Peel the Onion｜Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower -- A Netflix Movie Review

By William Blake

I watched Netflix's 2017 documentary Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower last night for the first time. "Joshua" is a contrived, cloying, unbalanced documentary with the ambition to manipulate perspectives on Joshua Wong's rise and evolution from passionate teen to media princeling.

The problem here is not the subject per se. Wong has always done pretty well in the "making himself known" department. The waifish boy turned poster child is undoubtedly a mouthpiece for his movement. But as both US-China superpowers continue headlong into this Century's Thucididyes Trap, media like this is predictably lopsided, designed to create single narrative echo chambers without much historical context, critical thinking, or self-efficacy.

The film grapples with the central theme of 'freedom' — how is it possible if your thoughts appear to be in direct conflict with the government? Duh. "Joshua" never explores the range of freedom's meaning as the age-old conflict between man and the system of government within which he lives. Instead, like most "pro-freedom" media, it promotes those who are saying-the-right-thing-with-the-right-values-against-the-wrong-people.

And not because these films are balanced or insightful but because they're 'hegemony-producing,' promulgating the Anglo-American west-is-best ideological belief system. Of the same ilk is Oscar-nominated documentary Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom (2015), which like most Western coverage of Ukraine, presented a mythical and whitewashed version of the Maidan "revolution." More recently, Denise Ho: Becoming the Song (2020), presumably only got made because Denise Ho fits the China-bashing narrative the films' US investors needed to sell the movie, regardless of her talent. (She's a singer, right?)

From the title screen, we're encouraged to absorb Wong's ideological naiveté as he stands atop some large books holding an umbrella in preparation for some Goliath scratching antics. Goliath is the 'superpower' in the title. Later on, adults, the HK government, CY Leung, HK police force, Xi Jinping, China, Chinese culture, Chinese civilization, opposing views, and the rule of law are Goliath too.

"Joshua" tries to be a melodrama of Joan of Arc proportions; the story of a youngster who sees the world clearly but finds themselves in conflict with adult world complexities—"where are the adults!?" he screams early on. Lurking in the background is the much-publicized ideological chasm between an HK populace brought up 'westernized' and its birth mother, now thriving communist China. The film pivots on the multi-perspective rift between HK's post-colonial sovereignty after the 1997 handover and the emerging grip of the Chinese Central Government. Evidence is presented in the selection of CY Leung by the pro-Beijing Election Committee. However, we don't get any counter-context as the Basic Law gives a nominating committee the exclusive power to pick candidates, rather than the populace itself. This confusion permeates the rest of the film as Wong and friends pursue "universal suffrage" with public nomination at all costs based on some mythical idea of democratic "international standards," which the film takes for granted.

Ironically, Beijing's desire to screen candidates before any voting can occur is almost identical to America, whereby politicians get funded by special interests who then profit off of them directly. Trump decides to defund pandemic control measures without any outside influence; China wants to 'brainwash' its own people's minds by controlling it's youth's education. Same thing, right? The first part, perhaps. The second part not so much. All the talking heads in "Joshua" are American or pro-west HKers. All seem overly fond of the political-economic systems that have resulted in more than 100 million deaths over the past Century. At the same time, they show contempt and ignorance towards a political-economic system that has lifted countless millions more from abject poverty over the same period: two systems, two perspectives, two types of brainwash.

Still only 14, Wong establishes a "pro-democracy" student activist group called Scholarism, which he can't pronounce. Along the way, he attracts more followers, and we get introduced to them one by one. Some you know by now: Agnes Chow, "we're going to destroy the Hong Kong government!"; and Derek Lam, "to defeat Darth Vader, you have to train some Jedi." Lam explains how Scholarism speaks to HK youth who don't consider themselves ethnically Chinese — "we're really not Chinese people," he says. These proclamations of ethnic independence are the most alarming statements in the film. However, they seem utterly normalized, applauded even by the carefully curated HK elders and random foreign "China experts" on display.

The climax of the film centers on the eve of a National Education law fraught with 'patriotic propaganda.' The idea of national education, its international equivalents, and specific content are never discussed or revealed. As the Scholarism crew occupy the public square outside government headquarters, CY Leung makes a brief appearance in front of news cameras. Every time Leung appears, it's with covert-looking phone footage accompanied by villainous sounding music, which lends him a machiavellian aura. Miraculously, every time we're back with Joshua, it's back to pro production values and sympathetic profiling. In the end, Wong emerges heroic, rabblerousing his young, expanding audience — now in the tens of thousands — with heavily accented platitudes. Cornered, Leung capitulates, making an amendment that leaves it up to schools to decide whether to adopt the new curriculum.

Piscatella moves quickly to the Occupy Central movement, which ran for 79 days in 2014. Police used teargas and pepper spray on the crowd, heightening fears of another Tiananmen Square massacre. Quite literally in the space of five minutes, we've gone from opposing national education to police doing the rounds and checking up on the protesters as is their job (they also seem respectful of Wong's right to protest) to an imagined bloody massacre. Though the closest we get to killing is when Wong loses his glasses and gets some face scratches from a forceful arrest during a pre-occupy student strike. Wong incites the crowd to "re-take civic square," scaling the gates illegally. His rewards for such behavior are a Time magazine cover and a 2015 Fortune World's 50 Greatest Leaders nomination (he placed 10th). It's here that Wong's ego starts to go interstellar, and he takes solace in the fact that they "forced the communist regime to step backwards" and "we just won one battle but not the whole war." Are we at war? Ok. The word regime comes through the speakers over and over because yah hello regimes sound bad, m'kay?

