-breaking box office numbers in China and America alike
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