John Cena and Jackie Chan are Getting Cancelled & Disney is Creating Backlash

David, what does Jackie Chan, John Cena, and an Indian child mathlete-turned-rapper have in common? Hello, China. Today, I want to represent Hit and Strike with Jackie Chan. We will eat a lot of ice cream. Um, Andrew, these two movies are kind of controversial right now in a way that maybe you would and would not predict. First movie we're talking about is Hit and Strike. We'll play the trailer below, Andrew. It is almost a Rush Hour-style anti-terrorist comedic action film starring Jackie Chan and John Cena. Yeah, no, a pairing that is actually very funny. But also, both people have their own controversies, and that's also why it took five years to come out. It was supposed to be released in 2018. The second film is called The World's Best, and it's about an Indian kid who's a spelling bee champion and then finds out that his father was actually a rapper, and then he goes into becoming a rapper, I guess, like that. Yeah, but it's kind of weird because his dad looks like a rapper from, like, 1983, from, like, Beat Street. And I believe it is a full-length version of, like, Kevin G's character from Mean Girls. Right, and it's weird because the Hit and Strike one is geopolitical, so it's fueled by a lot of geopolitics, right, between John Cena and Jackie Chan. And then the one about the Indian kid is just, like, I don't know, a lot of people are sick of these Disney movies where they're trying to be, like, extra diverse and, like, maybe too woke. Well, I think it fit into a slate of, like, 10 new Disney shows or movies that, like, a lot of, I guess, like, a certain crowd on the internet that is more conservative really went against. So we're gonna get into the comments section. Our own takeaways, make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications, Andrew. From silly to serious, obviously, anything regarding entertainment, Andrew, fundamentally should be silly, right? But it seems like so many people have serious feelings about them. Somebody said, Mad Max plus Fast and Furious plus comedy plus kung fu. What is this, Rush Hour instead of Rush Hour? Why are they making a knockoff but with a white guy and an Asian guy? Well, I actually, it's actually not the same storyline, all right, because it takes place in a Mad Max-type world, like a post-apocalyptic world where people are, like, searching for oil. So it is definitely some of that. But overall, I would say the movie looks good in a cheesy way. Right, like, some of the scenes in the trailers, if you look at it through a cheesy lens, they're good cheesy scenes, right? Yeah, I mean, if the graphics were better, what, it wouldn't have been on par with some Fast and Furious-type level stuff? Somebody said, I almost forgot about this commie apologist John Cena. And somebody said, yeah, of course, they both love commies, the perfect duo. And somebody said, let me guess, the plot of the movie is John Cena and Jackie Chan teaming up to take over Taiwan. Oh, man. A lot of people are like, oh, man, this looks like a bad parody movie. Jackie Chan looked a lot younger back in 2018. The CGI for this looks very outdated. It looks like they shot it all on a green screen. Somebody said, this looks like one of those movies designed to debut in the U.S. and sort of flop, but just recoup in the China market. Yeah, it's interesting. It does kind of look more like a Chinese-made movie. So I do think it's a co-production, maybe produced by XY Films, which might be a Chinese company. I don't know. No, I believe it is a co-production. Somebody said, so much politics went into this, if you really understood about it. John Cena called Taiwan a country during this. This probably kicked it back another two years. COVID kicked it back three years for the total of five-year delay. Yeah. Does that discredit the movie? Does that make it bad? Just because it's like five years late? I mean, I just think the discussions are interesting, but I'd like to see it come out. And to be honest, at least I'm one of those people where I'm just more detached from it. I'm just gonna watch it, just to see if it's good. And just to see a white guy who's like from the country, who's a rapper, which is John Cena paired with Jackie Chan, immediately, it sounds like there could be some funny scenes. Dave, do you think there's a scene where they speak Chinese with each other? Honestly, I do think so. And do you think there's a scene, Andrew, where John Cena probably does the lightning strike? Oh. Because you know how in WWF, he kind of came up with that new like Shang-Chi inspired, like, ah, Shang-Tien, Shang-Duo. You know what I would love? If they tied in some of John Cena's viral moments in it. Like at one point he's like, yeah, I do love chili oil. You mean like if he's like, oh yeah, I need some Lao Gan Ma to eat these army rations in this post-apocalyptic world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Moving on, Andrew, to World's Best. This is a really interesting plot for a movie. It's essentially like Kevin G's character from Mean Girls, but they turned it into like two hours, right? Yeah, and the biggest comment was like, hey, listen, I'm a fan of diversity, and that's the only way I've ever been allowed into anything but this thing looks very, very cheesy. So a lot of people are like, I love the effort. I like how they're tying in new characters and kind of a new storyline. Something that people haven't really seen before, you know. Right, because it's an Indian athlete whose father died. He doesn't know a lot about his father. I guess his mom's like hiding the secret from him that his dad was actually like a rapper. And then his dad comes back from the dead as a ghost to teach him how to be cool at school. Because as we know in America, Andrew, it's sort of a anti-nerd country, even though you need nerds to like run all the companies. Yeah, it's kind of funny that any Asian kid that becomes cool at school needs some type of mystical, mythical, like supernatural message or power. Right, whether it's your dead rapper ghost dad comeback or that you are a descendant of the Monkey King, obviously in Disney Plus's ABC. Right, exactly. Somebody said, of course, Andrew, some more harsh comments. Andrew, we know about the culture wars that are going on in America right now. We need to boycott Disney with the same passion that we did to Bud Light. And then, of course, other people