Introduction

Wolf Warrior (Chinese: 战狼; Zhan lang) is a 2015 Chinese war film written and directed by Wu Jing.

It stars Wu Jing along with Scott Adkins, Yu Nan and Kevin Lee. It was released on 2 April 2015. A sequel, titled Wolf Warrior 2, was released in China in 2017 and became the all-time highest-grossing film in China.

A third film is in development.

Outline

In 2008, a combined task group of People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Forces and Chinese police raid a drug smuggling operation in an abandoned chemical facility in southern China. The leader of the smuggling operation, Wu Ji, holds one of his own men hostage while taking cover behind a section of the facility’s reinforced wall. Leng Feng, a skilled PLA sniper, ignores orders to stand down and fires three shots at a weak section of the wall, penetrating through on the third shot and killing Wu Ji. Leng Feng is sent to solitary confinement as punishment, but is approached by Long Xiaoyun, the female commander of the legendary ‘Wolf Warriors’, an elite unit within the PLA tasked with simulating foreign tactics for the PLA to train against. Long Xiaoyun offers Leng Feng a place in the Wolf Warriors. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, crime lord Min Deng, the older brother of Wu Ji, hires ex-US Navy SEAL “Tom Cat” (Scott Adkins) and his group to assassinate Leng Feng and avenge his brother.

The Wolf Warriors participate in a training exercise in a remote and uninhabited forested region on China’s southern border. During the exercise, Tom Cat and his mercenaries ambush a Wolf Warrior squad, killing one of Leng Feng’s comrades. Subsequently, the PLA and the Wolf Warriors are tasked with hunting down Tom Cat‘s squad to restore their honour. The combined infantry force move into the forest but are delayed by multiple traps set by Tom Cat and pinned down by sniper fire until Leng Feng manages to kill the shooter. Afterwards, the rest of the PLA force engages Tom Cat’s other mercenaries, who stage a fighting retreat but are eventually overwhelmed and killed one by one. Meanwhile, Long Xiaoyun and the other PLA commanders deduce that Ming Deng himself is also in the training area to take possession of a smuggled cache of biotechnology, which could allow the creation of a genetic weapon that could target Chinese people exclusively.

Leng Feng eventually catches Tom Cat just before China’s southern border. Leng Feng is nearly defeated, but manages to kill Tom Cat with his own knife. Medical personnel from a PLA relief force arrive, but Leng Feng recognises the wrist tattoo of the medic that approaches him and realises that they are Min Deng’s men in PLA uniforms. He attacks them, eventually holding Min Deng himself at bayonet point on the very edge of the Chinese border. Min Deng’s paramilitary force approaches from the other side of the border, but so do the rest of the Wolf Warriors and PLA soldiers. Min Deng’s force retreats, leaving him to be arrested.

Cast

• Wu Jing as Leng Feng, a marksman in the People’s Liberation Army who was initially court martialled and reprimanded for failing to obey a direct order during an operation. He is later recruited into a Chinese Special Forces Unit called “War Wolf” after Long Xiaoyun takes an interest in him.
• Yu Nan as Lieutenant Colonel Long Xiaoyun, Commander of the Chinese Special Forces Unit “War Wolf”
• Ni Dahong as Ming Deng, a drug lord who hires a group of foreign mercenaries to avenge his brother’s death at the hands of Leng Feng.
• Scott Adkins as “Tom Cat,” a former US Navy SEAL turned mercenary, who is hired by Meng Deng to kill Leng Feng
• Kevin Lee as “Mad Cow”
• Shi Zhaoqi
• Zhou Xiaoou
• Fang Zibin
• Guo Guangping
• Ru Ping
• Hong Wei
• Wang Sen
• Zhuang Xiaolong
• Chris Collins

Production

The script went through 14 drafts over seven years. In order to portray more realistic combat scenes, the movie used five missiles (each at a value of one million yuan), more than 30,000 rounds of ammunition, and a variety of Chinese active military aircraft, including the Chengdu J-10, Harbin Z-9, and CAIC Z-10. In one large battle scene, 32 active tanks appeared in the same shot, including a Type 96 tank.

In order to prepare for the film, with the support of Chinese PLA Nanjing Military Region, Wu Jing trained for 18 months at a camp in Nanjing Military Region. On the first day of shooting, it was the hottest summer in Nanjing’s history. The temperature was up to 49.8 °C, making 5 extra actors suffer from shock.

Most of the film was made on location in Jiangsu province, at sites including Nanjing and Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum.

Release

Box Office

As of 25 May 2015, it has earned US$89.11 million in China.

In China, it opened on 02 April 2015, earning US$33.32 million in its 4-day opening weekend topping the Chinese box office. In its second weekend, it fell to number two, earning US$36.19 million (behind Furious 7).

International Influence

Wolf Warrior and its sequel, Wolf Warrior 2, are the namesake of China’s aggressive ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ under Xi Jinping’s administration.

Sequel

A sequel, Wolf Warrior 3 (Chinese: 战狼3), has been confirmed at the end of the mid-credits scene of Wolf Warrior 2. This was later confirmed by Wu Jing.

Trivia

• Second film to feature Scott Adkins and Nan Yu. They both appeared in The Expendables 2 (2012).

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s):
  • Jing Wu … (as Jacky Wu)
• Producer(s):
  • Tang Baofang … planner
  • Wu Bin … planner
  • Xu Huangsheng … executive producer
  • Daoqing Ji … producer
  • Feng Jian … planner
  • Zhou Jianhua … planner
  • Ying Liang … producer
  • Jianmin Lv … executive producer
  • Fang Ming … executive producer
  • Zhao Qijin … planner
  • Chen Shan … producer
  • Jingxi Shen … producer
  • Tiger Wang … producer (as Wang Xiaohu)
  • Jing Wu … executive producer
  • Guojun Yang … planner
  • Jiang Yingui … planner
• Writer(s):
  • Qun Dong
  • Yan Gao
  • Yi Liu
  • Jing Wu
• Music:
  • Kian How Yoa
• Cinematography:
• Editor(s):
• Production:
  • Beijing Dengfeng International Culture Communications Company
  • Film Workshop
  • China Film Channel (co-presents)
  • Spring Era Films Co. (Chunqiu Time Co.)
• Distributor(s):
  • Magnum Films (Australia, 2015)(theatrical)
  • Rebel Studio (India, 2015)(domestic distribution, theatrical)
  • Spring Era Films Co. (China, 2015)(Chunqiu Time Co., theatrical)
  • Well Go USA Entertainment (United States, 2015)(subtitled, theatrical)
  • AMG Entertainment (Japan, 2016)(DVD)
  • Batrax Entertainment (Non-US, 2015)
  • Black Hill Pictures (Germany, 2016)(Blu-ray)
  • Black Hill Pictures (Germany, 2016)(DVD)
  • Blue Swan Entertainment (Italy, 2020)
  • GEM Entertainment (Non-US, 2015)
  • Metrodome Distribution (United Kingdom, 2015)(DVD)
• Release Date: 06 April 2015.
• Running time: 90 minutes.
• Rating: 15.
• Country: China.
• Language: Mandarin and English.

Video Link(s)