A worrying portrait of China’s formidable regime
If it’s not FIFA, it’s the IOC. Just like Russia’s World Cup last year, it was a major sporting event that brought China in from the cold to present a human face to a suspicious world. Equally significantly, the 2008 Beijing Olympics allowed Games organiser Xi Jinping to consolidate his position as front-runner for Communist Party General Secretary, which he assumed four years later. China: A New World
Order (BBC Two) began its superb three-part overview of a six-year reign with a chilling summation of both China’s human rights abuses, and the deafening silence in response to them.
Xi’s administration started promisingly, with a canny and overdue initiative to crack down on endemic corruption, although double standards soon emerged and “corruption” started to sound like a euphemism for political opposition when humanrights lawyers and booksellers were jailed. The personal testimonies underscored the point, from the anticorruption campaigner imprisoned merely for shouting out the party’s pledges too pointedly to the woman who, despite evidence of dishonest testimony, still awaits her husband’s release from prison on bribery charges.
And then there were the Muslim ethnic minority Uighur, brutally
punished for the terror attacks of a few extremist separatists (a Jihad flag in Tiananmen Square being a very bad look for a regime obsessed with control). Watching a Uighur mother weeping about her exile in Turkey while her children were placed in state orphanages, was harrowing, and far from an isolated example. An estimated one million people are now interned, either forcibly in re-education camps, or voluntarily in “vocational training institutions” where they sing If You’re Happy and You Know It, depending on your perspective.
The Chinese government denied this in a postscript. Even if they did confess, you’d be waiting the duration of the Zhou dynasty for any censure from the Western powers, China’s economic power having apparently exempted it from direct criticism.
“We raise these issues with the Chinese government when we see them,” explained Jeremy Hunt. “If we talk too loudly and publicly about our human rights concerns we will just lose access to senior people in the Chinese government and then we won’t be able to do any good at all.”
But as Hong Kong continues to erupt, the line between pragmatism and complicity grows ever thinner. Soft power has seldom sounded so soft although, with democratic norms now being trampled in so many supposedly enlightened countries, who are we to preach? Gabriel Tate
Netflix’s new fantasy epic is a follow-up to the 1982 Jim Henson film about rubber-eared elves and shiny magic shards and features an entire cast of puppets. But despite its 37-year-old roots, The Dark
Crystal: Age of Resistance feels like a chip off a more recent block. In a medieval kingdom, royal houses clash against a backdrop of rising evil. The first episode even features a forbidden kiss between secret lovers.
As if the Game of Thrones parallels weren’t explicit enough, the producers (including Henson’s daughter Lisa) have recruited freely among the former cast of the HBO saga, including Lena Headey and Natalie Dormer. True, there are no full-frontal wobbly bits. However, the heroes, known as Gelflings, get up to almost everything else. Salty exchanges, cruel betrayals and fights to the death are all sure to appeal to GOT fans (while making clear that the show really isn’t for children).
The puppetry, as might be expected of the Jim Henson Company, is exquisite and wonderfully tactile. Alas, the story and dialogue are convoluted. But it’s worth persisting. Five hours into the 10-part series, Age of Resistance settles into a satisfying tale of good versus evil.
It unfolds in the Gelfling capital city, where Princess Brea (Anya Taylor-joy) comes across a secret that threatens to expose the dark truth about the vile Skeksis. As with the original, the clownish-talking Skeksis are the flaw. They are neither amusing enough to serve as comic relief nor unsettling to fulfil their role as villains. Mark Hamill, Simon Pegg and Jason Isaacs are among those voicing the nattering nasties, yet all deliver the same cackling, croaking performances. It’s a shame the show doesn’t do a calmer, job of introducing this dazzling cast.
There are real pleasures to be had watching beautiful puppets running, kissing and poking each others’ eyes out. But The Dark Crystal is in such a hurry to create a splash it plunges off the deep end too soon. Ed Power
China: A New World Order ★★★★ Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance ★★★