Wolverine, Asian culture and race

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2015)

Like Superman, this is another comic book hero who is indestructible. The difference is that Wolverine is a mutant and has been operated on by some super scientists and has a body that is filled with a skeletal structure that is metal. He can spring giant claws from his fists and when injured, his wounds heal automatically. With that out of the way it should not surprise anyone that this movie is very political and, like Superman, very ethnocentric. In this case, we find Wolverine – who is, by the way immortal – is in an underground holding cell during what appears to be the American bombing of Nagasaki. This was the second time a nuclear bomb was dropped on Japan (the first one having been on Hiroshima). Wolverine saves the life of one of the Japanese officers and somehow this man bonds with Wolverine, although they have not seen each other for years. The movie is about genetics. The Japanese guard knows of Wolverine's power and knows that Wolverine doesn't want to be super any more, just wants to be a regular white boy. This is because he lost his long-time love Jean (in earlier episodes) who he had to kill because she had been turned evil by Magneto. At any rate he's a loner but this cute Asian chick is sent to fetch him so that the Japanese officer, who is dying but who is the head of a mega-sized research lab, can say his last good-byes to his "friend." The movie is also about culture. In one scene as Wolverine and the heiress sit down to eat, he has his chop sticks stuck into some meat, standing vertically as he opts to use a fork. She gently takes them and places them on the table, letting him know that chop sticks that are standing represent antagonism of some kind. Even after that the scene continues and then he does it again. And once again this proud woman gently takes the chop sticks and sets them down. We learn that when it comes to the proper use of a Japanese sword, you use two hands, not one. And we learn that the vaunted Ninjas are known, in the early days of their formation, as "the black clan." The Japanese has a simple plan: since he knows Wolverine doesn't like immorality or his super powers, he (the Japanese) has a way where Wolverine's powers can be transferred to HIM, therefore enabling Wolverine to become mortal, eventually fall in love and die of old age. But Wolverine knows that his powers are not always a blessing and tells the man, "You don't want what I've got." The plot thickens because, unbeknownst to us, the Japanese guy has willed all his finances and corporate power of Yashida Industries, to his grand daughter. The bad guys want her out of the picture and try to assassinate her. Aided by the cute Asian chick who flew him to Japan, Wolverine and the heir take off and try to hide. Along the way Wolverine's powers have been weakened because some blonde mutant female blew some kind of smoke into his lungs during a kiss. So the Japanese guy wants the white man's genetic code and his powers – he wants eternal life. The white man with the powers simply wants to get on with his life and get as much pussy as possible. Two of the most beautiful women I've seen, who just happen to be Asian, are slobbering all over this guy, one as a self-appointed "body guard" and the other who has slept with him, inherits an empire and begs him to stay (which, of course, in line with the "lone wolf motif," he turns down). At no time does anyone mention the fact that America was behind the dropping of that bomb. Even when Wolverine and the heiress return to Nakasaki, he references the hole that he and her grandfather dived into to escape the explosion's radiation, but America is not indicted or held responsible a single time for making the racist decision to drop a bomb on a race of people who, to this day, feel the effects of those two bombs being dropped on their two major cities. So it's selective history wrapped around a racially (genetic) driven movie.