Scholarism's leading players start to comment on Wong's character, despite the sympathetic profiling of his cause, it becomes glaringly apparent that no one knows who Joshua, now Yeshua, is. Nathan Law describes him as a robot; Chow indicates that he's a sociopath of sorts hard to get to know with "no emotions;" talking head Jason Ng, a journalist describes him as "digital" ("but that's a price he has to pay," he offers). After two months of Occupy Central, Agnes "we speak for all Hong Kongers" Chow admits that many citizens have started to feel impatient with the roadblocks and lack of clear movement focus to justify their disruptions. Of course, she blames the government for taking advantage of citizens' discontent with the movement and their needs to work and provide for their own families. Occupy's leader, Benny Tai, peacefully surrenders at the end of the protests. Yeshua doggedly continues, throwing himself into a hunger strike fit, too devastated at Scholarism's failure to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party. By willfully starving himself before cameras, Yeshua admits the movement (and perhaps his ailing vision) has become "blurred." Still, the government made him do it, and he hopes that people around the world will see his suffering and those of the entire HK population. Wong says that his starvation "is the ONLY WAY to give pressure to the government." A young, democratic mind indeed.

Scholarism dissolves to avoid further arrests. In April 2016, Yeshua, Chow, Law, and Lam formed Domostisto, ostensibly to run for legislative council, a democratically elected position in Hong Kong. Now an anti-government "pro-democracy" party is running for a democratically elected government position, ostensibly to take over and do as they please. For Domostisto, it's a bit like a V for Vendetta game. All this talk of elected revolution has left some gaping questions for the discernable viewer. In V for Vendetta, the title character V inspires an uprising against the fascist regime. The movie ends with him detonating the Houses of Parliament and dying in the process. But he does inspire a people's movement to take over power wearing V's signature anonymous mask, symbolizing the success of his revolution. So, what happens the day after? Now that Domestisto has taken power, what will they do? It seems it's not enough to overthrow a tyranny. You have to replace it with a new structure, and if you ARE that new structure, do you still complain about government oppression disguised as the rule of law? Sweepingly, "Joshua" fails even to ask the most basic of philosophical questions, happy to bask in the sanctimonious glow of its superior moral sensibilities.

"And the way we can stop the government is to get into the Legislative Council," Chow smirks in an early Domostisto meeting. Law claims that the government is "scared" of them as they are the only ones that can pressure the Chinese government to do what they want. The confidence on display is staggering. It's then I start to wonder why.

As the documentary winds down, Yeshua announces plans to enter the 2020 election, and Martin Lee reappears praising Wong for mostly carrying the democracy torch he lit in his youth. Lee was the founder and chairman of Hong Kong's Democratic Party before and after its 1997 handover to China. But he's also been linked to America's far-right political elite, which has long been associated with Hong Kong's China-hating pan-democrats, starting with Lee. US far-right attention on HK is never about "freedom and democracy;" it's almost always about regime change to the benefit of US interests, destroying Hong Kong if necessary to hurt/contain/stop China. Leaders like Wong have spent years cultivating close ties with some of the most hawkish politicians in Washington, including Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Tom Cotton. Looking painfully out of depth in the company of seasoned wolves, Wong beams a "look at me, ma" grin in the photo ops. When Black Lives Matter broke this year, "pro-democracy" godfather Jimmy Lai denounced US nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism. Lai's views confirm his stance on the US's exceptionalist myth as a lighthouse of "freedom and democracy" throughout the world. More recently, "pro-democracy" activists went far enough to derail an African-American woman's attempt to organize a BLM demonstration in the city, shamelessly accusing her of being an agent of the Chinese Communist Party. Though Wong himself has expressed support of BLM, his Tweets and soundbites come across as insincere. Given that like Lai, the "pro-democracy" movement aligns itself with the US state and far-right politicians who have sought to demonize American protestors. Wong and his disciples have avoided any specific criticism of Trump or Pompeo or their sponsors in Washington.

The final scene of Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower sees Nathan Law winning a seat on the legislative council in 2016. Law embraces his trench-buddy Wong, who appears visibly moved. There's no doubting that Wong passionately believes in himself and his cause, whatever that is. But that's what the film wants you to think. It wants you to buy into the romantic myth of a teen taking on a superpower that is the Pentagon's latest bogeyman. And in a way, he did. But in another sense, he took full advantage of his position as a capitalist with little remorse. Weirdly, without any clear indication of where he got the money, Wong bought a luxury apartment in the world's most expensive market. Recently he started a Patreon page asking for donations — the highest level, Level 4, will get you one on one Zoom calls with him for $1,000 per month. Just this week, Wong pleaded with the public for more donations. He suspects he is being followed and needs bodyguards, a chauffeur, and an armored car. I kind of feel sorry for the guy. By leading a movement that destroyed Hong Kong's economy, and many livelihoods in the process, he helped bait the now in place National Security Law that likely sees him as a far-right backed public nuisance and a threat to social stability. "Joshua" then is about freedom; Wong's freedom to get this far when many anti-government crusaders in so-called Western democracies would have been purged immediately. You're an adult now, Josh. Adults take responsibility for their actions. Where are you now? 

William Blake is a poet and painter born in Soho. One of HK's last true realists with a voracious thirst for knowledge.