Well, with China becoming the rising dragon of economic prosperity, perhaps there is good hopes for a new life. On another in movie note, several outside source materials depict this as a job transfer, so with their livelihood at stake, they had to move in order to keep and perhaps further develop their "better life".
China's economic power is a bubble caused by them intentionally inflating their currency to near-worthless levels in order to keep their populace poor and oppressed. Living conditions in China are sharply contrasted with that of the United States.
While China's economic power is indeed a bubble, its not messing with its currency to hurt its own people. Its messing with its currency to give itself an advantage economically, especially where investing and exports are concerned. Which is part of why its economic power is a bit of a bubble.
They were moving away from Detroit. Even Cleveland has joked their motto is "It could be worse, at least we're not Detroit."
Makes even more sense thanks to some recent Reality Subtext with Detroit...
Also, they didn't move to China for a better life. Dre says that his mother got transferred to China for her job.
Actually if you're a foreigner who moves to China as part of a company deal, you can have an amazing life. The same amount of money that will keep you in a somewhat comfortable middle class lifestyle in America can make you modestly wealthy in China. Living in China mostly only sucks for common Chinese people.
It's clear that OP has never traveled to China. In the major metropolitan cities, like Beijing where Dre and his mom moved to, life is relatively comfortable for most educated, middle class people ever since the government embarked on its economic reforms in the 1980s. Furthermore, not all of China's social and economic problems are caused by governmental policies, but are rather problems faced by developing countries as a whole. Statements proclaiming that China's issues with poverty are a conspiracy by Chinese government deliberately keeps the populace poor and oppressed are absolutely xenophobic nonsense and not based on any economic reality.
In the tournament in the remake, when Cheng tried to attack his opponent and refused to let go of holds after winning, why didn't he get disqualified? I'm pretty sure that's against the rules of a normal kung fu tournament. Also, if Cheng was exempted from normal rules, why did his teammate get disqualified for the same thing? At least they could have been consistent and ignored what was going on flat out instead of being selective of who and who not to crack down on.
Cheng was overly aggressive and severely tested the limits of the rules, but the argument could be made that he didn't technically break any of them. His teammate clearly and deliberately used an illegal move with an intent to cripple Dre's leg.
Were the kids wearing sneakers in their Kung Fu Tournament? Why?
Kung fu tournaments (and I think sanshou ones as well) are fought with footwear on.
