Raoul’s Two Cents: May 23, 2025
From Beijing With Love: The Sino-Russian Spy Movie We Didn’t Ask For
My wife and I love action movies. We like spy movies and we’re going through all the Mission Impossible series of Tom Cruise in anticipation of Mission Impossible 8 (yeah, I know Tom’s weird, egotistical, and narcissistic but he’s a good actor.)
I wondered if China and Russia enjoyed these spy movies when they are constantly portrayed as the bad guys. Would they ever produce their own version of Mission Impossible? What would it look like? I imagine it will be a vodka-and-dumpling-fueled spy thriller that will make Skyfall look like a community theater production. The question isn’t who’s behind the camera (probably a state-approved director with a penchant for slow-motion explosions). No, the real head-scratcher is: who’s the bad guy when the world’s usual “bad guys” are the ones making the movie?
MY IMAGINARY MOVIE
Meet Agent Triple Eight (888, because it’s luckier than 007), played by a chiseled Chinese action star who moonlights as a patriotic pop idol. He’s got the charm of Daniel Craig, the martial arts chops of Jet Li, and a gadget-filled Huwawei smartwatch that doubles as a noodle cooker.
His Russian counterpart, Agent Vodka One, is a grizzled ex-KGB operative with a pet bear and a penchant for hacking elections with his Dominion Voting Jukebox and Auto Handwriting Machine. Together, they’re an unstoppable duo, sipping baijiu and vodka martinis (shaken, not stirred, comrade).
But who would the villain be? In a Sino-Russian Bond film, the bad guys can’t be the usual suspects—no SPECTRE, no rogue oligarchs, no shadowy Chinese triads (too close to home). In my movie we will have a rogue AI billionaire from Silicon Valley, named Elon Zuck who is holed up in a solar-powered volcano lair off the coast of California. Zuck plans to double brainwash the already brainwashed political parties to start killing each other by flooding Social Media with adorable AI cats chanting catchy political slogans. His henchmen? A legion of TikTok influencers armed with selfie sticks that double as laser pointers.
The plot kicks off when Triple Eight and Vodka One are dispatched to infiltrate a San Francisco tech conference disguised as the Crypto Karamasov Bros. There will be awkward moments of Vodka One struggling not to laugh as Agent 888 tries to pronounce “blockchain.” The action peaks with a chase through the Golden Gate Bridge, where our heroes commandeer a 150 mph self-driving Tesla (hacked via the Huwawei smartwatch, naturally) while dodging Zuck’s army of drone-delivered kombucha bombs.
The humor? It’s as subtle as a sledgehammer. Triple Eight quips, “We Chinese are so smart because you can’t hide secrets from us. Our Chinese Weather Balloons gave us all the intel we need!” Vodka One counters, “We Russians are so tough that winter is bikini season!” The villain’s evil monologue is a TED Talk gone wrong, complete with buzzwords like “disrupt” and “synergy” that make the audience groan louder than a Beijing traffic jam.
In the end, our heroes save the day by uploading a virus disguised as a viral cat video, crashing Zuck’s servers and his dream of world domination. The final scene? A toast in a neon-lit karaoke bar, where Triple Eight belts out a Mandarin cover of “Without You” while Vodka One wrestles his bear to the electronic dance disco music of “Stayin’ Alive” in Russian.
Who’s the real bad guy? The audience, for sitting through this glorious mess of a movie. Coming soon to a state-sponsored streaming platform near you!
But this is just silly ol’ me. TGIF people!
“Ukraine announced plans to open Chernobyl, their nuclear disaster site, to tourists. They say it’s just like Disneyland, except the 6-foot mouse is real.” — Conan O’Brien
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” — Bruce Lee
“When you really study espionage movies, or spy movies, the beginnings are really set up to have, like, an amazing bit of action, but at the moment you’re watching it, you have no idea why or what it’s about.” — John Lasseter of Pixar
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” — Hebrews 4:12
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Thanks to Norm of Encino, California
Parting Shots
Thanks to Tom of Pasadena, CA
Thanks to Art of Sierra Madre, CA
Thanks to Agnes of Washington, DC
Thanks to Norm of Encino, CA
Thanks to Colleen of Washington State
I found these:
My good friend (and jokester) Terry and I came up with these.
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