RottenTomatoes Score - 51% Compared To - Red Dawn (1984) - 65% The original 1984 version of Red Dawn, directed by John Milius, remains an iconic cinematic relic of the final decade of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Focusing on a Soviet invasion of a small American town, it depicts a group of high school students, led by Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, engaging in guerrilla warfare against their Russian and Cuban occupiers. In 2008, it had been nineteen years since the fall of the Berlin Wall that signified the end of Soviet communism. Despite this, the decision was made to remake the film with Chinese adversaries, despite the lack of real-world paranoia about a Chinese invasion that made the original so chilling. The film, starring a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth and a pre-Hunger Games Josh Hutcherson in the Swayze and Sheen roles, was all set for release in 2010, when financial troubles prompted its release being put into limbo. But then somebody then realised that having one dimensional Chinese villains would harm the film's profitability in the increasingly lucrative Chinese market. As a result, all of the Chinese characters were changed to be North Korean instead ahead of the film's ultimate release in 2012, presumably with the hope that nobody would notice that the Chinese and Koreans are two different races of people (though they had cast Korean-American actor Will Yun Lee as the lead Chinese villain in the first place - Hollywood has never been too fussy about the particular origins of Asian characters). Not that it mattered, the film tanked... Which other reboots do you think deserve to be on this list? Share your picks below in the comments thread.
