Drawing on a cross-disciplinary framework that combines the internal analysis of film narratives (characters, spaces, and visual regimes) with an external reading of industrial, economic, and geopolitical conditions, this article examines the contemporary reconfiguration of Hollywood’s representations of China. Moving beyond the long history of Orientalist and sinophobic tropes, it argues that the transformation observed since the early 2000s results not from a spontaneous ideological shift but from a structural realignment of the global film economy. The rise of the Chinese box office, strict import quotas, and the development of coproduction arrangements have led American studios to adjust plots, characters, and settings to meet Chinese expectations. These adaptations include localized scenes for Chinese releases, the avoidance of political “red lines”, and the integration of Chinese actors and high-tech landscapes. Such narrative recalibrations produce significant symbolic effects: China shifts fromthreateningOther to strategic partner, gaining new geocultural legitimacy within Hollywood’s dominant narrative grammar. In this sense, Hollywood becomes an indirect vector of Chinese Drawing on a cross-disciplinary framework that combines the internal analysis of film narratives (characters, spaces, and visual regimes) with an external reading of industrial, economic, and geopolitical conditions, this article examines the contemporary reconfiguration of Hollywood’s representations of China. Moving beyond the long history of Orientalist and sinophobic tropes, it argues that the transformation observed since the early 2000s results not from a spontaneous ideological shift but from a structural realignment of the global film economy. The rise of the Chinese box office, strict import quotas, and the development of coproduction arrangements have led American studios to adjust plots, characters, and settings to meet Chinese expectations. These adaptations include localized scenes for Chinese releases, the avoidance of political “red lines”, and the integration of Chinese actors and high-tech landscapes. Such narrative recalibrations produce significant symbolic effects: China shifts fromthreateningOther to strategic partner, gaining new geocultural legitimacy within Hollywood’s dominant narrative grammar. In this sense, Hollywood becomes an indirect vector of Chinese soft power—not through overt propaganda, but through a silent integration of valorized Chinese figures and spaces. The article also highlights the recent inflections of the 2020s: the rise of domestic patriotic blockbusters in China, the contraction of import visas, the growing role of audience nationalism, and the reputational risks for Hollywood films perceived as overly accommodating toward Beijing. These dynamics reveal that China’s influence on Hollywood remains strong but increasingly contingent, shaped by shifting balances between economic profitability, political acceptability, and global public sensitivities. Ultimately, the article argues that Hollywood does not merely reflect geopolitical power relations: through the staging of bodies, territories, and narrative roles, it contributes to producing them. The fabrication of Chinese otherness − now more negotiated, hybridized, and strategic—emerges as a key site for understanding contemporary geocultural transformations.