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Might China have had something to do with the recent failed auction of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the historic Hollywood studio?

The debt-burdened studio’s lenders received a number of bids, but were unimpressed with their size. With the outlook cloudy after setting the bids aside, the studio put production of the next James Bond movie on hold.

While Bond is now on the ropes, film fans report the studio has finished shooting the next big picture on its release calendar – and that just might have led some prospective bidders to discount their offers.

Due out November 24, Red Dawn is a remake of the Reagan-era production of the same name, championed as a classic by American conservatives. It depicted brothers played by Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen leading a band of Rocky Mountain high schoolers heroically resisting Soviet invaders.

This time the action was filmed in Detroit – and the invaders depicted as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, who roll in on a mission to “repair the economy, fight corporate corruption and rebuild the country’s reputation” according to photos of on-set propaganda posters shot by curious fans.

The Chinese media has already begun sounding the alarm about the film, with a foreign columnist in China Daily warning:

Red Dawn most certainly will not play at the Beijing Megabox, but tempers here will probably explode like kernels of movie house popcorn nonetheless.

Netizens across China are already firing away at Red Dawn‘s yellow peril storyline. How, they wonder, could an American screenwriter depict their countrymen as enemy forces on par with America’s Cold War nemesis?

I looked for a copy of the original film at the Huashi Weiye CD-DVD shop adjacent to The Village of Sanlitun. None of the three clerks I spoke with had heard of the original or its remake. All expressed incredulity that such a movie would be in production; one gave a look that could best be described as shellshock.

“If this movie comes to China, the Chinese people will feel upset,” said one female clerk.

MGM, alongside Disney and TriStar, were sanctioned by China in 1997 after each released a movie deemed offensive by Beijing (taking on the touchy topic of Tibet in the case of Disney and TriStar while MGM ran into trouble for the unfavourable depiction of Chinese criminal justice in Red Corner, which starred Dalai Lama-buddy Richard Gere). Only concerted lobbying and personal pleading by the likes of Henry Kissinger and Michael Eisner and acts of contrition such as the overseas promotion of Chinese films got the studios unbanned.

Since that unpleasant episode, Hollywood has tiptoed around Chinese sensibilities, in stark contrast to productions such as Rising Sun that tripped forth when Americans were worried that Japan posed an economic threat. Richard Gere has been kept busy with dancing and dogs, James Bond got a helpful Chinese army sidekick and even The Manchurian Candidate was remade with the evil Chinese masterminds transformed into Wall Street bad guys. While Hollywood angled for greater access to 2.6bn Chinese eyeballs, the cinematic battleground shifted into a guerrilla struggle fought over arty film festivals around the world that happened to include documentaries about the Dalai Lama and his Uighur counterpart, Rebiya Kadeer.

With China this year showing unprecedented pique over the US president meeting the Dalai Lama and approving arms sales to Taiwan, it seems unlikely MGM will escape unscathed when Red Dawn lights screens again, though a spokesman told China Daily:

This is a movie that was set in motion because we thought it would be a fun popcorn experience. It’s not a political film.

Even John Milius, who directed and co-wrote the 1984 original, told the Los Angeles Times the remake is “a stupid thing”.

“There’s only one example in 4,000 years of Chinese territorial adventurism, and that was in 1979, when they invaded Vietnam, and to put it mildly they got their [butts] handed to them,” says Milius, noting that China built a wall to separate itself from invaders. “Why would China want us? They sell us stuff. We’re a market. I would have done it about Mexico.”

Whether ‘Tequila Sunrise’ would have worked better than Red Dawn is surely a matter for the film buffs.