WOLF TOTEM: Movie Review

I was reading a review in the NY Times of a Chinese movie that was recently released (Wolf Totem) and enjoyed a couple of laughs and learned a little more about the new very pragmatic Chinese Government.  First, the funny.

From what I could gather about the movie, based on a novel that has been wildly popular, a large feature is the behavior of wolves, both real and allergoric.  The response by the Chinese to the book… 

“The book, which is semi-autobiographical, quickly resonated across the demographic spectrum in China. Political dissenters found anti-Communist messages in the novel, for example, while corporations gave it to employees to encourage them to work together like wolves. The book has also been translated into 39 languages for 110 countries.”

 Ok, I hope you think the corporate response was as goofy as I did.  Perhaps I’m just not in-the-know about wolves, but I don’t seem them as a particularly social group of animals, or at all friendly, for that matter.

Second, part of the reason this movie is a reported story is the Chinese movie company approached a French director  to work on the film whose previous film, 7 Years in Tibet, is banned in China because it "...hurt the feelings of the Chinese people".  [Who comes up with this stuff the government releases, Woody Allen?] The producers told the director: “China has changed and we are practical people. We don’t know how to do what you do, and we need you.”  Now that is savvy talk, and I believe typical reasoning of many of the government’s decisions when there is a liberalization or new thinking. 

But back to the funny stuff.  Several Chinese directors were first approached about making the film, but it seems they declined, "...citing their reluctance to work with wolves.” The author of the article then intimates that perhaps they were really afraid of the politically sensitive content.  I’m thinking they might really have been afraid of working with a pack of wolves myself, but heh, what do I know? 
I have seen posters everywhere for this movie, but never had any idea it was based on a wildly popular Chinese novel.  I think a trip to our friendly local pirated-DVDs store is in order to see if I can find a copy of the movie that might have English subtitles, since it’s being released in France.  Wait, they probably wouldn’t subtitle the movie in English for the French, would they?  I might go anyway, because it’s very much potluck at the DVD store regarding languages of the movie and the attendant subtitles.  Last week we bought a DVD produced in Russia, dubbed in Chinese, and subtitled in Turkish.  We didn’t get very far into that movie.