Ha Ha Ha America

The short film Ha Ha Ha America (watch it here), which recently appeared at the Sundance Film Festival, bills itself as a "translated harangue from China to the U.S.A. that laughs at our missteps." Are the Chinglish subtitles that serve as narrator for this 17-minute masturbatory farce really a translation of some nationalistic Chinese rant? Doubtful. Does the message come from China at all? Again, doubtful. The director is named Jon Daniel Ligon, and he apparently attended the University of Michigan in the 1980s. We gather that the movie was Ligon's way of issuing a wake-up call to the American government. But the movie, admittedly amusing at first in a cheap way, displays a very simplistic world-view, only a partial understanding of U.S.-China relations and the butchering of several "facts." The movie insults both Chinese people and Americans. Maybe the filmmakers figured that made it OK?

Ha Ha Ha America begins with scenes from Shanghai and the following subtitles:

Ha Ha Ha America / China move fast / too fast for / American hillbilly / So commence cry / as you not keep up / Too bad so sad / Already you behind / Ha Ha Ha / China giant blooming / like lady detectives / with swollen testicles / Be most curious America / China communist revolution / flow over world / like business tsunami / While you pants down / in oily desert / China surpass America / as world bully / Ha Ha Ha / What? No believe? / Here fact / China population / 1.5 billion / Maybe / Or 1.2 billion / Maybe / Either result mean / America just / rounding error / compare to China / We barnyard buffalo / You runt pig / with no formal access / to prosperity tit / Ha Ha Ha

It goes on (and on, and on -- a long 17 minutes) from there. Asiapundit found the movie "mercantalist, protectionist, and very loose with facts." But what do we know? We both live in China. Most folks over at MetaFilter loved it. Film Threat found it to be "a forceful scream in the ear for those who haven’t been in America this past year." And New York Magazine thought it was "a hilarious .... bit of lefty agitprop" and suggests MoveOn.org should hire Ligon.

Watch it yourself. And let us know what you think.