fired back. It was like, you guys can't fight progress forever. All you old racist boomers are passing on. Well, I guess a lot of people, I mean, in the internet comments at least, which I do not think the likes or comments on a YouTube trailer are fully reflective of who will watch it, because I think a lot of the people commenting are not even Disney Plus subscribers, right? So I do think that, so in a way it doesn't matter, but it does give you kind of an idea of how some people feel. And I think a lot of people are just mad because they're like, it seems like Disney's trying to force diversity with this one, where they kind of made like a cheesy movie. And I don't really know who it's for. Is it for kids or for adults? Is it for Indian Americans? Right. I mean, I would say this. I really like the premise of it, but after watching the trailer, I was like, yo, this is 100x cheesier than Hamilton. The guy who made Hamilton produced it. I already thought Hamilton was cheesy. A lot of people were like, dude, Disney needs to realize there is a difference between being progressive and being cringe. What do you think about that? I mean, like, is Disney, I think Disney's right for pushing diversity and more progressiveness, but the art form and the execution of the art does still matter too, right? For sure. And I guess just because it is cringe to us, it doesn't mean that it's gonna do bad, but also if it's very, very cringe right now, I do think that's a sign that there's a chance it could do really bad. Yeah. I mean, Chan Can Dunk, unfortunately, I believe it had 14,000 down votes versus 2,000 up votes. I wouldn't be surprised. I don't think this one's nearly gonna be as poorly received as Chan Can Dunk's trailer, but what do you think right now? Do you think it's because the love for these projects does not transcend the anti, the hate? Well, I think what Disney is doing is that they are making a lot of new content. They have to because eventually you're gonna run out of your legacy content, right? All your Marvel stuff, the comic stuff, all the old Disney remakes. Like in this content game, where Disney's trying to crank stuff out almost like a YouTube channel or Netflix. Right, because this is the nature of the new premium streaming services, right? Not everything is gonna be good. You don't build up releases where somebody watches one movie a month, right? And then they like build it up and then like, all right, that's the one movie I'm gonna watch in theaters this month. That's the one movie I'm taking my kids to. It's like now people have to watch like eight to 10 movies a month. But what if they brought back remakes, and I'm just asking here, obviously, you know, I could see both sides of it, more like, I guess, white-driven shows and then put more diverse characters mixed in there, such as Clouds, Star Girls. I don't even know what they are. These are just what the internet comments, I'm assuming from white people were bringing up. Can you satisfy both groups without pissing off, you know, some select portion of white people while increasing diversity, like in a more smoother fusion way? For sure. I think there can be white male protagonists still. Like, why not? What, make his best friend in Asia, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can add diversity around them. I don't, you know, like we always say, us being Asian growing up in America, I'm used to seeing white people at the front of movies. So it doesn't, I love seeing ourselves, but it doesn't bother me to see a good movie where a white person is a hero. Yeah. That doesn't bother me, if it's good. And, but yeah, by the way, guys, obviously I'm not advocating that we dial the clock back to 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, where like everything is just white-dominated and minorities are just like these bit roles. I'm just saying it'd be nice if we could have the progress without everybody fighting each other. Yeah, and it just sounds like, because you just have to make so much content, the content's not always good, but it's like diverse, so which is good, but then the content's bad, which is not good. So now it's this, yeah. Why do you think, this is kind of an aside, Andrew, that white people like that era of like run DMC so much from like 1988 or like 1984? Like, there's no way this guy who's 12 years old in 2023 has a dad that was like from the beat street, like wild style days. Yeah. Like your dad would be like 65 years old. That would be as old as like Afrika Bambaataa. It's funny, because in the trailer, they show Doug E. Fresh and Doug E. Fresh is like the oldest school, but very famous beat boxer. But like, I would assume anybody below the age of 35 does not know him. Right. It was kind of like, yo, it's Kevin G, 14 and three years, 17, check it. And it's like, whoa, that type of hip hop was done in like 1987. Because you got Doug E. Fresh, which is confusing because I'm like, wait, so is this movie for old people, the parents and the kids, I guess? Like they want the 45 year old parents with the 10 year old kid to watch it. But as me, as a 30 some year old, I'm lost in the middle. I honestly think that it's the only era of hip hop that like white people think was safe because it was more like dancing and like b-boying on like cardboard. Because technically, the Indian rapper dad should be dressed like Dipset if he was like a rapper from like 05. I thought it could have been really funny if the dad did have an Indian accent and was a rapper in India, and then almost got signed to the major record label in America, but something happened and then he died. So he never got to make his American career debut. Oh, to break open the market because it wasn't diverse, right? Yeah, so you could have still had an Indian rapper dad with an accent, with an Indian accent. And that would have like, to be honest, made it more interesting. Yeah, honestly, I thought for sure he was gonna be Punjabi, and maybe there was gonna be a guest cameo from Nav. Oh, or Punjabi MC. Ooh. All right, guys, let us know in the comments down below what you think about these two movies. Is this just over politicized? Is this just the internet at play? Or is Disney really making some F-ups right now? Yeah, I think that they have the right intention, but the execution, to honestly, is lacking. All right, everybody, please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hop Hop Boys. Until next time, we out. Peace.