Fan CastingThe Manchurian Candidate

Set in 2024. Special forces team gets captured in a Sub-Saharan African country by Chinese forces who are actually working as minor partners for a U.S. far right Christo-fascist thinktank called the Manchurian Institute, which is fronted as a U.S.-China foreign affairs thinktank by Korean War veterans following the war. Brainwashing scene rips off Parallax View and includes showing clips from Alan Lomax archives of church singing from the 80s. Involvement of American fascist conspiracy goes way further in this version than previous adaptations. Twist is that they were ultimately responsible attempting to assassinate moderate Republican presidential candidate and the Chinese were minor allies. Unclear throughout whether Eugenie character is involved with the brainwashing and works for the Manchurian Institute or not. Republicans and Democrats explicitly mentioned. Jordan is a Democrat who is frequently tagged as a socialist, Shaw is a Republican. Themes of national delusion, patriotism, jingoism, mass surveillance, PTSD, disinformation, separation of church & state, near-peer war, AI, dreams, domestic fascism. Ray and Jocelyn relationship inspired by Mary Matalin and James Carville. Stuff taken from both films and book. Ends with characters talking about how a forthcoming Congressional hearing and new coverage will expose it all and one character jokes about how no one will therefore no what really happened. Relationship between Mrs. Iselin and Raymond explicitly incestuous.