The film has won welcome at a time when China seems increasingly confident about cementing its global status, but still sees the United States and general Western hostility as standing in its way. For many Chinese, it seems fitting to see those themes in a movie that feels like a Hollywood spectacle reworked to make the Westerners the villains. Even with heavy restrictions on film imports, Hollywood action films have been a pillar of the Chinese box office, while conventional patriotic Chinese movies have often floundered.

The Chinese Communist Party is not mentioned. Instead, the film celebrates the prowess and hardware of the People’s Liberation Army, including missiles launched from Chinese warships that unerringly destroy the bad guys while sparing the civilians hiding nearby. (“I guess the Chinese military ain’t as lame as I thought,” says Big Daddy.)

“There are a number of things that don’t really fit into what you would expect from a straight patriotic film,” said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies Chinese society and cinema.

“It’s a very individualist personal quest, which is much more of a Hollywood thing,” he said. “They’re definitely downplaying the Communist Party in favor of patriotism and defending Chinese people and Chinese interests all over the world.”

But the story comes loaded with talk of China’s rise and peaceful intentions — both standard Communist Party talking points — and the decline of the imperialist West. Even by action-film standards, it takes some leaps of logic. (Warning: Plot giveaways follow.)

Leng Feng wanders Africa searching for the killer of his commando girlfriend, who died while he was in prison for attacking a heartless property developer. He is swept up in a murderous war. About to flee on a Chinese Navy ship, he volunteers to go back for dozens of Chinese factory workers, along with a famous doctor, trapped in the mayhem.

The film is driven by explosions, gunfights and hand-to-hand combat. But along the way it makes swipes about what is portrayed as Western fickleness and hypocrisy. China is the brotherly helper of Africa, ready to send in its peacekeepers when the United Nations gives the nod.